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-PLayas - How It All Began
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Chapter 1 - The Dream
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Playas was conceived in October, 2002 by ChuckyNils and me. At that time I was known as Leona, and the earliest records show a PLaya_Leona_ADM. We met in Outlaws in Comp Room 1, and became playing partners. I also met HalfPint, Randy, Brumieman and Momof6 and many other fine people there. Eventually Outlaw_Queen asked me to TD for her, which I refused at the time. I do recall many of the tds there, the Jazzes, and OUtlaw Slim, but more about some of these folks later. After I was banned from Outlaws, for arguing a point regarding rules, Chuck and I decided to form our own group. I changed my name to sobe02, but bubsy realized who I was, and turned me in.
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After that fiasco, Chuck and I went to work. I belonged to other ladders that I continued to play in, including Extremes, where I played with Taboo, and met the folks who formed Twisted, and Spaders Heaven in Advanced 2, where I met Smarti, Moe, Maj, Tucker and other fine players there. I also played in Coppers, which HalfPint formed when she left Outlaws also, more on that later as well.
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At first we talked to Brumieman regarding forming a ladder and he gave us the link to form one. I do not recall the name, I think it was called Leona something, so that we could see the layout and what work needed to be done to make it lovely. We realized quickly that the backgrounds could be changed, but the wording really could not, and that we needed to use Cases rules, then add our own to that. Again, no biggie, as I was the writer. When Chuck realized he could not add advertising for his DimesOnly site, the ladder was scrapped, and we went to work to form another sit and play league.
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The real work begain that fall, blocking out the site and Chuck would keep me up until 5am every night on a microphone on Yahoo. We tried colors, where to put what we wanted on the site, I wrote the rules, borrowed formats from HalfPint, which was generous of her to do so, thank you Bratty! Chuck  loaded Lauren the Bot to the site, and since it was interactive, I got the job of training her to respond. I did my best to make her a bit sexy, but Lauren was a real lady, I quickly learned. When I got sleepy, Chuck would crack jokes, make me eat candy and drink ice water and as a last resort, sing to me to keep me awake.<br>
The holidays were fast approaching, so after the initial blocking, which basically was in black and gold, we decided to wait until after the New Year, and kick back and enjoy our holidays. I continued my ladders adventures, and Chuck kept an eye on Outlaws, but we were thinking, thinking, thinking.....
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Valentine's Day, 2003 came and passed, and we decided then to get back to work and refine the site with what we had learned observing other groups. He also asked me to find a room for us to play in and that is when I had Chuck join Spaders Heaven.
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That is when the real fun began 
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To be continued.... <br><br>
Chapter 2 Labor Pains
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After playing in Advanced 2 for a few weeks, I asked Maj how she would feel about sharing a room with a sit and play group. She agreed to set up a meeting to discuss it with Chuck and me and some of her administrators. Unfortunately,(or fortunately) Chuck, in his enthusiasm, went slightly overboard and announced that he wanted to take over the room. That did irk a few of the older members of Spaders Heaven, but they were gracious and gave us the lower half of the room to use. I am not sure Fudd ever recovered from that one
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Chucky had invented a robot called PLaya_ADMAN, who did our addying for us, but the way Chuck programmed it, it addied every room in Hoyle, every 5 minutes, and I mean every room, poker, chisi, euchre, hangman, you name it, Adman did it! That did attract some attention, particularly the hosts, but the funniest part is that it was a robot, people  ged it, talked to it, but it could not respond as Lauren did on the site. Some of the folks in Spaders Heaven tried reasoning with it, but it went it's merry way all over Hoyle. I did convince Chuck to limit the addying to spades rooms only, every fifteen minutes. We used to hide out in various rooms watching players Adman, and ask him questions. Oh yes, we were bad!
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Then came the day before opening night and the entire site crashed. I was depressed, Chuck told me to go to bed, and rebuilt the site overnight so that we could start on April 7th as planned.
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Opening night, we sat in Advanced 2 and prayed. Our first game was hosted by Slim, who had been with Outlaws, and had given us great advice earlier. I won that first game and my partner was ChicksHateMe, now does that name ring any bells? We ran three games that night, the 8, 10, and 12, and in wandered RonJ-X, Krystinewon, then Yankee and Shadie, who worked for Outlaws also as Outlaw_Gun, and Gel_2502, who brought all her  from Social 1 with her to play each night. We had a core base of loyal people now, and RonJ_X held tables for me so that I could personally addy. You all know him now as PLaya_Hare_OTD
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Late nights, I would go and play in Coppers, which Bratty owned, and she was nice enough to allow me to use her formats as a base to start with, so games like Agony, 7-Up and many others came from her site. The first night I went in as PLaya_Leona, she threw me out and told me to change my name to sobe02 or Leona and to NEVER wear my colors in her room again. That was another valuable lesson to learn for me. I played a lot with Taboo (RIP, Larry), but when I went there alone, I met some very nice people like Cal, daviddidit, Kennamer (Kella), humelfreak_1934, who I won a Tournament of Champions with, 8 hands of Agony, yikessss! David was a TD there and would allow me to run an ad late night for PLayas, thank you, David, whereever you are today. When I played alone there, someone who was seated would always get up to allow me to play, another lesson learned, courtesy and respect for a regular player, and greeting them warmly
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The fun times continued for a few weeks in Advanced 2, as we learned not to interfere with each other's tourneys. Smarti used to run a "Boot Smarti" tourney, and I loved booting her but she was so fast, it was a rarity those days. I have to say, those early days of Playas were some of the funniest times I spent, with people like Junkman, Saab, Thugzo, Ron and Krystine, Gel and her , Vicky, aka PLaya_Hearts, Moe, Tucker, Nemesis and so many others. I think Chuck ran one tournament, then went into retirement. He just loved playing way too much!
