#207: “Danish Bacon, Dutch Courage & A Belgian Waffle”

No WPT title for Clayton or I but I did manage to get a second slice of Danish bacon (and my 18th live cash of 2013), taking 4th in the 4K side event for 22K. Unfortunately, those figures are in Krone which means I won a little over $4K, only enough for about two trips to the 7-11 in one of Europe’s most expensive cities. It was great to have some nights out in Copenhagen with Rasmus and his flatmates, and it was especially nice to become properly acquainted with Mickey Peterson, a man whose approach to the game both on and off the table I have always respected.

I flew home with Clayton on Tuesday night, booking a relatively small loss in our swingy as fuck €6 a point game of OFC. I returned home at 10pm, emptied my suitcase, packed it again, cabbed it over to Saron’s gaff, slept for 2 hours (2 more than Saron), cabbed it back to the airport, ordered some sneaky 5am Bulmers and boarded the flight to Amsterdam where we touched down at 7.40am. Now I’m sure the more geographically aware readers can see the stupidity of this itinerary (Copenhagen to Amsterdam is a 25 minute flight) but I booked the Holland trip first and I thought it would be nice to travel with Saron, especially as she now plays OFC and I was keen to get unstuck. That backfired spectacularly as she pwned me to the tune of 49 points, good for a fancy meal in ‘Restaurant Bouf’ on our last night.

Annoyingly, the MCOP side events were fully booked so I was unable to play any poker in Amsterdam. Congrats to Eoghan O’Dea and Pete Murphy who both cashed the Main Event and good luck to Chris Dowling who has made day 2 of the €800 Bounty side event. It was great to see a substantial Irish contingent travel over for the Series and there was plenty of Dutch courage being imbibed when we met them for pints on Thursday night. To be honest though, I wasn’t too disappointed about missing out on the action as it gave Saron and I more time to see the city. Amsterdam has the perfect mixture of culture and sub-culture and we were efficient tourists, visiting The Van Gogh Museum (probably my favourite gallery in the world), The Hash & Hemp Museum, The Anne Frank House, The Vrolic Museum, The Torture Museum, The Sex Museum and The Red Light District, whilst still having time to frequent some coffee-shops (Mmm… Purple Haze!) and some very nice restaurants.

At the time of writing, I am on a train somewhere in Belgium, en route to Paris for more vacation time and the FPS. I am pre-registered for Day 1B on Sunday so there will definitely be some poker on this trip.