The Poker Beard

Is all that sprang to mind when I realised how long ago it was since my last post on here, a month seems to have flown by, I never wanted to post boring stuff or feel that I had to post something, there are just periods in life where nothing major seems to happen.

Things have been quiet poker wise as I have not been playing except for some live excursions, particularly Helen and I representing our good friends public house in the APAT pub poker championship event in Blackpool with Sean and Cath putting in some strong performances but sadly we did not win.

Another thing that has taken my time is getting into digital composite effects, I did some practical/physical makeup & prothetics back in the day but this sudden urge to get into the digital side of things suddenly struck me so I have been working with AE & Lightworks -

It can be a slow process working on something frame by frame for a slight touch to the shot which will last less than a second purely to add a sense of realism & depth but so far I am loving it, besides, I will only improve by working on such things.

Just be assured, this blog is not dead……

All hail “Hypno Bainn” -

Yes, the wedding stuff is boring the hell out of me…

A question that has been asked over the years by many people including Norman Pace while I was playing in the studio for Sky is -

“Where does your nickname come from?”

Aside from one person postulating that it may be a result of dyslexia, no one has ever guessed, well now my friends I shall reveal all.

Let us rewind time back to 1995 and the release of the film “Assassins” staring Sly Stallone & Antonio Banderas, a typical flick from Richard Donner involving the cat and mouse game between possibly the top two assassins in the world.  Banderas’ character was far better even though he was technically number 2 on the list, the character was named “Miguel Bain”

Now, let us skip forward a couple of years to 1999 and the release of a “Mod” for a groundbreaking pc game entitled “Half Life”, it was called “Counter-Strike” & it brought a new era to first person shooters in the fact it presented sophisticated team work to an otherwise free for all death match universe.  It went on to secure an exceedingly popular retail release that spanned many versions and it was after a couple of years I started to play at a national league level, the alias I chose was “Bain”, in fact my full clan id was “[EEV]Bain” (Expect Extreme Violence).

I decide upon Bain not only because the character was a cool assassin but also because it would serve to temper my ego (yes even modest old me can suffer from ego) as being 2nd best it would remind me that no matter how good I got, and I got pretty good, there was always the possibility of meeting a player superior to me.  It saved me from arrogance and complacency taking hold & I would continue to practice and learn all the time.

Shimmy on some more years to my first adventures in online poker and I wished to use the same alias that had been so good and inspirational for me.  However, the first site I tried would only accept an alias of 5 to 10 characters !!  Hence the extra “N” was added and “Bainn” was born & other than “Bain74″ or “BainUK”, it has been my poker id for years.