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But change was coming. We knew beforehand about the new tournament rooms opening, and by then, we had enough of a core group of players and tds to make the move feasible. Chuck asked me what my favorite color was, which is Blue, of course, so off we went, number 1 and number 2 in that room. I love to say that Smarti helped us pack up and move to Blue, but she and Maj did allow us to leave a td on table 26 directing players to the Blue room, and many of the staff and players in Spaders Heaven told our players where to find us and where it was on the Hoyle Menu.
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We were home and planting our roots from that day in May, 2003....<BR>
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Visit and chat withLauren Bot @ ~LINK~
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Chapter 3- Our New Digs
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Entering a new room was so exciting! We got busy hopping on tables all over the room, trying them out first, then I started asking Chucky about curtains, table arrangements and ash trays. He told me I was being a pain in the butt (PG rating here), but it got funnier when Hearts wanted a rolling bar and and condo attached with a porch for us to hang out and tan on. After the giggling stopped we had to add directions to our site to redirect our players via the forum and front page. Our original site also had a photo gallery as well, but we could never get Chucky to put his picture there. We also decided to try day games which PLaya_Money aka KariLee ran for us those days. We decided on a three hour break so the 5PM was added to give us time to eat dinner. Our staff grew rapidly and we added around 200 members in 2003,including AtlanticBeachGirl, ConstantChaoes (Hatuh), KrystineWon (Playa_Krystine), oneyearwithher (Playa_Acura) BloodyUnicorns (another future TD, who is now in college in Washington, DC), BADD_PLAYER (you ALL know him, the only td to get hired, fired, suspended, banned, rehired, yadda, yadda yadda), just too many to list here individually
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At that time we got a request to share our room with a ladder called BigTimeSpades, which we  adly did. They were a fun bunch to be with and the arrangement worked very well. BigTime Queen and her group were small but so enjoyable, Queen could crack jokes as fast as Chucky could, and the players got into that as well. We were very sorry when that ladder left us, but those fun memories still linger on...
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As the staff grew, we decided to hold TD meeting on AIM each week, thankfully some of those notes are history, and perhaps for the better, lol, because I am not sure I could repeat some of what was said. By that time I had changed my name to MiMi, in honor of my Mom, it was her nickname also. Late nights we would go to Comp 1 and play to all hours, trying out new formats, refining others and generally having a great time late at night. By that time daviddidit joined our staff and we decided to try some late night games, so we added the 2 am and the tailgate, since we were awake anyway
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When BigTime left, the Cheers ladder joined us in Blue and we welcomed Cilla, John and their staff as our new roommates. We had another great group there at that time in 2004, but more changes were to come, sooner than we realized. More on that, next chapter...
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It is no secret that I HATE mirrors and all bid 3, so we added Mirrors Plus and 3's Plus to our formats, so I could have a chance at winning. At that time, Seascapes joined us not as a TD but as our official greeter, seated at table 1. Sea had her own rule, she waited 5 minutes and if a newbie stayed in the room, she greeted that person and gave them information as to tourney times and the website. Sea's favorite game was 3 or nil, so when she died unexpectedly, we renamed 3 or nil to Sea's 3s in her honor.
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I will never forget the memorial we had for her. Since she had belonged to so many groups and ladders, members and staff came from every room and made table signs in tribute to her. I believe we had 25 tables that night, and Cheers canceled their schedule so that we could use their tables as well. Hatuh hunted her icon, so we had Sea seated at her table 1 for that night. Pictures of each table were taken by many people and sent to Randy, and KeriLee had a memorial page on the BeyondCrazy site for all of us to view. Losing Sea was a horrid loss for all of us, and Randy brought her back to Washington State for a service there, which Hare attended at that time as our official representative.
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Seascapes will always be loved and remembered in our hearts and in the Blue room, and I still use Sea's 5 minute rule, to this day... <BR>
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Chapter 4 - Eye of the Storm
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By this time we had expanded our group to include Playa_BadGirl, Playa_Doc, Playa_Hatuh, Playa_MrsMonkey, Playa_DaField, Playa_4Fun, Playa_Chief, Playa_Didit, Playa_Junkman and PLaya_Peach, and as I said in an earlier chapter, Seas was our official greeter. Chucky and VenoMiss were the owners because it was linked to so many of his other sites, through dimesonly.com.
