I’m going to list the seven most successful blog posts of my two year stint as a Unibet Ambassador, along with some thoughts as to why these were the most read.

I should note that I’m in no sense an authority on this subject. This is merely what I know – perhaps as much for the starting poker blogger than the established one. Two years ago I had never blogged before – merely written a column for Bluff Europe for a year or so – hence, I was literally starting from scratch.

In terms of marketing my blog, I was on my own. Unibet did not explicitly push the blog, rather the other way around – the Ambassadors were expected to push their own blogs and hence drive traffic to their site. My first post got a grand total of 17 hits and although I can’t remember, I was probably not too disappointed at the time.

I realised that grinding the traffic up to a respectable level might take considerable effort. I got myself a twitter account and started marketing on Facebook. After a couple of months I put together a google group of my poker playing friends for a direct email.

Poker forums are another good source of traffic. Unfortunately, as my blog was Unibet branded, many of the poker forums had a conflict of interest (e.g. Hendon mob with Full Tilt), so I had to rely on other people posting for me – which meant writing something that other people would actually read and remark upon!

As time passed, I managed to get posts into the 100+ readership and beyond. This is my hundredth post for the Unibet Ambassador blog, and I now figure to get around 100 readers or so for each post I write. So without further ado, here are the top 7 blog posts (in reverse order, Chrimbo-stylee, of course):

7. Tournament Blogging: A wake up call (399 hits)

In seventh place is possibly my most controversial post. It’s all very well slagging off Full Tilt when half the poker world has money tied up there and might not get it back. It’s another thing critiquing the poker blogging community, of which I was of course a part.

Being the intelligent, diligent and honest bunch they are, I got exactly the response I was hoping for: a far-reaching, intellectual debate with many major bloggers getting involved (Rick Dacey, Barry Carter, Lee Davey etc.).

Having achieved that goal, this blog was always going to be retweeted, linked to in other blogs, and generally talked about. This was the kind of post which marketed itself. It has to be said, however, that this was my pet subject (I had written at least half a dozen evidence-based articles about the luck factor in tournament poker and how people underestimated it). I was definitely shooting from the hip, but with a gun I knew well!

6. My mid-poker-life crisis (414 hits)

The major source of traffic for this one was Twitter. In general, if I got a lot of hits from Twitter, it was usually forum legend KevMath who was the source. When he retweeted my tweets, my traffic would triple.

This was another “straight from the heart” post explaining my thoughts and concerns about where my poker career was going. I think this kind of post does well because it engages so many everyday grinders. Secondly, I also shouted out well-respected but not well-known blogger Lildavefish. I republished a graph from his blog which showed he was running 160 buy ins below expectation. That’s the kind of thing poker players want to know about.

5. No More Heroes? (547 hits)

The first of three articles in this list inspired by or reflecting upon Full Tilt’s fate post-Black Friday. The poker media was swamped with articles describing what had happened. I pitched my tent as one of the commentators on the story.

Having had a run in with Full Tilt in the past, and having had a friend of mine in the industry warning me for years that Full Tilt were dodgy, I was in a position to say “I told you so” with gusto.

This post may have been popular because of its attempt to dispel a few myths about poker sponsorship and in particular its most high profile beneficiary, Phil Ivey. Most notably, the biggest source of traffic for this post was a Romanian poker forum. This was the thanks to the efforts of a colleague at Unibet. But it just goes to show that blog posts can be well received anywhere.

4. Here Lies Full Tilt (630 hits)

This post was written early enough in the timeline of a story to actually catch some mainstream readership looking for the details. Hey, I wrote a news piece!

The story of just how in debt Full Tilt was (complete with figures) was perhaps the biggest of the year. Combine that with reports of the ineptitude of the FTP management and you have a great story.

Once again, I put my own commentary on the piece (read: anger and despair), but I think the major driver of traffic for this article was the many links within to other pieces: cliff notes, interviews, and so on. I basically wrote a one-stop-shop article about the story and got it off the press in a timely fashion.

