Phat Dogs Report - Wednesday, 11^th May, 2005

THE MYSTERY OF THE MISSING GAME

Steve  Deadmoney

(That's Inspector Deadmoney "of the Yard" to you...

 an outrageous claim, I know, but one that generates interest with the ladies)

I was proceeding in an upwardly direction in the league table, when a call came in advising that there was to be no official Phat Dogs game this week. A most unusual turn of (non) events, and accordingly I dropped everything to try to unravel this most perplexing of mysteries. Realising this wouldn't actually help, I dressed again as quickly as possible. A quick check through my notes revealed that I had probably had a lucky escape - fifteen quid wouldn't have got me very far with all the re-buys that I usually need.

Who could it be? Who was responsible? A list of the usual suspects was quickly drawn up - 10 names, all with previous (claims to being poker junkies) - what had happened to this week's game, and would it eventually turn up in a shallow grave? I decided the first thing to do was to stop referencing famous movies and get down to some good, old-fashioned investigative leg work. 2 hours of surfing through my internet favourites left me happy, but none the wiser. Upon checking my flies files, I had an enormous breakthrough.

Right there in my hand, I knew I had the answer. Somewhere within that big, purple thing was a solution - I just had to extract it. I began the process as I had 1000 times before - looking for the tell-tale signs that would lead me to the conclusion I needed, and put this thing to bed. I knew it would take some time - my Phat Dogs file is both detailed and comprehensive. However, I quickly discovered a very recent precedent - on April 27^th the Dogs failed to hold a league game! Could the two be related? Was I looking for a serial game-killer?

Eventually, having poured over the contents, all I could see was a big mess. All the Dogs had claimed to be mad keen on poker, yet the April 27^th game had been abandoned in favour of a televised game of football. Looking for a link, I checked with football's highest authority whether there were any big games last night - but true to their name, I got FA out of the FA. So, if it wasn't football, what could it be?

A quick search for matching words led me to the vital clue - TV! Despite the Phat Dog's plans for world domination of poker, it seemed that some had chosen to take their own path and appear in a televised match, in search of personal glory. TV was the guilty party - the lure of the bright lights and cameras had turned heads. But like a cheap whore, would there be any real satisfaction in coming first? I somehow doubt it, but I'll be keeping an eye on TV from now on.

In fact, I've decided to look into the world of TV in some detail. My internet research has already shown TV is very popular indeed, and I detected a large number of agents in disguise in this field. Some are convincing, whilst others seem to treat the whole thing as a joke (Eddie Izzard, Julian Clary to name but two). So, I'm off to get my undercover outfit (I'm thinking Las Bagshot style) - if anyone has any comments to make, just send me a shemail.