Destination Kiev... and the Book Is Out!

Sorry for the late post today. Was visiting family and grabbing some R & R as I ready for the Kiev trip. I fly on Sunday and arrive Monday.

Will be a lengthy trip, with two stops along the way -- something like 16 hrs. or so of traveling time. One nice aspect of the trip, though, will be that I’ll be flying with my partner in crime, FerricRamsium, who’ll be live blogging the sucker with me next week. Once we’re there, we’ll be meeting up with the rest of the PokerNews crew.

Not sure at the moment which events at EPT Kiev we’ll be covering. Still awaiting word on those specifics. We’ll certainly be covering the Main Event, a 4700 + 300 (EUR) event capped at 600 players. I imagine we might also be blogging the three-day High Rollers event, which sports a hefty 20,000 + 50 (EUR) entry fee. (No need to cap that one.) The full schedule can be seen over on the PokerStars’ EPT site. Also, be sure next week to check in over at the PokerNews’ live reporting page to see whassup.

I mentioned before that while I’ve done some traveling around Europe, and even lived in France for a full year, I’ve never been to Ukraine and thus have only a vague idea what to expect. Vera has been to Kiev before, though it was some time ago. In fact, it was the late 1980s, when Ukraine was part of the yet-to-be-dissolved U.S.S.R.

I know Kiev (or “Kyiv”) is a huge city with a population of more than 2.5 million or something (compares to Chicago). But I’ve still got some reading up to do between now and when I land Monday. I have a few informational items I’ve printed out over the last couple of days I’m taking with me, and may hit the bookstore tonight or tomorrow to see if there happens to be anything on the shelves that might be of use.

Speaking of books...

Big thanks to everyone for the many nice comments on yesterday’s post, esp. with regard to my novel. Actually got a physical copy of the book in the mail today, and it looks terrific. As I mentioned yesterday, I spent some time with the cover design and layout, and I have to say I couldn’t be more happy with it.

Pretty amazing world we live in, really. On Monday I was on here whimpering some about how books have become less and less a part of most peoples’ lives. Monday was also the day that I published my own book. And by Friday I’m holding a copy in my hands! On the one hand, advances in technology have certainly made books less central to how we experience the world. Yet on the other hand, some of those same advances have made it easier than ever to publish a book and make it available for worldwide distribution.

I have looked over the book and have now “approved” it for distribution, but it will apparently still take 6-8 weeks before it shows up over on Amazon (and on other retailers’ sites). You can, however, go ahead and buy a copy through Lulu, if you want, by clicking here. As I was saying yesterday, it is a work of hard-boiled detective fiction, and no there really isn’t any poker in it anywheres.

At some point down the road I might say more here about the novel and maybe even try to promote it a little more conspicuously, but am gonna wait for it to be available on Amazon and elsewhere before I do that. Meanwhile, if you have any questions about it feel free to write me at shamus at hardboiledpoker dot com.

Talk to you again next week -- from the other side of the Atlantic!