3. Et tu Ivey? Then Fall Tilt! (649 hits)

The third and most popular of the Full Tilt posts. This is where I laid bare my story of having found a bot on Full Tilt poker in 2008 and them basically refusing to do anything about it. It’s the closest I’ve got to writing a piece of investigative journalism, but it’s delivered in a much more flippant style.

All three of these posts I’m sure sold themselves through word of mouth and by the popularity of the subject matter. The major source of traffic was Twitter and I suspect that this is largely down to KevMath (who many poker players on Twitter turn to for their updates).

And even though I say so myself, this blog had a pretty cool title

2. The Dark Side (813 hits)

Once again, the major source here was Twitter, but in this case countless Twitter mavens retweeted this post. I even had retweets from people outside of poker with 50,000 followers, plus it got listed on bluffmagazine.com and cardplayer.com.

Somebody wrote that it was the “best facts-based article about poker”. That’s very complimentary, but I think it’s more a “tell it how it is” article rather than presenting any facts. I’ve always attempted to talk straight about the negatives in poker, despite the potential conflict of interest.

Historically, people have wanted to play down the dark side of poker, as if it’s the proverbial elephant in the room (if you ignore it, it isn’t there.) Well, it is there, and the more we talk about it, the more we are likely to be able to do something about it. Who knows, maybe poker will become more acceptable and we’ll make MORE money if it does?

I hope the popularity of this post was down to the fact that many people in poker agree with me on this sentiment.

1. A Christmas Cracker of a Hand (1151 hits)

Way out in front is a post which didn’t get tweeted by KevMath, yet managed to be my only post ever to get over a thousand hits. It’s a simple one, written in a histrionic style about a poker hand between two of the most well-known poker players in the UK.

It might have helped that this post was put up a couple of days before Christmas last year, when everyone was off work, but the major reason is that it was retweeted by Vicky Coren who, with over 60,000 followers (at the time, right now it’s almost 90,000), is a pretty significant connector in the poker Twitter world.

So there you have it. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. I’ll be back in the New Year with a blog related to poker but with a more general interest theme. Please email me at picklemanpoker@gmail.com if you would like to be added to the mailing list for that blog when it goes live.

All the best,

Alex Rousso

Sometimes those risks don’t pay off. The £1k Monte Carlo at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham was the last major tournament of the UK calendar and given that my sponsorship with Unibet was shortly coming to an end, it was one I had to play. I had an Academy to teach in London on the Saturday, which would be during day 1B. No problem, I thought. I’ll play day 1A and drive back to Nottingham on the Sunday if I make day 2.

Albert Sapiano told me about the traffic on the M1 on the way up to Nottingham (I had come up that morning from North Norfolk). There was apparently a huge contraflow around Luton and it was murder.

I doubled up on the last hand of day 1A (what a spot to pick up Aces!) and made day 2. Being careful, I checked the other ways of getting to Nottingham from London which avoided Luton. I could go via the A1(M), but it would add another 20 mins to my journey. With my stats/economist head on, I concluded that my expected loss going through the M1 contraflow would be less than 20 mins, so I should take the M1.

Damn. If only I’d been to that lecture about risk averseness. Sure, perhaps on average the journey time via the M1 will only add, say, 15 mins, but when the contraflow goes wrong, it goes catastrophically wrong. Using a different economics theory, it’s sometimes worth a guaranteed penalty of 15 mins to make certain that you don’t suffer a disproportionately worse outcome.

So there I was, in the gridlock, a hundred miles from Nottingham, thinking my ETA was around 1.10pm, or 70 mins into day 2. What does a poker player think in those circumstances?

Being the maths bore I am, I punished myself by working out how much the traffic jam was costing me. So here it is:

My stack was 84,500 and the blinds for level 11 would be 800/1600 with a 200 ante. There would be 9 players at my table, and for the sake of argument, I’ll say that 27 hands would be dealt per hour. Level 12 would be after 60 mins and would be 1000/2000 w/200.

(Oh, and by the way, you can forget about the hope that – as with many places – they’ll actually start at 12.15pm after some general faffing. The DTD is a tightly run ship and they’ll definitely start on time.)