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As in any group, at that time, there were internal conflicts and health issues. The summer that Sea died, Didit developed a nasty blook clot in his leg that required many surgeries to heal, including a skin graft. Playa_Classic joined us at that time to replace him and help us out and today you know her as Playa_Kella, our SeniorTD, and second in command to me. The internal strife between BadGirl, Hatuh and me was more than Chuck could stand, so I was fired in October 2004 by BadGirl and Hatuh. Cheers immediately asked me to TD for them as Cheers_Sobe, which i thought over, and accepted.
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Next Disaster - HOYLE SHUT DOWN
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Playas went on hiatus for over one month and in the meantime I refined my ladder skills with Cheers and we all played in Cases Ladder Online, referred to as CLO. The graphics didn't compare, but the site offered other advantages, such as cut spades, a system to let people know if messengers were being used, and other fun features in the lobby including those famous slaps. The site also had a pool room, which we used to relax in to get a break from spades.
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Yankee, Houseshoes and others like Badd, Randy, Chance were TDing in Playas, but with the hiatus, many of our players came to CLO to play in Cheers. Thanksgiving came and went, and Hoyle finally reopened under new owners. We all had to revalidate our names, so Playa_Classic became Kella, because "ass" was in her name, and they would not allow her to use it. Hatuh left to form another sit and play group with Nemesis, Badgirl eventually left Playas, leaving Kella and Houseshoes in charge.
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Chuck called me and admitted he made a mistake allowing Hatuh and Hearts to fire me. He also called Kella and asked her opinion regarding whether she and I could work together again. I accepted and resumed control of PLayas again. I retained all of the staff that was there, some resigned, and I had Badd, Randy and Didit help me regroup. At that time, Shadie was still with Outlaws.
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Chuck then decided to sell the site, of course, I could not reach Didit because he was at a meeting in Boeing, so Shadie lent Yankee and I the money to purchase Playas. Because of the fact that there were now four owners, Chucky wisely kept the registration in his name, keep PLayas on his server, and served as our webmaster.
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Cilla and John from Cheers were most gracious and agreed that I belonged back in PLayas and wished me luck. I didn't realize at the time how much luck I really needed. Christmas and New Years were wonderful, so special for all of us in PLayas. We welcomed in 2005 with a lot of wonderful people playing at midnight, and we had so many plans to make for the future of PLayas.
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But, still, the eye of the storm was passing, but as you all know, the storm was half over...
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Chapter 5 -The Storm Continues
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The year 2005 proved to be one of many changes that affected the four owners, Yankee, Shadie, Didit and me. Things were wonderful at first, but as in any partnership there are always personal issues, illness, and personality conflicts. Generally we were in agreement how to run Playas, we would meet and discuss issues, formats, prizes, and make sure Chuck was paid. I got him to throw in three free months to us as a gift, and trust me, as Junkman used to say, Chuck would give away cheese sandwiches without the pickle
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The first major event of the year was the departure of Cheers. They felt that they would be better off in another room, so when one became vacant they left, but on good terms. But what followed is the reason GP was formed.
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When Hoyle reopened the American site that we played on, they shut the European site completely. We were bombarded with requests from other groups both in Hoyle and from Europe, and that is when we decided to open a ladder ourselves. GP opened in August that year, and the four of us ran tourneys for both groups. My friend Ed, known as WhiteTiger on Hoyle helped us immensely in setting up the ladder and making sure that we chose the correct options as well. I had ladder experience, so I knew how to run the TD tool kit, and we all learned the Administrative side to it. Many people in Blue belonged to both groups as we alternated hours.
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The next thing that happened is that David got sick again, and he was warned to stay off the computer, that the next blood clot could kill him, so he left GP and tried to hang on with Playas. The three of us begain encountering problems from that point on, as Shadie felt the responsibility for both Yankee and me. He personally assured me that any expenses that David had agreed to pay would be paid by him and I am thankful to him for that part of the arrangement. Of course that also caused controversy and jealousy at the time, and eventually I left GP to focus on PLayas. Shadie had already given his share of Playas to Yankee.
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It was at that time that we decided to promote both Hare and Kella to SrTD. others who were on staff included Acura,BaBs, Badd, Nutr,RoyalQueen,MsBudLite, Rae, Krystine and Venturous. Chrome, DayDreams, Magnolia, Palomino, RedHead, Dazzle, DeeDee,SweetRevenge and Wishes were added to our staff by 2006.
