Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 6 -- Whizzing Along

I mentioned how Vera Valmore has joined me here in Prague, having arrived last night. We’ve been lucky to be able to get together on these trips occasionally, and are looking forward to enjoying the very Christmas-y Prague over the next few days during the holiday season.

On Wednesday I was on Day 1b of the European Poker Tour Prague Main Event, which was huge (as expected). After last night’s late one, I was able to get off early tonight and so Vera and I took a cab over to the other side of the Vltava River for a nice dinner at a restaurant called Hergetova Cihelna.

Although we’d made a reservation, once there we were a little uncertain as the restaurant proper was closed for a private event. We eventually figured out there was another annex-like location nearby where they were serving.

As we walked around we saw how right in the same area is the Franz Kafka Museum, a place we may go back to before the trip is done. There was also this hilarious art piece/fountain just outside featuring two animated male figures peeing which I’ve since learned is a 2004 piece titled Piss by Czech sculptor David Černý.

We laughed and laughed at the sight of the figures, just standing there whizzing along. The figures are made of bronze and the middle sections swivel back and forth, with each figure’s manhood rising up and down as well as they go wee. We were there at dusk and so my photo is no good, so I’m sharing another one up above (click to embiggen).

Since it was dark we also didn’t realize that the base of the statue is shaped like the Czech Republic, which suggests the figures are peeing on the country. Reading around a bit, I’m seeing that visitors can actually send a text message to the fountain and they will pee the message.

There’s actually a fairly famous piece by Černý back home in Charlotte (I’m realizing), another animated fountain called “Metalmorphosis,” the title of which recalls Kafka as well.

In the restaurant our view was directed the other way -- not at statues of dudes peeing, but over the river. The food was fantastic. I started with a duck consommé with egg yolk ravioli then had the filet mignon, while Vera enjoyed an appetizer of baked beetroot with goat cheese and a main course of baked pike perch. So good.

Back at it tomorrow for Day 2, where the last ever EPT Main Event keeps whizzing along. Check the PokerStars blog to follow.

Image: “Praha, Hergetova cihelna, čůrající fontána” (adapted), Jan Polák. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 5 -- Finished

All poker tournaments have structures which in most cases extend out a few levels beyond where the event actually concludes. It varies, of course, but most of the multi-day, multi-table tourneys I’ve ended up reporting on over the years have by now settled into a predictable pattern which finds them ending somewhere in the early-to-mid 30s, level-wise.

Tournament directors have formulas they’ve internalized that give them a good idea what to expect when predicting when an event will end. A few of my tourney reporting colleagues over the years have similarly come up with their own ways of calculating when, say, the bubble will likely burst, when bustouts will slow down thereafter once in the money, and when a tournament will likely conclude.

Regarding the latter, one rule of thumb I’ve heard has to do with counting the number of big blinds in play once a tournament reaches heads-up, then figuring that once the two remaining players’ average stacks dips below 50 BBs (or 100 BB between them), the sucker should be ending not too long after that.

For instance if there are 10 million chips in play, you look for the level where the blinds reach 50,000/100,000 and figure that’s around the point things are going to end. That’s hardly a hard-and-fast rule, of course -- as Tuesday night’s final day of the Eureka Prague Main Event final table proved.

There were eight players to start the day at noon, and with the average stack at around 40 big blinds we knew it wasn’t going to be a super-quick day, but didn’t really think it would last all of the way to midnight as it did. In fact I don’t think anyone did, given that they never even took a dinner break, in part because they’d whittled down to four players by the dinner hour, then got to three not long after that and so it seemed like things might be ending sooner than later.

But three-handed play went on for a long while, protracted further by some attempted deal-making that didn’t work out initially, then finally happened. They got to heads-up a little after 10:30 p.m., with Hubert Matuszweski sitting with about 32 million and Vladas Tamasauskas with just over 18 million to begin. (I was mentioning those long names yesterday -- as it happened, two of the longest lasted the longest.)

The pair made it to the end of Level 39 in which the blinds were 500K/1M, meaning there were just around 50 big blinds total in play. When the tournament clock reached the end of that level, we could help but laugh at how rather than go on to Level 40, it simply read “FINISHED.” Which is exactly how me and my blogging partner Jack were feeling right about then.