So that’s three rounds at 4200 (800+1600 + 9 x 200), which is 12,600 and around half a round at 4800 (1000 + 2000 + 9 x 200), which is 2,400. All in all, the traffic jam would cost me 15,000 in tournament chips. The buy in was £1000 (+£90 – but the juice is not in the prize pool) and you get 30,000 in chips starting stack. Since we had not reached the money, the tournament chips were still worth their initial value. So that 15,000 cost me £500.

Or £7 a minute.

Monte Carlo Košice

Pred nejakým časom sa v nadupanom košickom poker klube Monte Carlo konal ďalší turnaj z česko-slovenskej poker série Celebrity poker tour. Tento turnaj bol výnimočný prítomnosťou Leoša Mareša ako hlavnej mediálnej star. Turnaj bol vydarený, 120 hráčov v live poker turnaji vo štvrtok je naozaj skvelé číslo keďže poker online teraz vládne svetu. Leoš po spanilej jazde počas prvých levelov turnaji keď sa dostal okamžite do čela, svoju pozíciu opustil až aby vypadol v jednej obrovskej hre a všetky svoje žetóny plus bounty na svoju hlavu daroval šťastnému proti hráčovi. To, že Leoš svoju účasť na týchto turnajoch neberie ako povinnosť ale je to pre neho hlavne zábava sme videli následne keď si pri našom stole stihol dať jeden drink a okamžite sa vrhol na cash game. To ale ešte nevedel, že zajtra ho čaká veľký deň s neobyčajnými zážitkami v Humennom.

Atlantik Humenné

Ďalší deň šéf Monte Carla vymyslel, že sa pôjdeme pozrieť do Humenného na miestny väčší turnaj. Priznám sa bez mučenia, že ešte v aute som spolu s Leošom a Davidom – riaditeľom Celebrity poker tour spriadal plány ako sa vyhnúť ceste na už skoro slovensko-ukrajinskú hranicu Nakoniec sme však do Atlantik poker klubu v Humennom dorazili a bolo to naše najlepšie rozhodnutie aké sme len mohli urobiť. Po skvelom privítaní Leoš hneď naskočil do turnaja ako neúnavný hráč. Keďže po čase na nás prišiel aj hlad padol návrh či by sa nedal spraviť obyčajný bravčový rezeň s obyčajnou zemiakovou kašou. Čakali sme síce, že to bude dobré ale úprimne nie až tak. Spolu s Leošom sme sa zhodli, že to bol jeden z najlepších rezňov ak nie najlepší aký sme kedy jedli. Skvelý začiatok večera.

Čo sa týka pokru tak Leoš bol samozrejme hlavná hviezda večera. Treba povedať, že s každým kto mal záujem sa veľmi ochotne fotil aj keď musím dodať, že to bol veľmi zvláštny pohlaď keď stáli chlapi v rade aby sa sním mohli odfotiť Leoš nakoniec prešiel celým turnajom ako nôž maslom a zapísal si svoju prvú výhru na pokrovom turnaji vôbec, v rámci Celebrity poker tour. Radosť to bola veľká a nefalšovaná a tak na oslavu správne po východniarsky padlo aj pár drinkov. Leoš sa opäť na východ Slovenska vráti v prvej polovici roku 2012.

Унгареца продължи да ме бие и останах с 14К…
На другата маса Румен Нанев имаше към 60К,и отидох да му се оплаквам че само ме надиграват…

На блинд 300-600 унгареца рейсна на 1400,двама платиха,СБ се вкара за 4К,аз ги бутнах всичките 14К с АQQ9 с един цвят купи до дамата.Унгареца и той плати…
Направих цвят на купите и почти се утроих.Победих унгареца за първи път…
Румен Нанев дойде от другата маса да види как съм се утроил и да ме попита дали вече ги надигравам.Казах му:Да,бутам им ги префлоп:) …

Останахме за ден 2 9 човека:аз,унгареца,чех,руснак и 5има финландци!!!Имах стак 138К на среден 115К,бях доста добре…