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Shadie called me on the phone and asked how I was going to pay for all I needed to pay for, and at that time, I told him I would ask our generous Wabbit to help me out. I knew in my heart that Hare loved PLayas just as much as I did. A meeting was held and Yankee made her decision at that time to leave her share of PLayas to Hare and I was delighted with my new partner
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Hare immediately, with Gutzy's help, began selecting prizes such as bears and  s to give as prizes. He went so far as to purchase his own postage meter. I remember one funny story in which he told us all that those bears were overtaking his garage, so we better start awarding them. The first bears were Blue of course, my grandson has mine, and when those ran out, he reordered them in white. Those bears were sent to 5 different continents before that contest was over. he also reordered the travel s, which I adore and also were a great  .
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Things went smoothly for a long time, as we invented formats, new types of tourneys, ran loads of specials and registered over 700 members by then. We decided at that time that since Kella had been with us such a long time and had become a faithful friend and confidante to me, that we would promote her to SeniorTD. Kella was in charge of training every new TD, keeping the contact list up to date, doing the schedule, sending out the TD packets to new tds, and many other things, and she also has my undying respect as an advisor, and acts as an owner when I get the chance to take a vacation.
I had found my rainbow, at last, weeeeeeeeeee
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Chapter 6- Fun in the Blue
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Blue has always been known as a fun place to be, and many of our TDs have had their share of fun things happen. For one, there are hose famous BADD stories that are currently circlulating, but one incident I recall was that he was seated at one table and trying to enter a watchers box to check on his tourney. He was ready to DQ the entire table until he was pmed to get off the table he was on first...another infamous incident was when I was announcing winners and said WTF instead of WTG lol.
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Here is one incident that Gutzy sent me, and I copied it for all of you to enjoy
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----- Original Message -----
From: Texas Game Girl
To: Summer/Fall ; SugarPlums ; StarGazer ; SLowMan ; Ron N Jones ; RaeAnn ; Precious ; OWL ; Nutty ; MiMi ; Kella ; Gottschalk(Ricky) ; Elly ; DayDreams ; Chrome ; Celeste(PurpleCat) ; Bratsky ;
Bit ; BHSweet ; BaBsY ; Acura
Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 1:49 AM
Subject: The Night an Owner & HTD got DQ
YES IT'S TRUE...
A PLayas Owner & HTD were DQ from the 2am game.. I wont' mention any names ( You all know it wasn't Hare & the HTD's name starts with a R)
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They were playing rd 1 on table 5.. They decided to take almost 1 hour to play, in the meantime, I had a rd 2 table waiting,,, a semis table waiting & a Finals table waiting,, ALLL waiting for the mysterious foursome on table 5.
When I could hardly hold my eyes open any more, I decided to make that a rnd 2 until I went to the table & that is when I found they hade made a bet on the best 2 outta 3 game and was having soo much fun I told them to continue on & play the best 4 outta 7 & I DQ the whole table lmaoooooo.... Owner & a HTD included( they were not partners)
So this should be added to the PLayas history that in one night there was an Owner & a HTD DQ in a single game and never made it to rd 2 lmaoooo ~~
Also if I am not see again please send this letter to the proper authorities & send a search team looking for me.
Huggsss alll,, Hope to see you & be seen again,,
Gutzy
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So even an owner can get in trouble, but I got your address Gutzy...
There are so many moments in Blue that I think of, like the boot tourneys, my no rules tourney, Acura and his Hawaii-50 fiasco, pick on Acura night, the day and night marathons we do, the prizes we have given away over five continents, all our birthday parties, our crazy specials that the committee comes up with, Sugar's great
graphics that she creates for every event, sharing the room with our GP buddies, sure we had our moments then too, but that is DONE and over with
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I love my PLayas family, each and every one of you, I have always said that I would be nothing without your help and support through my illnesses that thankfully are over.
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This part is the hardest to write about and I am sure you can understand why. I had known for some time that Chuck was ill and using a scooter at home to get around. In February, 2007 he came to NY and I offered to go and meet him, and he told me no. It was to be a quick trip north and then back to Raleigh where he lived. My son lives just outside of Raleigh, so I wanted to meet him there, again he said no, and I learned later he was in the hospital, but still creating stuff from his hospital bed there and playing poker. He just ordered the nurses out of the room so he could keep creating stuff, and the last I had heard, Chuck was designing a phone system of some sort. His ultimate dream was to get onto TV in one of those Texas HoldEm tourneys, so he was perfecting his skills at that time. He was released to go home, but then his condition worsened that spring and again he was hospitized.
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I will never forget the moment that Thugzo called me and told me Chuck had died, the pain I felt was immeasureable. I had lost my mentor, my friend, and my children who he had also talked to were also upset to hear he had died. David Felton was a genius at what he accomplished, just with his dimesonly site, which was the first
online dating service at the time. I had joined there as well, and I can recall King David's room, and his booting me out of there when
I aggravated him there also:)
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I know that Chuck is up there smiling and egging me on to be creative and innovative, I can feel him watching over PLayas and smiling at the fact that once upon a time there was this dizzy blonde he met in Comp 1, who he felt might have some potential, and that someday I will meet over that rainbow that shields Blue
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There is a more complete History in the making, but I will have to have more input from TD's and Kella's files.
