Laura Cornelius
Life on the Road
A German Victory in Prague (Again...)
I was really excited to touch down in Prague as I had heard only good things about this magical city. The Christmas markets were supposed to come alive with everyone sipping (or guzzling) on the mulled wine, live bands playing and children excited and dancing around the huge illuminated Christmas tree. I wasn’t wrong. Our first stop-off was the Christmas market and Town Hall Square which was so pretty and festive. I didn’t really want to leave as I could have finished off my Christmas shopping as well as soaking up the whole festive ambience, but we were under the pressure of time. Our next stop was Prague castle, which I had taken a glimpse of in the dark on the way from the airport, but was really unbelievable. This castle was supposed to be in the Guinness World Records for the largest ancient castle in the world. You can take a glimpse of it in our welcome video, but not only was it a beautiful castle, with breath-taking grounds and quaint little cafes and shops dotted all about it; but it had the most fantastic views of the city one could possibly get. The downside? It wasn’t snowing. It was magical and picturesque, but would have definitely looked like it was from a Hans Christian Andersen fairytale if the gods had decided to let it snow for us. Ah well, there’s always the poker. Here’s the tour-guide around the city!
So before we even started play on Day 1a, celebration was on the menu. First of all, it was PokerStars 10th Anniversary and to mark it, an event was taking place to try and crush 2009’s world record for the biggest online poker tournament. Czech player Martin Staszko had just been announced as a PokerStars Team Pro after his runner-up place at the World Series of Poker and was among the starting line-up in a special reserved room in the Hilton for the event. Team SportStar Fatima Moreira de Melo announced the record had been broken, as confetti and balloons were let off and various Team Pros such as Martin Hruby, Pat Pezzin and Marcin Horecki got this tournament underway. We reached a total of 200,000 players in this $1 tournament and the first prize was $50,000. Not bad for a $1 entry and PokerStars were thrilled to once again hold the title to the biggest ever online tournament. Team Pro Dag Palovic was especially happy to make a min-cash for $4. We were sure he would remember that one! Here’s the video:
We knew EPT Prague would be a big field as we were mid-way through the Prague Poker festival and this EPT was always a popular stop-off. Day 1a saw 234 players take their seat, where as Day 1b, as always, was much busier with 488 to make a total field of 722, a prizepool of €3.5m and first prize of €775k. As the tournament progressed, a few of our Team Pros chipped up including Jude Ainsworth, Liv Boeree and Juan Manuel Pastor. Slovakian Team Pro Dag Palovic just about made the money, but was disappointed at his exit on Day 3. However Day 1b had brought us many smiles, as he had lost a prop bet with Czech Team Pro Martin Hruby and turned up for a day at the felt in drag! His alter-ego was called Pamela and we believe she may have been modeled on Baywatch babe Pamela Anderson. Not sure Pamela would have been totally happy with Dag’s attempt, but she definitely had some pretty gold shoes on her. Check out our interview with ‘Pammy’.
Unfortunately we lost Team Pro Juan Manuel Pastor early on Day 4, but he still took away €17k for his efforts. It was his first EPT since London where he came 4th, so his track record hadn’t been bad at all, what with a cash in Barcelona before that too. Jude Ainsworth had me on the edge of my seat all the way through Day 4. Every time he seemed to win a pot, not long after he would lose at least half of it, but the luck of the Irish was certainly with him that day, as he had two huge suck-outs, bringing him a 6 on the river both hands to win the pot, when he was near enough drawing dead. He made it to the 14th spot, busting just a few hands after the UK’s Chris Moorman, and taking a healthy €27k back to Ireland. There was nobody getting in Dutch chipleader, Patrick Renker’s way as he maintained his lead all of Day 4 and sat firmly in the driving seat with, at times, over a million chips clear of anyone else. However, the poker gods were to play a part in Renker’s fate, by near enough the last hand of the day, he shoved all-in with 2.9m with QQs against Martin Fingers AK and was cruelly eliminated in 9th place in the biggest pot of the tournament so far.
