After 3 months work our showcase event, the Prague Poker Festival was looming closer and closer on my Outlook Calendar. Just when you think that all was well and only the finer details that are applied a few days before need applying the sudden departures of one of my colleagues led to me take on the Paradise Poker Tour as well. While new clients are not an issue, the fact that I would have to bolt on an extra 4 days in Barcelona and then fly straight to Prague was not something that I had factored into my timings. Obviously the poker player in me dealt with it like any other run of cards and headed to the Catalonian capital for the first 4 days of daily hotel-casino commuting, with the only distractions being a nightclub and close shave with two hookers looking for my wallet. Luckily I was carrying 2 pop-up banners which serve as a useful weapon.
Working in the non-playing side of the industry has some advantages, for example you know that you will always get paid at the end of the month, and not be staring at a loss. Sometimes it has disadvantages, the main one being that you are at an event from start to finish so you never get any time to explore the city you are in. Prague was always in danger of being worse than normal as the casino was in the Corinthia Hotel, so there was a distinct danger of not seeing daylight or breathing fresh air for a fortnight!
It is a worrying moment when you arrive in the tournament area 42 hours before the first live satellite to a World Poker Tour main event is about to start, only to discover there is nothing set up in the tournament area (except 500 chairs). As it was Sunday night and all I could really do about this was shout at people, I decided that this would be the day where I would get some fresh air in Prague and handled the situation the only way a Scotsman knows how. This meant was able to answer one of the two questions that most people want to know about Prague, which is less the £1 a pint if you go to the right places.
Casino built, and table’s felted Tuesday’s satellites were well attended with over 100 runners in the second one of the day which generated 18 seats for the main. Day 1a drew 231 runners, which was way above our projected numbers, so we were quietly confident that we could beat the European record for a WPT which we did comfortably on Day 1b with a total of 571 runners. The next few days were 16 hours’ work, 2 hours beer and 6 hours sleep, Andre Pateychuk won some Euros and it was time to make sure that my 12 clients who were playing EPT events were sorted, happy and knew how to get to the Hilton.
It turns out that as much as some players do actually have trouble knowing when they are supposed to be on a certain day, they are better at staying there. All my guys made day 2 and I had to do some frantic withdrawals from side events for them. On a the plus side, they were mostly playing day 1a, so it was back home to the Corinthia to make sure that the big cash game was ready to go. Luckily all this involved was watching a joiner re-felt a poker table, sort out some rather large buy ins and have a quick chat with Jesse May. It never ceases to amaze me when local business men try to take a shot at €200/€400with a double straddle against Luke Schwartz, Dan “Jungleman” Cate, Andy Moseley, Tobias Reinkemeier and a few others. It is good to know that one of those businessmen now has 300,000 reasons not to try again.
48 hours later and we have fully re-branded the casino with GSOP Live banners and tables. Since we took over the management of the tour the numbers have climbed from not many, to over 320 at the last stop in Greece. This would be different again and we knew that 400 players was probably a minimum to expect. With no prospect of adding an extra starting day, we set up tables on the second level, and actually had a queue to buy in at 11am!
At the end of level 4, the strangest thing happened. We had 497 runners and a whole load of people crossing their fingers for 500, the 498th registered just as the break started, and then after a bit of wheeling and dealing the casino agreed to buy someone in if we did too, to make the numbers up to 500. Obviously this is where a quick knowledge of negotiating deals and percentages comes in handy, as I quickly found myself having 30% of myself in a freeroll and being led to table 1 seat 5, amusingly beside fellow Scot, beer drinker and occasional poker player Niall Farrell. Day 1 was an easy game, and I finished just under average but day 2 proved a little trickier. Now pretending that I was some kind of serious pro, I checked out my new opponents on the Hendon Mob and was less than amused to find the only person not to be listed (and even I have one flag), was the tournament chip leader who was on my immediate left. This concerned me even more the Dominick Nietzsche in the 1 seat, and the fact that Michael Tureniec soon became the man who would be raising my Big Blind. After taking a chunky pot form the EPT winner in the 1 seat, obviously I thought I was invincible, a badly needed double up with KK v QQ followed later and I was less the 20 players from the money. In this spot, sensible me knows that I can fold to a min cash, sadly the “I could win this, it’s an easy game” me came out to play, and my 55 on the button resulted in the big stack on my left entering into a bit of a battle with his 66. GG WP and all of that.
The downside to busting a tournament is normally going to get pissed and think of the next one. The downside to busting a tournament at one of your companies’ events is that you get time for a fag, shout out “ffs” and then get back to work. 48 hours later Aasmaa Raigo won some Euros, secretly I knew that 30% of them should have been mine.
Working live events is a mixture of hard work, stress and funny moments. Working all day and night for 19 days is hard, not being able to find a 5 figure sum of money that is not yours and being told the hotel is fully booked and oversold is stressful, but it’s all made up by the funny moments. Next time we have a beer I will tell you the one about me, an Italian, a Yorkshire man, another Scotsman, and English pro and an EPT winner in a smoky backstreet pub fighting over who is NOT paying the bill, I could go on…….
Anyway, home for Christmas then WPT Ireland on the 4th of January and back to Prague for the Paradise Poker Tour on the 18th, then I MAY look at my diary for February.
