European Vacation + CAC
Well, I made it to Europe.
I am sitting in an internet cafe just outside King's cross station in London. I am meeting with some people who wish to talk business and I think that will be a blast.
I am booked to play a tournament in the Aviation Club in Paris this weekend and then it's onto Amsterdam for the Casino Affiliates Convention.
I shall log back on periodically to update y'all on the craziness that comes with dot com-ish kinda spending.
Cheers.
N
I am sitting in an internet cafe just outside King's cross station in London. I am meeting with some people who wish to talk business and I think that will be a blast.
I am booked to play a tournament in the Aviation Club in Paris this weekend and then it's onto Amsterdam for the Casino Affiliates Convention.
I shall log back on periodically to update y'all on the craziness that comes with dot com-ish kinda spending.
Cheers.
N
Comments
The casino in Amsterdam is amazing - and the players there were a million times cooler than at the ACF, which is pretty much the same for all people in Holland. Everyone was cracking jokes at the table, drinking and having fun. Hot dealers too, damn, hot girls everywhere on bikes. Make sure to check out Abraxas and De Dampkring too - great smoke shops. Amsterdam is the greatest city in the world...have fun!
Well, day 2 in London - STILL raining (I know) but at least I am not hungover. My friend and I went walking last night in the downpour for some strange reason. We also thought it would be a good idea to climb the 193 stairs leading out of Convent Garden Station. Don't be fooled. Poker players should NEVER walk that many stairs.
AK - Thanks for the info, I think Amsterdam will be a blast and I appreciate the warning about ACF - although I do speak french, so I am prepared for giving return insults and all. We are attending a party given by William Hill tomorrow night and we have some meetings scheduled for tonight and dinner tomorrow before the WH party.
I am taking pictures along the way and will be sure to link to wherever I post them so y'all can see me in various European situations.
London ladies are actually quite nice on the eyes. Except they all seem to talk funny
Upde #2 coming soon.
N
peace out
hg
I have a big update coming soon - I am just WAY hungover right now.
Must find bed ...
There's also double holdem, in which there are two boards and it is a split pot game. High hand on each board takes 1/2 pot each. In the few hands of that we played, a single guy rivered two different people at the same time in each of the hands. Gross.
Lastly, I wasted a few Euros playing 3 card poker, and was thrown a huge curve when I saw an R and a D in my hand. 'Roi' and 'De Reine' of course.
Anyhow, I lost 16 Euros (not including the ones I threw away on 3 card) and my friend and I watched the sun come up over the Paris skyline. My French is much better than I remember it being (I actually don't get snickered at and I generally get it right the first time) which is a wonderful surprise. I did learn, however, that a flush is called "une coulour" the hard way.
Cheers all
N
Speaking of, anyone who likes the ladies MUST get over to PAris. It is absolutely unbelievable what the caliber of woman is on average here. Playing last night I was pleased to be facing two lovelies who had the nicest accents as they rivered me ....
youll trip out when u see this place
any pics?
any pics?
Actually, Yes. My buddy proposed to a French Au-pere on yesterday. It was in the Rodin garden and I took a picture or two. She turned him down, but still...
post them when u get the time
how is this going? what's there to see? booths? who's there? just casino affiliates? or some
big poker sites too?
any pics of these would be great
sounds like FUNÂ
too bad the Cdn Poker Summit got canned
Anyhow, he ended up finishing 15th and I wish I could have played, but I was (and am still) burnt out.
I will retype what I lost yesterday, although with a little less colour this time. I shall give a report on what was likely to be the most decadant, opulant, over the top night I will have in a very very long time. I was hungover on Wednesday last and it has been SO long since I had the bed spins, I can't really remember. Actually, that's a lie, as it was new years 2002. Anyhow.
My friend and I are in Europe on business as well as sightseeing and we had a meeting last Wednesday night. Some of you know what I do, most of you don't. I work in the online poker business (as I am here for the Casino Affiliates Convention and all) and since money is flying everywhere, we decided to have a little fun with things. So when this person called us to see if we could spare a night for business, drinks and dinner, we said "HELL YEAH!". It was more like, "we'll see what we can do about scheduling" but you get the picture.
We went to the supper club called Sketch somewhere in central London. We gave our coats to the nice people in the wall and were seated in the bar. We ordered a round of drinks with our host, me a Tom Collins, they bourbons neat. We dispensed with our business as soon as possible, as well as a second round. Now, some of you have been to London before and can attest to this. The pricing there is similar to what it is in a major city, say Toronto or Montreal, but it is in Pounds Sterling. I believe at last check, it was trading at 2.32x the dollar. Basically, anything I bought was 2.5x more expensive. I did have a $9.00 coffee in starbucks. But I digress.
After round two, we headed into the dining room. It was very modern, with whitewashed walls and 40 foot ceilings. There were these laser box things all around the walls near the roof and they were spitting out this mind altering light show the entire time. We were seated right in the middle of the room, me on a little couch with my friend. At this point, the Polish waitress (who I thought was French because her accent was so very french sounding) took our next drink order. We somehow decided that Absolute martinis were a good idea. We were very solrely mistaken. I think it was at this point that my head began to lighten, but I was determined to outlast the others.