“We’re through the looking glass now,” I joked in the blog. “Uncharted territory. Your maps are no good here.”

They soon got a Level 40 programmed in there, and many more small, checked-down pots followed. Somehow they got all the way to Level 41, where the blinds were 800K/1.6M -- i.e., just around 32 big blinds total between them. Soon enough Matuszweski -- a.k.a. “The Hube” (our delirium-inspired nick for him) -- won the thing, and we really were finished.

More exciting for me, though, was the fact that Vera arrived in Prague during that long endgame and will be sharing the next week here with me! Looking forward to enjoying the city some more with her over these next days, when people aren’t carrying poker tournaments deep into the nights.

Am moving over to help with the EPT Prague Main Event, which is already and running. Visit the PokerStars blog to follow that one all of the way to the end early next week.

Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 4 -- Long Day, Long Names

It was another long one today and tonight helping cover the penultimate day of the Eureka Prague Main Event.

There were 62 players left to start today from the 2,031 who began the event (a record for the Eureka here in its very last Main). From that group just eight made through to tomorrow. Interestingly, the guy who led to begin today -- Piotr Romanczukiewicz of Romania -- actually ended the day with fewer chips than he began, making him eighth of eight heading into tomorrow.

There were a few familiar folks among the ones not quite getting to the last day, including Eoghan O’Dea, Tom Hall, Kristen Bicknell, and Team PokerStars Pro Marcin Horecki. The Polish pro finished seventh in this same event three years ago, and this time made it all of the way to 12th.

Alessandro Giordano carries the chip lead to the final table. Like Romanczukiewicz he has a long name, something of which those of us blogging are acutely aware. In fact for a lark I looked at some of the other long names left (Tamasauskas, Bengourane, Matuszewski) and figured out the average length of the final names is 9.375 letters. That’s gotta be on the high side, yea?

When it ended I went to enter my receipts as I try to do after every day of work so as to prevent too much of a pile-up of busywork at the very end. I realized I didn’t have any. We’d had a dinner break, but I had other things to get done and ended up working through it. Gonna have to find something here to eat before hitting the sack. Turns out writing poker hands, which can provide various degrees of intellectual stimulation, actually provides zero actual nourishment.

Visit the PokerStars blog to see how this here Eureka plays out and to follow everything else happening at this last ever EPT.

Photo: courtesy Tomas Stacha / PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 3 -- Time, Time Hear the Bells Chime

Writing here at the end of a long workday -- more than 13 hours, all told -- preceded by two-and-half hours or so of walking around Prague, and so forgive me for being a little fatigued here with this brief report.

The Eureka Prague Main Event has now played down to 62 players from a record-breaking starting field of 2,031. Ended crazily with a final, two million-chip pot hand in which a player raise-shoved the flop with top pair of nines and the other talked himself into calling with bottom pair of fives, thus giving the former a huge chip lead to begin today’s Day 3. (You can read about it here, if curious.)

Besides sweating the NFL games during the evening, the most exciting part of the day came early on, though, when Howard, Gareth, and I made the journey to “Old Town” in Prague to see the Christmas market, walk over the Charles Bridge to the other side of the Vltava River, peek at St. Vitus Cathedral, and see other sights.

Lots of people out on a Sunday morning, most of whom were clearly tourists with their phones out at all times. I got mine out once as we happened by the famous Prague astronomical clock -- a.k.a., the “Prague Orloj” -- which I’m reading was built in 1410 and is the oldest astronomical clock in the world still operating.

It was just about 10 o’clock when we approached it, which meant we were able to hear the clock sound the hour and run through its show of the apostles appearing in the little windows up above and other moving parts. (Since my phone’s camera isn’t so hot, I’ve included a better photo of the clock above -- click the pic to embiggen.)

Speaking of time, the hour is late and so I’m going to turn in now and try to rest my bones for Monday. I expect I’ll get back down to Old Town for some dining, souvenir shopping, and more sightseeing over the next week. The Christmas theme was in evidence, of course, with lots of decorated trees and a generally festive mood all around.

