A Pudding Abroad: Venice

Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 11 February 2012 / Leave a Comment

I had to steal this off Google!

For the past week I have been confined to the four walls of the Casino Di Venezia, the oldest operating casino in the entire world I'll have you know, reporting live on the World Poker Tour Venice Grand Prix Main Event

I am writing this blog entry sat on an acid green ergonomic plastic chair at the far end of Marco Polo airport in Venice, around me are scores of people all panicking about missing their flights despite the fact, like me, they have turned up to catch it two hours before the baggage drop opens.

Just a two tables away from me is a young couple who appear to be in the advance stages of foreplay, possibly in preparation to join the exclusive "Mile High Club," I just want to drop my suitcase off and start my journey home. I'll be stopping off at Schipol airport in Amsterdam where I have a 90-minute layover before boarding another iron bird to Manchester, then a train to Dewsbury and finally a taxi home.

You see for the past week I have been confined to the four walls of the Casino Di Venezia, the oldest operating casino in the entire world I'll have you know, reporting live on the World Poker Tour Venice Grand Prix Main Event. Here I watched a Russian guy by the name of Rinat Bogdanov essentially fold his way to €229,800, which actually winds me up. During the 11-hour final table I was able to see the holecards and let's just say when the WPT production get around to editing the footage for the TV show they are going to have plenty of gaps to fill. Boring does not even come close to describing the drivel I had to watch and watch on a 30-minute delay.

The highly sexed couple have left, probably to purchase some condoms or have a knee-trembler in the toilets.

The tournament as a whole was, I thought, great with some real characters in it. Of those who entertained me during my 12-hour stints it was Marcel Bjerkmann who kept me smiling the most. Bjerkmann is known as p3rc4 online and is basically a complete nutcase in all senses of the word. Not only did he have one of the massage girls rubbing his back and stretching him all over the place like a budget WWE show the entire time he was sat at the felt, literally, he played like a total lunatic and it was really fun to watch. He did get a little out of hand at one point and the tournament directors were having a hard time not giving him a penalty per round but I think secretly they were disappointed to see him bust out in 12th.

Another player who impressed me was the American Jason Wheeler. I've seen Wheeler on a number of the stops I have covered for various outlets but I have never had the chance to speak to him, but during the dinner break of Day 3 or Day 4 a conversation started naturally and it was refreshing to see how down to Earth he is and how he seems to really have his head screwed on. After our half hour chat I was hoping he would go all the way or at least make it to the final table but he was the unfortunate soul who burst the final table bubble when his ace-queen couldn't hit against pocket jacks.

What Is Venice Like?

So what is Venice like I can hear you ask. Well I honestly do not know because I hardly saw any of it due to the long hours in the casino and the fact I had a lot of other work to do whilst staying on the historical floating city. I've not even taken the lens cap off my camera, I literally have no snaps of Venice at all on my phone except two of the TV screen in the tournament area that is showing the payouts and they will be deleted by the time I board my plan in around two hour's time.

What I can tell you is that I will be coming back again at some point and doing the whole touristy thing with the Mrs that is for certain. I have never been anywhere like it ever, it really is unique. Walking home late at night and sometimes in the early hours of the morning I never felt threatened or as if there was any danger. The streets void of card and roads for that matter were not the home to gangs of youngsters who are prepared to beat you to within an inch of your life just to steal a cigarette instead they were almost empty, quite, with my only company on the journey back to my hotel being one of my colleagues or the occasional person heading home themselves wrapped up like they were in Siberia.

I described it to a work mate that it felt like I was on some sort of movie set, like it wasn't real to some degree, but beautiful nonetheless. Many of the buildings look derelict from the outside, plaster has eroded, paint has peeled off exposing bare bricks but inside the buildings burst into life and are so full of character. I'm really disappointed that I didn't have the chance to go into some of the churches and iconic buildings of the city but like I said a paragraph ago I will certainly be heading back to Venezia sooner rather than later.

The highlight of the trip was not actually anything to do with Venice but a man from Bradford, West Yorkshire. Anyone who is into magic will have heard of the name Dynamo, well he was hired by the WPT to perform at a private party. I've watched with amazement his tricks on TV but always thought there was some camera trickery involved but when you see him in real life, stood there inches away from you it really is something else. He's a very talented man indeed.

EPT Copenhagen

What's next for Pudding then? Well I am back on the road in little over a week's time because I have been asked to cover European Poker Tour Copenhagen for PokerNews. I've never been to any of the Scandinavian countries before except for passing through bother Copenhagen and Gothenberg airports so I must admit I am quite looking forward to jetting off there but not so much at the prospect of flying EasyJet for the first time. I think I fly on Sunday but if I am entirely honest I cannot remember, my brain turned to mush by the 19-20 hour days I have been awake for this past week.

