And here are the first couple of pages as promised:
August 27th, 2011, Barcelona.
The paella I'm eating is overpriced and mediocre, as it often is at the Barcelona marina. I'm sweating. It's thirty-five degrees celsius outside and I'm wearing a hoodie. It's not hard to spot online poker professionals in Barcelona right now, as a steady stream of players, the vast majority of them men in their twenties, flows towards the casino, armed with their hoodies, Bose headphones and mirrored sunglasses. Just like every year, we're here for the European Poker Tour, the most prestigious series of live poker tournaments in the old continent. Poker seems to be getting more and more popular every year, and so are these tournaments. In the first ever EPT Barcelona in 2004 the first prize was just 80,000 euros. This year's winner will get over ten times that.
There are so many poker tours out there that it's hard to keep track of everything. World Series Of Poker, World Poker Tour, European Masters Of Poker, Unibet Open, Latin American Poker Tour, Asian Poker Tour, Asia Pacific Poker Tour – the list goes on. Every day somewhere in the world men and women gather in casinos, conference rooms, cruise ships and what have you to play poker for big money. Yet most of the bigger tournaments take place in the same cities over and over. According to my collection of airplane ticket stubs, this is at least my eleventh visit to Barcelona within the last few years. London six times, Cannes five times, Vienna, Prague and Malta four times each.
Then there are the more exotic locations; New Zealand, Uruguay, Macau, South Korea. I've been to over sixty countries in recent years, but whether I've seen many of these places is another question. It's not that the hectic nature of the touring wouldn't allow for spending time wandering around the cities and getting immersed in the local culture. Usually, there's more than enough time to see what each city has to offer. It's the physical and emotional burden caused by our profession that often limits our sightseeing to the vicious circle of the casino, the hotel and the nearest bar, the holy trinity of poker traveling.
Usually you only get to the destination on the day the tournament starts. So you go to the casino, play your heart out at the tables, and due to the nature of poker tournaments still lose your entire investment about eighty-five percent of the time, often after days of playing with minimal sleep and huge emotional outlay. Since many of these tournaments cost between five and ten thousand euros just to enter, losing that kind of money takes its toll, especially when you bust in a brutal fashion to some idiot who made a bad play and got lucky. Most of the time, that's exactly what happens. After busting out, you drown your sorrows at the bar with your peers and spend the night sharing your stories of bad luck and little justice from the poker gods. The next day you wake up hungover, realize you're ten thousand poorer than you were before you left for this stupid trip, and want to recoup some of that money back. But as always, the hotel internet is too slow to play online poker, which to someone who has just lost a significant portion of his bankroll is a disaster comparable to famine. So you book a new return flight for the same day, buy your spouse something from the airport duty free shop, and upon arriving at home, lock yourself in your office to click a mouse for twelve hours a day until you've won back the money.
Of course, sometimes the stars align just right and you actually do make money in these tournaments. When you play live poker tournaments for long enough, your day will come. And I can tell from experience that there's nothing sweeter than ending up the last man standing and lifting that trophy in the air. The feeling of having outlasted everyone, of being crowned champion – there's nothing like it for a poker player. Not to mention the money. One of the players slowly making their way to Casino Barcelona right now will take home a check of 850,000 euros a few days later. One of them will come in second for over half a million, and 120 of them will leave with at least 8000 euros. There's more than enough money to attract us back here over and over.
I've already been in Barcelona for a week. I came in early with Cinnamon, because we'd never been to Barcelona together before, and the city has played such a big part in my life that I wanted to share it with her. I always feel at home in Barcelona, and with Cinnamon I feel more at home than ever before.
Just a few days before our departure, someone from Unibet called me. Would I like to come play in their tournament in Dublin? They'd give me a 2500 euro package just to show up. It's a lot of money, but I had to turn it down, because I wanted to come here with Cinnamon instead. In my years as a poker player, I've learned that money isn't everything. Sometimes you just have to do what feels right, even if it includes leaving free money on the table.
From my many visits to this city, I know a lot of secretly great hotels in Barcelona, and the one I picked couldn't have been more perfect for us. With its mere handful of rooms, we've had the pool to ourselves on many days, and resting on the hotel's huge, comfortable beds has allowed me to catch up on some much needed sleep. We've seen all the sights, from Sagrada Família to Parc de Montjuïc, we've feasted on local wines and eaten all the Catalan culinary wonders. It's been a revitalizing week.
Yesterday Cinnamon left, because I wanted to be alone for the madness that is the European Poker Tour. I never play my best poker with her around. To do that I need to be inside the poker bubble, a bubble she has no part in with her university studies and normal life and hobbies. Yet I know that when the bubble eventually bursts and I'll buy that flight home, most likely hungover and thousands of euros poorer, she'll be there waiting. And that makes the prospect of busting the tournament without making any money much easier.
I'm not following the stream of players to the casino, not just yet. I guess I should be, because the tournament is starting in five minutes, and I've already purchased a seat for 5300 euros. But what's the rush? I have a perfect view of the Barcelona marina, the turquoise Mediterranean Sea and the skyscraper next to the casino that is the Arts Hotel. I know this will be the last moment for days when my mind won't be solely focused on poker. It's the famous calm moment before the storm, and it's beautiful. I'm feeling at ease, well-rested, hungry for success, but at the same time content. Considering everything that's gone down in the past few years, it's a minor miracle that I'm sitting here in such a zen state of mind, or even sitting here at all.
It's only been a year and a half since I woke up from the lock-up, drugged out of my mind, vomiting blood and without a shade of memory of the previous night. A month before that was the night that changed everything, the night that someone even suggested they should put someone on watch at the airport around the clock to make sure I don't flee the country. In this city alone I've witnessed a lesbian sex act, been shot with a fire extinguisher by a security guard, and been robbed at knifepoint for many thousand euros. During the rollercoaster of my poker career I've been broke more than a few times, been tossed around by turbulent relationships, lost control of a motorbike in monsoon rain, slept on a park bench and gone from a sponsored professional to the spitting cup of the entire poker community. If I have a heart attack before I reach forty, I won't be particularly surprised.
All things considered, one could say I'm pretty lucky to even be alive. In the grand scheme of things, a few missed hands of poker aren't going to hurt. I might as well sit back, try my best to enjoy the paella and gaze at the line of endless palm trees, reminiscing about the crazy ride that has brought me here.