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PLayas History - Part 1
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The History of PLayas - The Years Before
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Back in the wonderful year of 2000, I had gone on vacation to Key West. where I broke my ankle. True to the spirit within me, the vacation continued after a quick trip to the Hospital just north of Key West. I was fitted with an airboot there, and it was suggested that it be evaluated when I returned to New York. I the sunsets, hobbled along the main drags there, went to the Hog Breath Inn, danced with the Tin Man at OBI, the usual touristy stuff.
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Safely home in New York after a memorable trip driving to Fort Lauderdale, and met with a wheel chair, I arrived back home, and decided to order a computer. My recommended Gateway, and within 10 days or so, these e boxes that reminded me of cows arrived. My younger daughter, already fairly savvy with pc knowledge, set it up for me. I began the wonderful world of crashing Windows 98 on a fairly regular basis and joined a political group which got tossed off AOL. The group was regarding a lady who was running as my State Senator, she was the wife of the outgoing President that year, need I say who it was?
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That group today is renamed GOP Playground and it is hosted by Google thank God. It is no secret that while Mrs Clinton may be a wonderful person, a talented attorney, she still is my state senator, and she still has a fat azz, hehehe...
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I received a phone call from a friend of my other daughter. He was in the army in Korea, and called the house to ask how she was doing. I told him she had become engaged at the moment of the millenium, I had been at a Beatlemania show at that moment, and how was he doing? He told me he was married, stationed in Korea, and asked me if I knew how to play spades. I told him no, and Ed told me about Hoyle games that day. I got signed up and we met in Rated Room 1 so that he could get me a rating, quickly. I met his wife there, she still pops in the Blue Room as Demented_Wench and says hi to me. Ed is WhiteTiger76, and between the two of them, I learned how to play. Thank you, Ed and Stacey for leading the way!
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The adventure continued when I went to a Ladder with Stacey called Spaders Heaven, where I met some wonderful people there. Smarti, Moe, Fudd, Maj, Tucker, so many people that were nice and helpful. I investigated other rooms including Comp 1, where I met some terrific people including Randy8012, Half_Pint, Seascapes, Chance, MomofSix, Brumiemeister, Outlaw Queen, and I loved that room, it was a lot of fun there. Half_Pint would be cracking jokes in the lobby, seated at her usual table 2. I recall asking her one time how she typed so fast, and learned the art of paste and copy. That room was amazing, it was never quiet, and any hour of the day and night there was a game going, either in Outlaws, or in Play4Fun, I think that was the name of that ladder at that time. Poor Randy played with me and I learned more about spades. I never quite understood why he would throw out a king first, but I bet he still does it
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I loved to tease Outlaw Slim, and beg him to play either All OD or Suicide. I was friendly with the Jazzes and became more comfortable playing with people like Randy, Taboo, MoMo, but being inquisitive, I also asked a lot of questions regarding formats, why did rules exist in a group called Outlaws? I recall an interesting conversation one day about why you could or could not OD in mirrors. My arguement was that if the table bid already was 13, why not take the chance, since you had no choice but to nil anyway. I still hate mirrrors
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I knew that ladders had certain rules that had to be followed, by that time, I had also joined Extreme where I met more great folks like Lena, AKA Animal and her . I talked Taboo into coming into that room, against his better judgment. He taught me a lot of tricks playing spades as well. The more I learned, the more I realized how much I loved spades over other games like chisi and poker. I was, and still am, terrible in hearts, cribbage and never quite learned euchre. Oh well...
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Playing in Social Room 1 didn't quite suit me, although I realized it was a hangout for a variety of people, very social and quite unique in that people came to meet people, to date, to cyber and to fool around. How naive I was in those days. I actually thought they were there to play. The competitive side of me advised me that this was not what I was seeking, I wanted to learn spades inside out.
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So there I was in Comp 1, one fine day, and this player came in. For some reason, his humor suited me, I found him to be a very funny man. He could be rude, obnoxious, adorable, funny, a wise azz, and he suited the mood of Comp 1. He backed up many of my arguments, answered a lot of my questions. I found out he was Microsoft certified, and he taught me how NOT to crash Windows98. I learned he used to live in Freeport, Long Island, and currently was living in North Carolina. We became partners and and he gave me his phone number to call if I had computer problems. He also taught me the fine art of the nil, when to use it, when not to use it, and not to hold that Ace of Spades if I was covering his nil.
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We talked frequently on the phone, I knew his family and he knew mine.
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Yes, I believe in Karma, and yes, that one fine day in Comp 1, I had met ChuckyNils...
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Life was never quite the same after that day!
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PLayas History - Part 2
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The History of PLayas - People Watching
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I have to say that growing up in New York City had its advantages for it truly is the place to people watch. As a child, I grew up in an area of Queens that was multi cultural. I lived in an area of Irish, German, Polish and Italian families, which was surrounded with Jewish neighborhoods and included an area called Parkway Village which housed families of members of the UN Complex in Manhattan. My people watching extended online, both in my political group, which was basically anti-Hillary and eventually we got in trouble with AOL, who made us change our name to a more politically correct one.
