#254: “Belt 15″

Belt 15 in Schiphol Airport is a place of lost souls, if suitcases had souls. Like Tom Hanks in the movie ‘The Terminal’, they do laps of the carousel; unwanted, undesignated, unclaimed, moving but going nowhere. Like Estragon and Vladimir, I wait. I wait for one of these lost souls to be my bag and I have been told it could be two hours. My connecting flight to Brussels was cancelled so when my bag finally emerges from the Unterwelt of Schiphol Airport, I must get a train to Brussels and then onto Blankenberge, that is of course if trains are still running by then. For now, the civil war in Krakozhia rages on and I sit here in suitcase Purgatory. For now, I wait by Belt 15.

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I’ve only been a #LivePro for about six years. I do have a handful of live results from before 2011 but that was the year I decided to give up the full time online grind and sprinkle in some travelling, a decision that I knew was minus EV in a financial sense but was very much plus EV for my life.

It took me a while to find the sweet spot – the perfect equilibrium between live and online. One year I travelled to just eleven festivals and one year I travelled to twenty-three. The year I did the latter, I knew it was too much when I found myself lying in bed watching movies and TV shows for two days in a row in a hotel room in Paris.

Poker has taken me all across Europe for six years, taking shots, chasing leaderboards but most importantly making friends. So when my son Hunter was born in April, ecstatic as I was to be a Dad, I was a little sad that I might be closing the curtain on a wonderfully untethered nomadic chapter in my life. Sure, there would still be live poker on occasion – Malta is a popular destination for live operators after all – but that’s not the same as travelling the circuit. Dara O’Kearney remarked in a blog around that time that, happy as he was for Saron and I, he was also sad that we might not see so much of each other. After all, on about half of all those poker trips, he has been the Bert to my Ernie, the Morcambe to my Wise, the Mark to my Jez.

Five months have passed and I think I’ve seen my Chip Race co-host more than ever. The reason?

Hunter.

At the risk of jinxing it, he is a really good baby – crying only when he’s hungry (much like his Dad), sleeping soundly through the night since he was twelve weeks old (much like his Dad) and never complaining whilst travelling (not at all like his Dad). As soon as I realised this, I loaded back up the live schedule and it’s been a joy bringing him and Saron with me on the circuit. He’s been in ten countries already and by the end of the year that number will have doubled as live trips in 2017 show no signs of relenting.

In fact, Unibet have so much going in the live arena that I’ve been able to stay brand loyal. There have been UK Tour stops in Brighton, Glasgow and last week in Nottingham where I managed to come 4th. There have been Unibet Opens in London and Copenhagen, the former delivering two cashes. There have been Unibet DSOs in Lloret Del Mar and Malta, a 5th and a 20th place finish giving me a leaderboard sweat. This weekend, if I ever get there, I’m playing the Belgian Poker Championships sponsored by – you guessed it – Unibet Poker and between now and Christmas, there are seven more stops across those three tours, the highlight of which is a trip to the European Open in Las Vegas next month.

It’s going to be a busy but brilliant few months and thanks to Hunter’s easy-going nature (and his mother’s dedication and patience), the live experience has transitioned easily into a family-friendly experience. In between live events, I will be Twitching, blogging and making episodes of ‘The Chip Race’. In fact, Dara and I have something really special planned for our first episode back after the current mid-season hiatus. So… WATCH THIS SPACE!

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Having waited for two hours and still no sign of my bag, I return to the lady at the ironically titled ‘Help Desk’. She simply shrugs, saying ‘if you’re bored, why not book your train ticket in the meantime’. ‘If I’m bored’. Indeed. I take her up on her suggestion and book the next train to Blankenberge, stopping at Brussels. It departs in twenty minutes so the chance of catching it is unlikely but the man stamped my ticket, assuring me that meant it is valid for future trains too. I return to Belt 15 by walking through Door 16, the trademan’s entrance to Hades.

To Be Continued…