Meanwhile, check the PokerStars blog for more on the Eureka and that €50K Super High Roller that began yesterday and drew the usual suspects.

Image: “Prague astronomical clock,” Steve Collis. CC BY 2.0.

Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 2 -- Overflow

As expected, the second and final starting flight of the Eureka Main Event was massive in terms of turnout, with more than 1,400 players coming following the just over 600 who played Day 1a. Was kind of interesting logistically to see how tournament staff organized handling that many players, given that the main tournament room (plus some overflow space just outside it) only really has about 100 tables.

There’s some additional space elsewhere in the Hilton Prague Hotel, and in fact that was used for other events (including the finish of the €10K) and cash games. But the main area was all devoted to the Eureka, or at least for most of the day until they finally played down to under 1,000 players and some tables became available.

With that many wanting to play, later registrants had to wait for seats and so they grouped the alternates in 25-player blocks, seating them every half-hour or so up right up until late afternoon/early evening, just before the dinner break. All went pretty smoothly, it appeared, thanks in large part (I imagine) to advance planning for the eventuality.

As always, it’s a little nuts for just a couple of us to report on such a huge field, with the sheer amount of action happening overflowing the available brain space as well (not to mention physical limits imposed by having to run back and forth from the tourney room to the laptop). Once near the end when there was still 600-plus left I did a full pass gathering chip counts, and thought as I did of that Unibet Open mannequin challenge from last week and that desire to “pause” everything for a couple of minutes in order to catch up.

All went well, though, and in the end 450 made it through from today to join the 168 Day 1a survivors for Sunday’s Day 2. Shyam Srinivasan ended up bagging the most at night’s end, just barely nudging past Gabriel Nassif for the Day 1b lead, although neither had as much as Mathias Jensen ended with the night before, so Jensen will have the lead to start play tomorrow.

Other highlights from the day included breakfast with Mo Nuwwarah who is here for PokerNews and who got in a couple of days early to do some sightseeing. He and I talked NFL football at length, something he does each week on the Gridiron Gamble podcast. Dinner with my blogging partner Jack Stanton was fun as well as we hit the buffet here at the Hilton, a modest one compared to bigger hotel-casinos back home, but fine and convenient for our purposes.

Back at it Sunday, when I’ll be sweating NFL games as well once we get to the evening here. Gonna do a little sightseeing myself in the morning, though, so perhaps I’ll have something more than poker to talk about here tomorrow. Meanwhile, look in over at the PokerStars blog today to see what’s happening with poker in Prague.

Photo: courtesy Tomas Stacha / PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT13 Prague, Day 1 -- Early Pragueress Report

Doing fine so far here in Prague. One day of work is done and there are still 11 more to go.

Got to rest a bit Thursday afternoon and early evening while awaiting my buddies to arrive from England, then in the evening me, Jack, and Marc went out to get some food at a place nearby called the Pivovarsky Klub.

For beer drinkers, the Pivovarsky is probably a must-visit place, serving more than 200 varieties of beer most of which are from Czech breweries -- the most (they say) of any place in the entire country. The food is good as well, as Marc and I very much enjoyed the roast duck and potatoes while Jack probably outdid us with his venison goulash.

Got to bed at a reasonable hour, then was up and at ’em today for Day 1a of the Eureka Prague Main Event, a €1,100 buy-in tournament that drew more than 1,800 players a year ago.

There were about 600 playing today’s first Day 1 flight, and there will assuredly be a lot more playing in the second and final starting flight on Saturday.

There were a few “notables” among the field, and one fairly exciting three-way all-in hand near the end that helped 19-year-old Mathias Jensen of Denmark enjoy the overnight chip lead, one in which he spiked a two-outer on the river to knock out two opponents. You can read about that hand here.

Can’t say tonight’s dinner was all that memorable. It being a busy Friday night, most places in the area were packed and we had to take a third or fourth choice and eat some fast food at a nearby Vietnamese place. But there will be more good eats to come, as well as a bit of sightseeing as I’ve made some plans to try to do that this weekend.

Meanwhile, keep checking back over on the PokerStars blog for more from EPT Prague and the Eureka.

Photo: courtesy Tomas Stacha / PokerStars blog.