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After Hillary's election my focus grew on spades, and I found that out of all the rooms that I had played in, Comp 1 grew to be my favorite. I met so many people there that I grew to know over conversations in Yahoo, like terrapinman, who designed golf course programs, Randy 8012, who lived upstate NY and was working in a winery at the time, Seascapes, a lovely lady, I made so many , just too many to list here, but I also made enemies who could not understand why this didtz called Leona could ask so many questions. It was in Comp 1 that I also met Taboo, I learned his name was Larry and that he lived in Cleveland. His pet name for me was "Cuca" and I was a terrible player at that time. He would Yahoo me and ask me, "Now why did you throw that card, are you crazy?" Taboo was also a rebel, asking many questions, which, between Chucky, Taboo, Half-Pint and Chucky, drove the Tds in that room insane. Outlaws had so many Tds, but Queen asked me one night to sit at her table, and we spoke a long time regarding running a sit and play. I learned a lot from her as well, and Queen, wherever you are today, thank you for some sound advice.
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Meantime, Chuck decided that it might be a good idea if I changed names. He was not thrilled over the idea of my using my real name online, so I came up with the name, sobe02. I loved that lizard drink, especially the orange cream one and the coconut one that was white. So, off I went to create the name, and re-entered Comp1. All was good until I opened my mouth, I guess that tendency is inherited from some very strong women in my family. I rejoined most of the ladders I belonged to under that name and still belong to some that exist today.
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It was around 2002 that Half-Pint picked up her tent and decided to form Coppers. Of course, I had to go and investigate, as I found her humor funny, and the control she had over her players was to be admired. She had fun and terrific tourneys and I did win one of her TOC's with humel_freak_1934. It was a Masquerade tourney, so we did not know who we were playing with, and Humel and I won it on a game called Agony, 8 hands of it, but we perservered.
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Meantime I was still in Comp 1, making more , and learning more about how to run a sit and play, as well as how not to. I met wonderful people there including Gel, Hearts Desire, Constant Chaos, Softballman, and Gel remains a dear friend to this day. In the ladder,there, I met lanny, who always was willing to donate bux to me, GP_MrP, Bea, Momof6, so many names. I talked Chucky into joining that ladder as well, he was curious about ladders also and that is how he came to know Brumiemeister.
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After some time, it was discovered who I really was, and I can recall one particular game where Chuck and I were playing, and this lady called bubsy, who was a TD for Outlaws, asked me to leave the table. Of course, Chuck was furious losing his partner, so back I went to Spaders Heaven to play there. WhiteTiger and Demented Wench still played there, and I grew a fond affection for Smarti at that time.
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As a friend of Chucky, I learned that he had a site called dimesonly.com, one of his main sites. It was one of the earliest online dating groups at that time, and was wildly successful. I joined that and made more , like Saab, Thugzo, JunkmasterFlex, Chuck's wife, his brother and other family members. There was an inner sanctum there called King David's room which he invited me to, and when I aggravated him with too many questions, he would boot me out of that room and then call me up laughing. It was a great site, with chat rooms, profiles, that man was a genius at design.
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After my unceremonious exit from Comp 1 (I was tossed out LOL), I spent a lot of time in Coppers, where I met RonJ-X, Krystine, this crazy guy called Acura_88 (My pastry connection), daviddidit, Kennamer (Kella) and so many others who now play in Blue.
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Meantime, Chuck was rather fed up with Comp 1 at the time, and he called me about the possibility of starting our own sit and play group. At first he considered ladders, and we actually formed one. He talked to Brumiemeister regarding the formation of one, and what was possible to do on that site. Graphics was easy for him, but he didn't like the sign up feature, nor begging for bux, the late starts, but the clincher came when he discovered he could not advertise his own sites on a Cases or My league site. The ladder was quickly killed, and it was the summer of 2002 that we talked about forming our own sit and play group.
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We checked with the hosts at the time and were informed that since we would be a sit and play, there would be no conflict regarding rooms, so my assignment was to scope out possible rooms to play in. Chuck went to work blocking out the site, and we spent many late hours talking. I found out that his favorite channel was SciFi, and at that time of day he rested and watched what he had taped, eating his Baby Ruths.
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I checked various rooms, including Comp 2, the Social Rooms, Bratty was in a Singles and Pairs room and the other was owned by a Cases group, one of the few on Hoyle. I found that I loved Spaders Heaven, so I approached Smarti and Maj, and talked to them about sharing a room with them, which they agreed to, since I was a member there. They agreed to meet with Chuck and me, and a meeting was set up. I think I had convinced Chuck to join there first, so that he could see for himself what their hours were, so that there would be no conflict in scheduling.