Soon enough the final table was set and Martin Finger led the way for the most part of the day. He played aggressively and solidly, commanding the table with his chips and eventually took down all the chips from his heads-up competitor, Dutch amateur player and Master Classics Champion David Boyaciyan with another classic coin-flip. Yet again, a German online superstar had taken down another EPT. There’s been World Champion Pius Heinz, Swiss- German EPT Tallinn Champion Ronny Kaiser, EPT Barcelona Champion Martin Schleich, EPT London Champion Benny Spindler and now EPT Prague Champion Martin Finger. There was just one thing on my mind as the taxi drove off through the cobbled street in Prague towards the airport; when will this German invasion come to an end?
Barcelona: Pickpockets, Paella and Being 15!
So, we made it to Barcelona and to Day 4 of the Main Event. I wasn't sure we'd get there at one point, but after Days 1a and b, suddenly this huge tournament started flowing fluidly and now the end is nearly upon us. Barcelona is such a fantastic city, so vibrant and alive, I just wish I had a little longer to soak up the atmosphere and dance my socks off at a crazy all-night party, because I'm sure there's many of them lurking in dark mysterious corners all around the city.
So, although I have been to Spain numerous times in my life, I had only been to Barcelona once before. I was 15 on a school exchange with my friend, Lucy. The point of a school exchange is that you swap with someone in another school in another country and stay with their family, while they stay with yours. This would have been fine, but the family we stayed with, didn't have any children and were quite an elderly couple. They were extremely sweet, but I don't think they were expecting a pair of adolescent 15 year old girls who wanted to escape them and try and sneak into bars and clubs. Trust me, we did it at home and if the bouncer wouldn't let us in, we'd take 20 minutes, swap coats, change our hair and try again. It usually worked second time around.
This is Lucy and I, be it about 7 years after the event I'm talking about, but Facebook wasn't around back then!! We're still good friends now.
So, we tried sneaking out one night in Barcelona (this was back in 1997) to get found out by a teacher and given one hell of a telling off. The elderly couple lived just off Las Ramblas and as we were now resided to their constant babysitting, they took us everywhere with them. You might think they would have showed us round Gaudi's museums and taken us to the beach. But no, for some reason each day we had to go to the hospital to visit an elderly friend of theirs. Now the couple could not speak any English, and though Lucy and I were in Barcelona to help our Spanish, it didn't necessarily mean we were any good at it either, so most of our communication with the couple and their sickly friend was done in hand actions and mime. You could say it was a funny week. Not at the time mind. Lucy and I got so bored one night, locked away, having been force-fed paella that we nearly threw-up, we practiced make-up on each other and decided to try on every garment the other had brought in their suitcase. This included knickers and bras. We knew then we'd never forget that week, because we barely saw any of Barcelona except for that bedroom we got locked in!
This time around it has been different and I got to see pretty much all of Barcelona in one day! Here's that whistle-stop tour for you!
You'll notice in the video I make a particular reference to the pickpockets in Barcelona. If you're heading out here anytime soon, please do make note. I've heard three stories just today of people having their bags or belongings stolen. I'm not sure whether he'll mind me saying this but one of those people was Jake Cody. News got around fairly fast in the media room when we found out poor Jake had gone skinny dipping with some friends the other night, to get out of the water and find all of his clothes, money, phone and passport all gone from where he left them on the beach. That walk back to the hotel must have been a bit of a laugh, stark b*@!k naked. I think he's over it now anyway. Then our Dutch media friend had the same thing happen to him the following night, he was in swimming shorts mind, so his journey back to the hotel wasn't quite as embarrassing.
So the play is wrapping up here on Day 4 pretty early as it hasn't taken too long to play from 24 down to 8. The Final Table looms tomorrow, but for now, well of course, I'm off to the beach for a swim!