Martinis gone, we ordered our dinners. We also ordered some fancy red wine at 75 pounds a bottle. I dunno. Anyhow, I managed to eat $24 worth of Rissotto before bottle #1 was done. That was simply the appetizer. I think my steak was good, although I have absoultely NO idea what it actually tasted like. I assume it was good, as I finished it and probably burped nice and loud in the fancy room there. We slurped down another bottle of wine and then decided to jet, as we were getting ready to PARTY and there was simply no room to do so in the dining room.
We left and rode in a pink cab made in India that found its way over to London somehow. The driver was yammering on about the finish in the cab and our host kindly told him to shut it, in that brilliant dry way they have over there. We made it to the bar, which for lack of a better name (or a clear memory) I shall call, "high caliber girls waiting on rich guys to buy them stuff I can't dream to ever afford". I found myself smoking a monte cristo #4 with our host as my friend smoked his first cigarette in about 5 years. We had a round of Makers Mark (bourbon for the pedestrian drinkers among you) and decided to go to an even fancier schmantsier place.
For lack of any kind of details I shall call the second club, "high caliber girls waiting on rich guys to buy them stuff I can't dream to ever afford and even having the dream probably set me back a mortgage payment". We went in despite the 30 pound cover. I believe that would be the first time in my life I have visited a bar whose cover was valued at more than the hotel room I stayed in.
Anyhow, it was at this point that we ordered some bottle of champagne. Since the new years eve party I drank that poison and ralphed on a cop in Mel Lastman square back in the university days, I haven't touched the stuff. And here I was drinking it with reckless abandon. After a few false starts with the ladies, my friend, who is not the most graceful of men at the best of times, decided to dance it up. This caused me to lose my mouthful of champagne on the couch when I saw him doing what can best be described as the death throes of a raccoon that has just been hit by a garbage truck in the night.
We decided that the best solution to that problem (his dancing) was more champagne. And then more. And then the car. And then the bed. And then the pain.
Somehow, I survived and managed to make it to the tap to hydrate myself a little - but to no avail. I managed to blow most of Thursday away with the most expensive hangover EVER. Our host was AWESOME and wouldn't let us touch our wallets at all that night. In fact, in some form of brotherly, drunken bonding exercise, he and I switched wallets (not contents though) and I now have a designer, eel skin wallet from some fru fru shop in London and he is walking around with a ratty old job from the bay.
What can you do?
Speaking of DAM - if you want to have an awesome time, rent some bikes for the day, get loaded, and go tearing around town. Pure jokes! Just watch out for the street-cars. I almost got run over 3 or 4 times, getting laid-up in a hospital bed while on vacation is not good times.
I had written some pulitzer level stuff about the conference. Anyhow - I shall write a quick summary. There were a number of poker rooms there, Full tilt, party, pacific, interpoker, pokerroom (who captured #3 according to poker pulse), royal vegas and 7 sultans, and some secondary level rooms (noble poker, referback).
I met with the golden palace people to suggest to them a promo for the WSOP that only they could pull off - the marketing manager loved my idea, but it is rather insensitive, so I shall not post it here until I know they are planning on it.
I was totally spoiled when they found out about my games here and the fact that I don't yet have a main affiliation with anyone. I did put a quick site up, www.chubbypoker.com so that they could see some of my brilliance and also that I am not totally full of hot air, but the money spent was astounding.
I netted the following: 5 t-shirts, 7 baseball caps, about 50 decks of cards, a silver money clip and a silver business card holder (from Royal Vegas), a gorgeous pen and a swedish version of Rounders (from Full tilt) but the movie CAN be played in English, a leather day planner from the conference company, a nice book about something Dutch from a local sportsbook, and the two greatest things: an Ipod and a complementary massage at the spa here (we are in a 5* hotel here). The last two were given out by PartnerLogic group (interpoker) and Casino Profit Share (more involved in casino and slots).
I met some fascinating people here. I met (and drank heavily with) the marketing director for Party, a man who owns 3 or 4 casinos around the world (this guy is a story all on his own - perhaps another thread), some top level super affiliates (with 15,000 + active players going in both poker and casino) some top level business dev strategists, some international gaming legal experts, some newbies with a fresh outlook. I think we are only seeing the beginning of a growth phase around the world. I may have said on the forum before that I thought the industry would peak at or around the WSOP, but after this, I beg pardon.
Amsterdam is actually quite a boring tourist city, after you get past the redlight district and the coffee shops. I went to see some live theater here and I have visited a few coffee houses, and I was looking for something else to do that is interesting here. I have done the boat down the canal thing here, seen the national museum (skip it if you ask me) and I have walked these ridiculous city streets. I have eaten too much, drank too much slept too little and been fed enough smoke up my ass to last me for the next 12 months. There is nothing else exciting to do here. I am going to go see a concert tonight and maybe catch up with Harthgosh if he's out and about today.
More details later.