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We planned to limit our schedule to nights only at that time. Starting a sit and play is hard work, as anyone who has will tell you. It takes hours of thought, meetings, advice from others, our personal input as to what we wanted for GamePlayas, to be a fun but serious spading group.
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A date to meet with Smarti, Maj, GameMoe and Tucker was set up, and the minute that we entered that meeting, ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!<BR>
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PLayas History - Part 3
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The History of PLayas - THE SHOT HEARD ROUND HOYLE
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Chucky was also originally from New York, from a town called Freeport, Long Island, about 40 miles west of where I used to live on Long Island, but had relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina and worked from home. He had so many ideas to bounce around, and I found my own creativity stimulated just by talking to him on the phone. I had caught what I termed the "Baby Ruth and Pepsi Fever". He taught me some things about blocking and design, eye catching style, column formations, and handed me a color chart but he had no patience for writing, and that became my role, to construct the rules, to develop a forum, and to get formats. I knew Bratty had some good ones, and she told me to copy hers as a start off point. We sorted through various formats, altered some and started with about 20 basic ones. We were ready, we were psyched, we were ambitious and we had the base core players lined up from hips formed in various rooms. The very first thing we decided was that regular would be played with all nils OK, so that there would be no possibility of a misbid, as I was running for the Misbid Queen Crown at that time. We both hated mirrors, we both hated all bid three, we both loved suicide, which, at that time was bid 4 and nil, which we altered to what it is today. That was because I still screwed the bidding up
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Put two New Yorkers in a room and there is bound to be aggressive talk, but even I was unprepared for what was to occur.
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The day came for our conference with Spaders Heaven and we went to Advanced 2 at the agreed time. Chuck sat at a table and announced that HE WAS TAKING OVER THE ROOM FROM SPADERS HEAVEN, and could fill the room with his members from dimesonly, if necessary. What followed is X rated and wayyyyy to ugly to quote, but the vibrations between Chucky, Moe, Tucker, Fud, Lanny, Nemesis and the other men in the room could be felt clear back to backgammon, I am sure. Had there been hosts that day, their mailboxes would surely have overflowed with all the complaints filed, and I am betting that record stands today.
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I sat, stunned, that this man I knew had the guts and determination to announce a takeover from an established and well respected group, but Chucky being Chucky, cyberpatted me on the head and assured me that all would be well, that I had to trust in his judgment. Being an independent group has it's advantages, for sure, but learning to share was never one of Chuck's strong points.
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When things calmed , we reached an agreement with Spaders Heaven to share the room, they would retain the upper
tables and we would be allowed the lower ones. Once that was established, we began to consider what personnel to invite to help us start. Neither of us had ever run a tourney, but we knew how a tourney should be run, from our observations. Our rules were complete, formats decided, now what? The answer, let's go raid Outlaws....
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By then, rumor was out that another sit and play was going to be established, but was doomed to fail. It is all that Chuck needed to hear as feedback, so ANOTHER name was created for me, and back we went to Comp 1. I had befriended a woman named Micky, I do not recall what her Outlaw name was, but she was "friendly" with Outlaw Slim, and, of course, back then, we all used microphones on Yahoo. Talking to Micky was the reassurance that I personally needed, as she had me observe how to move players, what a seating chart was, and she had me verbally tell her what I would be typing in the lobby had I been a td. She and Slim sat one night with Chuck and I and discussed the date we would kick off PLayas, what hours we would be running, and what other tds from Outlaws we might draft to help get us started. We approached HeartsDesire and she agreed to help us get going. Slim would be running the first game, and Hearts would continue to work with me, and train Chucky and his wife to TD.
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We decided on names, and I wanted to use my Leona name, so I became PLaya_Leona_ADM. Chucky decided on ChuckyNils_OTD, his wife became Veno_Miss_OTD, Hearts Desire became BadGirl_TD and Slim bravely kept his name as PLaya_Slim_TD. We had a scant staff, but it was enough to start with, and we were about to actively recruit others, once we became established.. The hard work, or so I thought, was over and we were ready to rock Hoyle. Six months of plans, meetings, phone calls, emails, IMs and holidays were over.
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April 7, 2003 would be the kick off night. Text messages flew across Yahoo to every contact we had. Everyone was ready, especially Gel_2502, a very lovely lady who played in Social 1 and promised to bring her in to play. My friend Fran, whom I call Baggy for good reason agreed to help bring folks in. We networked all over the web, yahooed everyone and went into various ladders that I belonged to. Spaders Heaven was sitting back and awaiting the flood of players that had been promised. We had agreed to share hours, and were only running three tourneys a night to start with.
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April 6, 2003, the site we had lovingly built and perfected had a heart attack and crashed. Chucky had his own dedicated server for his various sites so we knew it was not a server issue, but some scripting error. I was devastated, Chuck was aggravated. He told me to take a pill and go to bed, that the site would be up and running in the morning. It was now midnight, I was exhausted, my computer desk covered with a combination of ashes, ice water and candy wrappers.
