En route to partypoker UK Tour Glasgow
I am currently en route to Glasgow for the partypoker UK Tour Event, a city that I like in a country that I love. Irish people get prickly when they are confused for people from other places, with the notable exception of Scotland, a wonderful and mystical land of kilt-wearers, Remain-Voters, sheep intestines, and battered Mars bars.
The partypoker team of Rob Needham, Rajvinder Dhanoa, and Rick Wild has put together a really nice schedule with plenty of side events, but the big one will be the £500 ($678) Main Event, for which there are four starting flights. JJ Hazan and his PLO Masters brand are partnering with the festival, ensuring a nice mix of four, five, and six-card action, too. I am very much looking forward to getting in the mix with local legends David Docherty and Robbie Bull.
Barry Carter offering us the Ferrero Rocher as he attempts to spoil Dara O’Kearney and me
It will be my second visit to the Alea Casino Glasgow, which overlooks the river Clyde. It will also be the first time the roles will be reversed, with “The Chip Race” newsman Barry Carter offering us the Ferrero Rocher as he attempts to spoil Dara O’Kearney and me in his role as partypoker ambassador. The reigning Global Poker Award-winning Twitter Personality of the Year was snapped up by the brand this year, a very smart addition to their team, which includes brothers Jaime and Matthew Staples, Natalie Bromley, and Asif Warris.
I have booked Dara and me into the less-than-salubrious but well-located Ibis, “Budget” by name and budget by nature, and I sincerely hope that we fare better than the last time we traveled together to a partypoker Live event.
The partypoker Live German Millions
It was the spring of 2018 and the week of the German Millions at King’s Casino. I flew from Malta to Prague with my friend Daragh Davey, where we met Dara O’Kearney, who had traveled from Dublin, and Sameer Singh, who had flown from London. The four of us then shared a cab to the remote little town of Rozvadov, a two-hour journey towards the Czech Republic’s German border.
The trip was a last-minute decision for all of us, as rumors were rife that a big overlay was on the cards. The €5,000,000 ($5,850,827) guarantee looked like a tall order, so some of the big stables were firing their players into the €5,000 ($5,851) Main Event and recruiting others for generous one-off deals.
we weren’t even in the same country anymore
Frugal as ever, I promised to keep costs down for the lads, but I may have taken it too far when our long journey took us beyond Rozvadov to a ramshackle apartment in an even smaller town. To make matters worse, the keys to get in were not in the same building as the apartment. On closer inspection of the host’s instructions, they weren’t even in the same town. Our driver graciously offered to take us to the key box, which was located in a garage about two miles away. As the unattended garage came into view, our phones informed us that we weren’t even in the same country anymore.
Returning to the apartment, we quickly discovered that it was no better on the inside. There were three rooms: one twin, one double, and one bathroom between the four of us. The cab driver offered to drop us back in Rozvadov free of charge, so we quickly dropped our bags and made our way to the venue – a gargantuan poker room inside a big hotel in a tiny town with only a petrol station, a smaller hotel, and a couple of brothels.
Nocturnal rumblings
After a less-than-fortunate day at the tables, we all found ourselves back at the apartment, busto and bemoaning our predicament. We had booked three nights, but the side event schedule offered little to tempt us. The wisest among us, Sameer, made an excellent suggestion: “Why don’t we call the cab driver and ask him if he would bring us back to Prague tomorrow? At least then we can have some nice meals and enjoy some sights.” Daragh wasted no time and our knight in shining alloy was booked for a late morning departure.
We divvied up the rooms and headed to bed. Dara and I took the double while Daragh and Sameer took the twin. The next part of the story I have had to lift straight from Dara’s blog at the time because I have no recollection of it and, to this day, I have had to take his word for it.
I was a little creeped out”
“I woke up in the middle of the night to find Lappin looming over me with the friendliest smile I’d ever seen on his face. He was just staring at me, but seemed inordinately pleased to be doing so. I’m not going to lie: I was a little creeped out.”
“Um… everything ok Dave?”
“Ah yeah. How are you, you big pet?”
“I’m ok but… um… are you ok?”
“Ah, aren’t you just the cutest thing ever!”
He went on, beaming down at me, then the smile turned to confusion.
“Oh. I thought you were Hunter.”
It appeared that I had confused Dara’s nocturnal rumblings for those of my eight-month-old son Hunter, who used to sleep in a pod between myself and my partner. My calming words designed to soothe an infant must have sounded strange to a man who perhaps thought that after years of room and even bed sharing, I was about to make my move. I’d like to be able to say that was the only time that weekend that I creeped someone out, but it wasn’t.
Premium WiFi
The next evening, we had scheduled an interview with Griffin Benger for our still fairly new podcast called “The Chip Race,” a fact that weighed heavily on my mind as we checked in to the Jury’s Inn in Prague. A sign advertising a room with “Premium WiFi” caught my eye and I enquired about us getting it. I was oblivious to the fact that the sign also said “Honeymoon Suite.” As Dara quietly face-palmed beside me, I urged the lady at reception to divulge more about the quality and reliability of said “premium wifi,” explaining that we were planning to do some recording. To her credit, she kept a straight face and sold us the room without follow-up questions.
The four of us made some dinner plans for after the interview, but there was still a small bit of time to kill before. Frugal as ever, I asked Dara if he fancied taking a trip with me to the nearby ALDI to purchase Czech baby formula, which was significantly cheaper than its Maltese counterpart. He reluctantly agreed and I bought eight boxes, four of which he agreed to carry back for me. The cheapskate/environmentally conscious person that I am, I refused to pay for bags, instead making us take two under each oxter.
Five minutes later, walking through the lobby, I caught the eye of the receptionist and, as Dara quietly cast his head down in embarrassment, I could only wonder what she made of the two men heading up to her Honeymoon Suite with eight boxes of baby formula to do some recording.
