EPT Prague report

It’s my last night in Prague, but it seems a long time ago now that I walked out of the exit door of the tournament room, trying to shrug of the disappointment of a day one exit. It was a sad day’s poker, where it didn’t feel like there was too much I could do, but there are still a few very interesting spots that I will put up in a video soon.

Since the final blow, I’ve had a rare opportunity to stay in one of the venue cities for a few days, and an even rarer one to do so with my girlfriend. We’ve been exploring Prague and all its sites, which have been a freezing cold delight. I’ll be happily going home to the real world for a few weeks tomorrow, with just the excitement of the Dusk Til Dawn event in two weeks to journey back into the crazy world of poker. Baring a Christmas miracle, I’ll be looking back on a disappointing 2009 in ‘live’ poker.

Prague is a wonderful city, and today has brought a couple of comical moments. When I saw my good friend Micky McCool standing next to Boris Becker and waving his camera at us, I knew we were in for a funny time. We managed to get a picture of the two of us with a very sporting Boris, but not before we had waited a good half hour for Boris to finish a very long conversation in German with his friend, which prompted Micky to say “this is really taking the piss.”

We braved a trip to the Czezh spa this afternoon, but the seats in the steam room were far too hot to bear sitting on. So, we hopped across in our swimming gear to the sauna, but were grabbed by a Czech woman on the way in, tutting at our choice of dress, and pointing at the sign on the door. I felt slightly embarassed that we must be inappropriately dressed. However, looking at the sign, I realised that the problem was actually that we were appropriately dressed. Swimming trunks and suits, it said, were prohibited. We decided to give the sauna a miss.

And so, it’s back to Brum tomorrow, and back to a busy few weeks of my teaching, volunteering and writing in the real world. I’m sure, however, I’ll drift off a few times into dreaming what this strange poker world might bring in 2010.