Barry Carter Poker: New York/Married

Last week I got married in New York to my long term partner Gina. I am clearly a thrift king, as I managed to turn the week into a wedding, a holiday, and a chance to meet up with my old buddy Jared Tendler (Who was also my best man) all in one. It was probably the best week I've ever had, and I certainly hope to go again.

It sounds flippant, and I certainly don't mean it to be, but New York did not surprise me at all. It is so iconic on film and TV that the whole place is strangely familiar from the moment you arrive. This predictability is by no means a bad thing, because every one of my expectations were very positive, and they were all met.

Maybe the biggest take away from this, one which I have also encountered in Vegas, is just how good American customer service is. This is purely because tips make up such a big part of the wages out there, and it really does show. You really do feel like your waiter is desperate for you to have the best time ever, which made the whole holiday so much better. I am a big fan of incentivising employees like this, and think it is a sure fire way of improving quality of service. I love the UK, I think it is one of the best places to live in the world, but I think this is one area where we can learn a great deal from our cousins over the pond.

Originally our plan was to get married in Central Park, but we picked the one day it went and rained of the whole trip. New York customer service to the rescue, as the manager of our hotel let us have the ceremony in the Casablanca Hotel. It's a fantastic hotel with a pretty unique decor, and I think it actually made it a little bit more special. After the service we went out into Time Square as husband and wife, with a photographer, and had one of the most fun, manic, 30 minutes ever. Time Square is one of the craziest places in the world, so throwing a Bride and Groom into the mix seemed to fit. Everyone was shouting messages of congratulations at us, and it was the icing on the cake of an amazing day.

Outside of the wedding, we did plenty of cool things. We went to a Yankees game and despite being 7,000 miles from home, managed to bump into Dusk Till Dawn director Simon Trumper with his daughter. The poker world is very small indeed.

Maybe my favourite (Non wedding) part of the week was The Book of Morman, a Broadway musical written by the guys from South Park. It was as immature, offensives, and as funny as South Park can get and really fit well with the musical format. I've been to tons of comedy clubs before, but I have never heard roaring laughter as loud as I did that night. We also went to the Comedy Cellar, the club from my current favourite show Louie, and that was pretty cool too.

There really is too much to say about it all, I could never do it justice to how good a wedding and honeymoon it was. It is the longest I've had off work in probably a decade and I do feel much better for it. I don't feel different yet being married, other than getting used to this new chunk of metal on my finger, but I do feel a renewed sense of enthusiasm towards my work and the future in general(Which in some part, will be from the relief it is all over).

Speaking of which, The Mental Game of Poker was released yesterday as an audio book.

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