Започнах ден 2 доста агресивно и успях да загубя доста ръце.Паднах на 66К…Руснака отпадна и седнахме на финална маса,бях най-шорт…
Всички се зашиха около 2 нива и чакаха да отпадна,ама на мен не ми пукаше и аз ги чаках те да отпаднат(само 6 бяха в парите)…

Най-накрая един рейсна от средна на 7К на блинд 1500-3000,трима платиха и аз се престраших от големия блинд да си доплатя с 10 10 9 3 с един цвят-кари…На флоп 10 5 4 с две спатии чекнах,бутона бетна пода,аз се вкарах ол-ин и той плати със сет 5тици.Удвоих се…
Малко след това успях да перна малко и чип лидера,един побъркан финландец с АА77 и ги докарах към 200К…

Финландците полудяха всичките и много бързо останахме 6ма.Чип лидера успя да устиска до 6то място и останахме 5ма-аз,унгареца(много се държи),чеха и двама финланци…
Единия финландец прибра унгареца и камък ми падна от сърцето.Дигнах чеха с ААхх и останахме трима-аз с 460К,единия Ф с 410К и другия Ф с 170к…
Вече бях чип лидер!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Една ръка след това ми идваше да си пръсна мозъка,единия Ф рейсна от бутина на 16К на блинд 4К-8К,и двамата платихме.Аз имах 10 10 7 6 с един цвят спатии.На флоп Q 10 5 с две кари двамата чекнахме,бутона бетна 27К,аз ги направих ПОТ(129К),шортака се фолдна и другия ги бутна(400К!!!).Помислих малко и платих,падах само от QQxx.Той показа ККQ9 с две кари,на търна пристигна 8ца каро,ривъра не ми помогна и човека прибра пот от 860К!!!!!(всичките чипове бяха 1 040 000).Останах с 44К…Ама се удвоих два пъти…

Накрая чип лидера прибра шортака и останахме Heads Up-аз 170,той 870К…

След неравна борба около 2 часа и половина човека накрая ме прибра.Бутнах се с АК88 с цвят кари,той ме плати с ААхх и отпаднах…

След тоя турнир мога да ви дам само един съвет:
Не играйте омаха,ако не сте добре с нервите…

А за мен този турнир беше един доста добър успех,един добър край на една лоша година…

NASKOXX

Ha Main Eventa започнах пак агресивно,на първо ниво дигнах стака от 30К на 40К.Пак ме ,,пернаха,, някакви лоши ръце,по средата на турнира стегнах играта и завърших ден 1 със стак 31 700…

В началото на ден 2 успях да се дублирам.Един рейсна от средна на 2К на блинд 400-800,аз само платих след него с 10 10.На флоп 983 всичките пики той бетна 3200,аз платих(нямах пики).На търна дойде 2ка спатия и той бетна 5600,аз ги бутнах всичките и той ги плати с А8 без пики…
После загубих 1-2 по малки ръце и останах с 46К…

Рейснах от средна на 2600 на блинд 600-1200,един доста солиден играч ги направи 6К.До мен всички фолднаха…
Помикслих да се фолдвам,но после реших да играя за А или К на флопа.Само платих…
На флоп Ахх успяхме да се ,,нашиеме,, и човека се оказа с АА!!!Май трябваше да се фолдна префлоп…Отпаднах…

Изиграх 2-3 странични турнира и си отпадах с лекота.На единия от тях рейснах от бутона на 225 на блинд 50-100 с А9 оф.Иво Донев(той е австриец) от ББ реши да се защитава и плати.На флоп 972 Иво чекна,аз бетнах 325,той веднага ги направи 1К!Знаех че имам най-добрата ръка(не ме питайте от къде) и реснах на 2600.Той бързо се вкара ол-ин и аз също толкова бързо платих.Той показа К7(ха-ха),ама на търна видях К и вече не ми беше толкова смешно.Пак отпаднах…