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I went to bed with an ice pack on my head from the tears that were shed...
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Chuck was one strong, determined thickhead, armed with Pepsi and Baby Ruths...
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PLayas History - Part 4
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The History of PLayas - PREGAME SHOW - APRIL 7 2003
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The great day arrived, April 7, 2003, and we were up and running. To say that Chuck and I were nervous would be lying. Chuck was calm as could be, while I was approaching meltdown. I have so many people to thank for opening night, Slim, Vicky, Gel, Chicks who partnered with me for our very first tourney, I think that, thanks to Gel especially, who brought people in from Social 1 to play, we managed through that first night without me losing my sanity or dinner.
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I had done my schmoozing in various rooms with various groups, and you need to remember there were two other sit and play groups at the time, Outlaws and Coppers. Outlaw Queen was ill, it was no secret, but she had given me excellent advice months earlier on what it takes for a successful sit and play and that was constant vigilance and a few ultra faithful staff members to rely on.
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In Coppers I had met many people, some who I consider today like humel_freak, the late Taboo, daviddidit, who was one of the first owners when Chuck sold us Playas, and countless others but there is one woman, especially, who is dear to my heart forever and who I depend on for advice, consolation, reprimands, and always the love. In those days she went by the name of Kennamer, she was quiet and daviddidit’s partner. I played mainly in those days with Taboo, whose real name was Larry. He lived in Cleveland, and next to Chuck, taught me much about the workings of a computer and how to play the crazy games that Coppers offered those days. Coppers was a blast but the drama in that room convinced me that it was one subject to be avoided. Online life is fun, but offline is private and NOT to be shared. It was at this point that I disguised my identity, to protect my children and coming grandchild. The internet can be tricky, and I had heard horror stories, and there was no way I would ever expose my family to that sort of drama, even though they were all adults. My marriage had ended at this point, counseling was to no avail, so developing Playas became my passion and form of therapy.
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Larry was a character, for sure and I adored playing with him. He taught me the fine art of arguing a point, and the two of us got into soooo much trouble at one point that he could not play under Taboo in PLayas, because Vicky aka BadGirl and Hearts Desire, hated him with a passion. She Ted for Outlaws and Larry could argue a fine point and teach any tournament director a thing or two regarding rules, to the point that when I wrote the site rules for PLayas, he proof read for me. We just had so much fun giggling at the folks who seemed to forget that spades was a game and that we were supposed to play properly, but enjoy what we were doing as well. Rest in Peace Larry, its been two years now since you left, and your “cCA” misses you, to this day.
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When Playas first started we ran only three games a night and I took the midnight and assumed the role of “Mad MiMi” at Midnight as a theme. When our evening ended, the only place to play was in Coppers, who ran a 2 am game and occasionally an “Early Bird” around 3:30. Half Pint was west coast and so were many of her players so I would go in and play some of their games and learned quickly that it was rude to go in as MiMi, so I played as Leona. It was great fun and by then it was known that PLayas was up and running. Didit very kindly allowed me to addy there as our games ran alternate hours from Coppers and that helped expand our player base as well. Our site had a forum and Half Pint and I had a running battle to see who could insult each other the quickest in a funny way. PLayas forum became the talk of Hoyle which only expanded our base even more. It was a brilliant plan that we devised to bring our numbers up, and I do wish all of those comments could be shown here, but much was lost when the black and gold site was removed, along with the pictures there. Lauren the Bot was fun to play with, and she has been resurrected from the early site, the link to her is on this page as well. To view a sample from the old site, you can visit:
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~LINK~
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That is one of the earliest pages on record dating back to June 2003, and you might be surprised at the names you see there
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Along with Larry, I could not even start to express how I feel about Kennamer, the very quiet lady who I met in Coppers. Little did I know that she would grow to be one of my closest online and in real life, that the woman behind the icon had a heart as big as Texas and Oklahoma, combined, and would become one of the most influential person in my life. In the beginning, we had a strained relationship but after realizing that we each had a deep respect for each other and that we could be open and honest regarding personal issues like family, children, curse each other, laugh together, cry together and panic when one of us had a health crisis, we both realized that we could not do without each other in our lives and that no matter what, NOTHING would ever end that love and respect, determination, admiration and trust we had built within each of our hearts. You all know her first as Classic and when Hoyle was sold, because “ass” was in her name, it was lost and she became Kella to all of us. Today, she remains our Senior TD, and assumes ownership in my absence. There is only one Kella,, and she is indispensable to PLayas in so many ways, from leadership in training so many of our staff in the early days, to making suggestions on Specials and generally keeping us all in line with wisdom and old fashioned common sense. There never has been a time that I have reached out to her and that she has refused me anything, and as I said earlier, there is only one Kella, and I am a better woman for having the privilege of knowing her <BR>
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Posted by:PLaya_Bagga_OTD on Friday 11 March 2022 - 2:53:38pm Comments turned off | |