It's hardly surprising then that this post here contains no poker exploits from yours truly because I have not played a single hand all week but hopefully I'll able to play a few tournaments over the next seven days to make up for that. I won't be playing tonight though because there is a bottle of wine with my name all over it! This is the first European tour I have done that hasn't seen me pissed up at some point and feeling like I want to cut my head off the following day and I must admit I feel better for it but tonight I want to chill out, get some claret down my neck and have a massive sleep in my memory foam sporting bed.

I think I'll leave it there because I'm touching cloth at the moment, the turtle's head is appearing whatever you want to call it, maybe just I need the toilet would be suffice but I'm not one for the mincing my words am I.

Until next time, thanks for reading and good luck at the tables.

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A Pudding Abroad: Österreich Part 3

Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 28 March 2011 / Leave a Comment

Welcome back boys and girls and anything else in between, I am now back on home soil, in fact I am sat at my workstation which consists of a small leather sofa, some rather gay cushions the Mrs bought and a coffee table in my bedroom, a far cry from the Austrian Alps where I wrote my previous entries in this mini series.

I read through Part 2 whilst I was waiting for my shuttle from the hotel to the airport, something I rarely do (read old entries not take taxis) and it may be perceived that I wasn't enjoying myself in Austria at all. I think I wrote that particular post hungover, or the day after a hangover, and was feeling pretty negative about the whole trip. There were some politics involved before the start of the trip and I guess I was kind of letting them cloud my judgement, influence me a little ans generally made me read too much into a few things.

That said, the last few days were really enjoyable. Chris, Dana and I had a couple of great meals in the restaurant, we went to a PokerStars Pros belated birthday party and the last couple of day's play were great fun to watch and report on. The eventual winner, Vladimir Geshkenbein, was a real laugh and I'm glad he won it because rather than just adding to his bankroll like most of the EPT regulars would he'll go out and have fun with it. I like how he isn't bothered about being different, he looks at his cards as soon as they are dealt to him, he drinks heavily, he speaks his mind and he plays like a complete nutcase! A worthy and entertaining champion IMO.

Being away seemed much harder this time around for some reason, mainly the fact I was working 14-18 hour days and the hotel was so bloody warm it was uncomfortable. However, that also allowed me to discover how brilliant water is and how drinking loads of it makes you feel ten times better. I always used to think it was doctors talking balls as usual, trying to get us to do something because lab rats reacted well but drinking plenty of water made me feel great. As did not drinking alcohol. Yes I got completely wasted once and had plenty to drink on another night but the days I didn't drink at all I slept like a log and woke up feeling brilliant, so much so that I am massively cutting down on my alcohol intake. I'll probably never stop drinking completely because it has always been part of my life and is part of my social network but I am going to be drastically reducing the amount I drink.

I'm also going to cut down on the calorie intake too and try to shift some timber of my fat body! One of the Dutch PokerNews employees, Remko, has lost a load of weight just by cutting down on "bad" food and stopping drinking and increasing exercise since the start of the year. I guess he has been inspirational on that front and we had a good chat about drinking and how it effected him for a day or too afterwards with regards to focus etc and I recognised himself in me and seeing how he approaches life now and how much enthusiasm he has for everything makes me want to be do the same.

As you can probably guess the live poker scene is not one that makes it easy to have a young family due to the time you are spending away from them. The only person I have actually spoken to on the tour was the PokerStars blogger Stephen Bartley, who happens to be one of the funniest people I have ever met, though many would disagree as they simply don't get his sense of humour. The problem is I only ever seem to talk to him when I have been drinking so will need to change that when I next cover and EPT. Anyway, if you were to mark us on some sort of chart we would be at almost opposites but we have children as a common denominator and we'd often be the first ones into the media room trying to log on to Skype our families back home. I also got talking to a number of the EPT dealers, one of which also had kids, again one of the few on the tour, and he was another top bloke. It was quite comforting to have other dads around, I'm not overly sure why but it just was!

Usually in the balla EPT hotels we have internet in our rooms but this time we did not. This meant instead of logging off in the media room and going back to play some poker or whatever in your room, all you could do was go back and sleep, which give plenty of time to think about life in general and has spurred me on to be better around my family and make more of an effort. Sometimes when you live and work from home you take everything for granted, your kids being there and wanting you, your Mrs doing little things around the house and you can get stuck into a rut and get into really restrictive roles that you assume that person will do. For example, the Mrs might do the clothes washing etc but when that is all you do then it literally becomes a chore and you start to piss each other off and resent each other. Although it may not seem much I've made a point of doing stuff since I got back, just my washing and hanging it out, taking the kids out on Sunday and spending some time with Step Pud today (though I could have killed him but meh). It all adds up to a happier home life and that, not poker, is what it is all about IMO.

I'll leave it there for now because it is on quite a positive note and poker this month, well my poker playing, is massively depressing and deserves its own post!

So, as always thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Related entries

A Pudding Abroad: Österreich Part 1
A Pudding Abroad: Österreich Part 2

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