Остана само един омаха турнир,но не бях сигурен дали ще го играя…

NASKOXX

Започнах доста агресивно,дигнах стака от 20К на 30К за около 20тина минути,но загубих някякви ,,криви,, ръце…
Един швед рейсна от средна на блинд 25-50 на 325!!!,аз платих с 55,още един плати.На флоп 346 с две пики,шведа бетна 525,аз платих,другия се фолдна.
На търна пристигна 2ка,но пика.Направих кента,но вече имаше и вероятен цвят.Човека бетна 525,аз ги направих 1525,той ги плати.На ривъра се повтори 2ката и той рече:ОЛ-ИН.Не ми се плащаха 16К,за пот 4К и се фолднах…

Малко след това същия швед лимпна,аз рейснах на 175 с 56 спатии,зад мен един плати(с него си имахме заигравка) и шведа също плати.На флоп 10 5 5 шведа бетна 525,аз платих,този след мен рейсна на 1725.Шведа се отказа,а аз доплатих.На търн 3ка и двамата чекирахме,а на ривъра пристигна още една 10ка.Аз чекнах,човека заби 3500 и аз пак се фолднах.Реших че тук бия само блъф!!!

По средата на деня вече не ми идваха никакви карти и се фолдвах,а към края тотално се ,,заших,,.На блинд 800-1600 един рейсна от късна на 3600,бутона ги плати и аз реших че е дошъл моя момент.Бутнах ги от СБ ол-ин за около 13500 с К10 кари.И двамата платиха!!!И се утроих…
Завърших деня с 40К…

На втория ден се удвоих с АК с/у 99.
Вече бяхме близо до парите и успях да се вкарам ол-ин от средна с АQ с 80К на блинд 3К-6К.Посрещнаха ме с КК и пак се удвоих(не казвайте нищо )…
Влязах в наградите и малко след това рейснах на 14К с 10 10,а един италиянец се вкара за 98К.Платих го за да видя КК и да го удвоя…

На блинд 4К-8К ме преместиха на ТВ масата с 82К(10ББ).Бутнах ги от средна с 88,ББ ме плати с АА.На флоп К75 с три спатии ми остана само един аут ,защото човека имаще А спатия.На търна дойде 2ка спатия и турнира свърши за мен.Съвсем малко ,,утешение,, за мен беше това,че успях да хвана единия си аут на ривъра-8ца пика…

Завърших на 34то място…

NASKOXX

It’s towards the end of day 1A, about six of the nine players at my table have been there since the first hand, so we all know each other reasonably well. I have a stack of about 18k at the 600/1200/100 level, so around about the perfect re-shoving stack.

A fairly decent, fairly tight and pretty straightforward player raises UTG+1 and it’s folded to me in mid position. With AQo I elect to flat call. I’m not doing this to get away from my on certain scary flops, but for value. Saving the details of the actual hand for later, the point is that the standard thing to do is shove here. In fact I had about a 10-minute chat with blogger Chris Hall about it afterwards. His claim was that you’ll always get more value by shoving and if anything can some small to medium pairs to fold.

My argument is as follows:

1)   For bigger hands than AQo (AA, KK, QQ, AK). Whether my opponent or someone behind me has a better hand than me, shoving in no circumstances gets them to fold. The odd super tight and short stacked player may opt to fold AKo behind me if it’s for a fair amount of their stack, but other than that I don’t gain by shoving on these hands, and if anything certain of them can be spooked by the odd flop and me being in position.

2)   Big hands my opponent won’t fold (JJ, TT, 99 and probably 88 and AJs). This is a mixed bunch in that these are the hands I lose value against if I hit my overcard and they get away from it. Note that this lot is a relatively small part of my opponent’s range.

3)   Hands my opponent will fold if I shove pre-flop, but I have decent value against (medium Aces, bluffy suited connector hands, other suited paint hands KQs, KJs etc.). This is a major part of my opponent’s range that I want to get value against. If both of us hit an Ace, I stack him where he would have gotten away pre-flop. I take a risk that his semi-bluffy hands get there against me, but most of the time they don’t, and he bluffs off a lot of his chips into me and I call for value with my Ace-high hand. Note that this is a major part of my opponent’s range, and the part I get most value from.

4)   Hands my opponent will fold that I want him to fold (smaller pairs than 88). I really don’t think that this is enough of my opponents range to warrant major consideration. Tight, ABC players will tend to open fold 22-44 in early position so it’s only 55-77 I’m trying to get a fold from. This is around 10% of my opponent’s opening range from here.

There’s also an outside chance that by flatting I’ll get away from my hand cheaply if some Uber-nit behind me shoves (with one of the bigger hands). That, as I say, is not the reason I’m doing this though. My main reasoning is that AQ is a big enough hand to flat for value and keep my opponent betting – a sort of Stop and Go in position if you will.

It also slightly merges my flatting range in this spot. It’s fairly commonplace to flat with AA and KK and an M of 6-10 for value, so why not flat some extra hands which have decent value against my opponent to keep him (and others) guessing?

The outcome? We both hit an Ace and I stacked him – he had A9o, which surely would have folded to my reshove pre.

So what do you think? A nice variation on a standard move, or doomed to miss out on extra value?

It was day 1B today, so I took the opportunity to do my usual stroll around taking in the sights. Unfortunately, as you can see, I wasn’t blessed with the weather (but I did find a second use for the heated floor in the bathroom – as a radiator for rain-soaked trousers). In fact, fate has it that it’s going to be fine on day 1A and day 2 (which I am playing) and it’s rainy and dull for day 1B and day 3 (which, barring a massive spin up, I won’t be playing).

The old town is charming. It’s typical of most Eastern European old towns such as Prague or Warsaw: cobbled streets and medieval squares. I kept finding myself looking for remnants of the Soviet Era. There’s an almost romantic mystique to that now – but obviously it wasn’t romantic at the time. My vision of the old Soviet Union was one of grey modernist buildings and industrial revolution landscapes, but had I come to Latvia during the communist era I would have seen something a lot different. It’s difficult to imagine what it was like, especially since the Cyrillic signs have all been replaced by Latin text. Still, did turn a corner to find this:

Evidently there are a few things that remain!

Although there’s a certain element of the taciturn Eastern European about them, the Latvians are a cheerful bunch. Of course, the centres of capital cities are rarely like the rest of the country, but I’ve found everyone to be friendly and engaging, and maybe it’s just me getting old, but there was something about the trinkets in the market places which made me think I wasn’t buying the same old touristy tat. Presumably I was, but I’ll leave my family and friends to decide that on Christmas day.

Last night was another great Unibet opener. After a meal with a few of the Unibet regulars, we ended up in the Skyline bar: 26 floors up overlooking the old town of Riga. There were a few drinks sunk, lots of bonhomie and plenty of expectation in the air for the staff, the bloggers and the players alike.

During the night I ran into two others in the top ten on the leaderboard: Davor Pavic (seventh) and Tim Verbon (fourth) and of course, we had to chat about the leaderboard. Essentially, there is nothing any of us can do – just play our best game and hope to cash as deep as possible. As it gets to crunch time, where laddering one place could mean €0 extra prize money but €1000 extra leaderboard money, there will be some ICM considerations, but that won’t be relevant until day 2. (And I’m not going to blog about what I think those ICM considerations should be until after the fact ).

I’ll take this opportunity to say what I think the advantages and disadvantages are for this year’s leaderboard.

Firstly, the most controversial issue is that it’s funded by the players: 5% of each prize pool is taken to make up the leaderboard fund. For the regulars on the tour, this makes no odds, as it essentially redistributes money that was already in the pool. However, it’s a great disadvantage to those who only enter one or two events. Good luck aside, they are essentially playing for 5% less of the prize pool than they entered.

I worked tirelessly to try to get UK and Ireland players to the Dublin UO (it’s essentially my home event), but most of the players I know actually opted out because they knew about the 5% to the leaderboard and hadn’t played the earlier events. For them it was like losing 5% of their ROI before they’d even entered.

Second, the distribution of the prizes could have been improved. The winner gets 40% of the prize pool and it pays ten places. The standard argument here is that players only look at the value of the top prize, so you have to make it as big as possible. I think while that might be true of other gamblers (and poker players of five years ago, perhaps), this might be becoming a bit of a myth for poker players. These days, the majority of them are quite canny mathematicians who know that there’s only so much they can control their own fate in this regard. Slowly but surely (with the exception of the WSOP Main Event which appeals to a wider audience) the prize distributions in tournaments are smoothing out. Think about it: by the time poker has created its x-hundredth millionaire, the news story that poker creates millionaires is not so big.

I would have taken 20% off the top place prize (making the top three prizes 20%, 15% and 10%) and given 2% each to 11^th-20^th place on the leaderboard. That way, whoever binks first place is still only too pleased to be handed an extra €20k or so on a platter (let’s face it, they’ve already done well from their year if they won the leaderboard), but you’ll get another thirty or so players thinking that they might be freerolling the last event of the year (and thus are more likely to make the trip to Riga) because they’ve got a great chance of finishing in one of the 11-20 places.

Lastly, I’d keep the tie-in to online poker and, if anything, strengthen it. I’ve run into countless players on the tour over the year who didn’t even know about the leaderboard. Whatever was being done to market it, more needs to be done. Unibet made a great move by tying the online events in to the live events. For the next season, this needs to be pushed to the max. This year, we give points just for entering the live events. Perhaps give away points just for entering the online events?

Being neither young nor degen, an account of my week might by comparison be a bigger snoozefest than the North Norway Opium Eaters’ Society annual hibernation dinner. Still, stuff did happen, so here goes.

First, I binked a seat to the Unibet Open Riga. This was especially thrilling since in the previous time I entered a Unibet Open satellite I won . . . a seat to Riga. The second satellite was a freeroll open exclusively to UK players only. As it required earning a certain number of VIP points to qualify, there were only 12 runners in the tournament. So with the package worth €2500, that was over €200 worth of freeroll each! Well, I did tweet and Facebook you all about it . . .

Anyway, since Riga’s already in the bag, winning the second satellite means I get to go to the next Unibet Open, which has just been announced as:

Prague in February!!

That’s a good result on balance. Unlike the EPT, the Unibet Open series tries to send its players to new destinations each year, yet Prague has been on the schedule twice before. That may be a disappointment for those wanting pastures new (we had four debutants this year with Malta, Barcelona, Dublin, and Riga), but it is surely less of a strain to repeat the process every now and then?

Personally, I love Prague. The combination of great bars, cheap beer and amazing sightseeing makes it perfect for a poker tournament. And the Hilton is a great venue. In general, the Eastern European destinations represent much better value for money, and the cheaper the destination, the better the hotel, the better the grub and the more free drink there is behind the bar!

The UO in Malta this year was in the opulent Portomaso Hilton which was a stone’s throw from the buzzing St Julian’s area. I’m hoping Riga – as one of the cheaper destinations – will be another memorable venue.

Looking forward to next year, the news that Unibet will be re-entering the French market is very big. France was probably Unibet’s biggest market before regulation hit, and the Opens will benefit greatly from having the Frenchies back. Hopefully, we’ll get a UO in France before the end of 2012? Having seen some of the casinos there, I think it Paris would be a great destination, but maybe Cannes would be a good option too?

I also found myself planning for next year a lot in the past week or so. I must confess I’m a little jealous of the tweets of all the twenty-something poker players bouncing from Amneville to Amsterdam, Loutraki to Marrakech. It seems the choice is either to totally immerse oneself in the circuit, which costs six-figures in entries, hotels and flights, and never see one’s home, or have a kind of half life, where one can’t commit to most poker festivals until it’s too late.

Of course, I should be so lucky to have such problems, but it does remind me of what’s so good about the WSOP. For that month in Vegas, there’s nowhere else on the poker planet you should be. Right now, trying to pick a path between this festival and that (both home and away), trying to fit it with other commitments in life – especially at this time of year when both future sponsorship is uncertain and the schedules of the tours are not out yet – is a bit of a nightmare.

Basically, the last month or so of poker getting enough VIP points to win into a few extra tournaments has been a bit of a grind, and I think I need a rest. So it’s a few days off (missing the first half of the GUKPT Grand Final) before jetting off to Riga on Wednesday.