 sunrise over the Meuse in Namur, Belgium PokerStars are coming back to their Belgium home in Namur for a Road to PSPC event in late November and early December. Save the dates if you care. I might be around too. 
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 New Covid regulations come and go in Belgium but the BPC is still on course with a lot of live and online satellites going on.
It's been an intense Poker week at the Grand Casino Aš Poker room in the Czech Republic.
I arrived last Wednesday, on the 27th October for a Poker Belgique photo documentary throughout the week and to play some cash games.  The Grand Casino de Namur has launched its satellite campaign for the BPC Namur Main Event yesterday! Below, you will find a list of all available satellites to the 1k Main Event and I also posted the BPC structures at the end of this post.
 The official flyers have been published for the Belgian Poker Challenge Namur 2021. Check it out below and stay tuned for updates via the POKER TRIPS section. I am still in the tank when it comes to my December plans for the moment. What about you guys? Who is joining?   After an online leg for 2020, the BPC will be back at the Grand Casino de Namur with some live Poker tournaments. Since I spent years there as the in-house Poker photographer and as a cash game regulars, this would be a cool occasion to meet up with tons of buddies after these weird pandemic times. Find the full schedule below in this post! Stay tuned in the BLOG and in the POKER TRIPS section. 
Masks are still sticking in everybody's face but since many of the travel bans and restrictions are being lifted, I am doing some catching up in terms of traveling. After spending most of my summer in Portugal, I made a stop in Madrid this week for the plentiful Casino Gran Via cash games and I am now off to Luxembourg for some short family and buddy time before making my way to where summer never really started: Wallonia :-D
The river - La Meuse in Namur, Belgium
 After the Israel Poker Tour of early July, Cash Game Weekend is back with another cash game festival during the early August period so why not get back to Batumi on the Georgian Black Sea shores for some great live Poker action around the clock?! Dates: 04-09 August, 2021 Location: Royal Casino & Hotel Batumi Get in touch with me for complimentary service & accommodation offers for players. You can get your premium room for free for 7 hours of play per day or 35 hours of table time over the 5 days.  My POKER TRIPS section got an update!
A new #spfpoker flyer was uploaded with the new date for SPF SUMMER at King's and you'll find info for the March festivals I am planning to attend in Spain. For the rest, there should be some surfing and cash game action going on in Portugal and maybe some more cash games in Brussels later during the month.  I arrived in Belgium yesterday following a blitz 20-hour stop in Luxembourg after I made my way up North from Portugal on Wednesday. After the #pbmasters Opening Event in the middle of the week, the Main Event of the series kicked off yesterday with a 72-entry Day 1A and less than 20 survivors. You'll find chip counts and results all over the weekend on the P.R.O.S. website and I will randomly post photos in my Flickr archive as I am jumping into Day 1B myself today. As usual, the less photos you see, the better I will be doing :)
 I spent most of my November in Portugal playing cash games at Casino Estoril and enjoying what this awesome country has to offer. Still no tournaments for now but at least 2-3 Poker tables are running every day with blinds starting at NLH 1/3 and some PLO. The Omaha game is the local highrollers' playground but it's PLO4 only so not insane swingy ... I'll be back soon. For sure! But let's have a look at what's coming up for the coming weeks. In the meanwhile, you can have a look at my photo archive on Flickr.  WHAT'S NEXT?
I've spent last weekend in Spa for the POKER ONE Festival. My Main Event was experience was a complete joke ... but a bad one :p I busted late in Level 7 of 1B after losing or having to fold holding AA, AA, KK, QQ, JJ & JJ again... the force has been strong with the drawing hands and pairing boards!
The cash game action was fun though with PLO6 Triple Board being added to the Dealer's Choice games. I hope to play more of them soon. Why not next weekend for the M.E.C. Open? The field should easily reach 400+ entries as 1C is apparently already sold out so I am considering to return to Spa to fire a bullet at the Main Event and maybe find some new 6-carded friends. Details under pokerroomofspa.com. I've posted photos of my POKER ONE weekend in the photo section for those who care. A tantôt! 
 I am stuck in Metz after the Beer Fest :) I guess I needed some rest after this crazy weekend of beer tasting, partying and shooting photos. Apart from randomly resting after a tough mission, there are actually good reasons for me to be stuck here :p My Metz Beer Fest hosts are some of my all-time best buddies that I used to spend a lot of time with during my studies here so it's a pleasure to meet all those people again over these last days. What is more, I was on the go with Ady last night who had a screening and a Q&A for our film project, SAWAH. We have published photos and info in his blog today. You'll also find a link to all the photos in the photo section.  Greetings from the first Metz Beer Fest in France where I'll spend a big part of my weekend as it seems. View my photos on their Facebook page and in my photo section here.  Initially, I was intended to travel with Ady to Denmark to promote Sawah at the Aarhus Film Fest but the Gods of logistics were against us on this one. We nevertheless managed to bring home a new award!! Read more about it on adolfelassal.net. These coming days, we are going to screen a Luxembourg premiere of a Balkan coproduction of ours at CinEast Film Festival and we'll then be off to France again for screenings of Sawah competing in the Fameck Arab Film Fest. With all this going on, I am skipping a bunch of online Poker sessions these days but I'll be back in action for the Poker One Festival in Spa. I have posted info about this in a recent post. Go check it out and see you soon on the road!   
I am still lost a little bit everywhere in Europe for the promotion of two films by Adolf El Assal who I am currently working with for his upcoming cinema releases.
In terms of Poker, I am still hesitating about where to relocate. Getting back a bit to Luxembourg is an option to be closer to the Ady crew but we don't really know where we're going there for now ... there are some rough rides ahead in terms of financing those enormous cinema projects. My Spa days are not over: Poker room of Spa, Poker One, Poker Belgique ... there's a lot coming up!9/12/2019  To be honest, I was intending to leave Spa after the summer. I am still into it but a couple of things have changed in my plans outside Poker and it looks like I am committed to spend at least a few more weeks (maybe months) not to far from the Luxembourg area where I am involved in the production and promotion of some films. There are good things happening and also bad things at the moment. The point is that there is a lot of shit going right now. Find out more about it under adolfelassal.net. So yes, I might stick to my Spa base for a bit longer then planned. Time to look ahead then! The Winamax Series are almost over and WCOOP is still in full swing for the online sickos. I am firing bullets here and there but I still prefer a good old live game to clicking. The weekend cash games are still my favourite games over there but the Poker Room of Spa has a bunch of interesting Poker festivals coming up in October and Novemeber while their September's Challenge is still ongoing until the end of the month. Poker Belgique is planning one of their Poker Belgique Masters soon (more info HERE) and Poker One, one of the most active Belgian Poker crews over the last 2 years, will have its own festival in Spa in a few weeks... I am not intending to properly cover those events but I will show up to play if I am in the area and I will definitely have a camera with me ;) More info in P.R.O.S. the calendar under www.pokerroomofspa.com!  That's it, folks! Summer is gone. At least in the BeNeLux area :p I skipped the Cash Game Weekend Tbilisi in late August after the Spa's Poker Festje as I have been working on some film and photo projects throughout the summer. I am also looking forward to setting a foot in the cinema business this fall. More updates will follow up soon I guess. More news will also follow regarding the next Cash Game Weekend set to be back in Batumi in late September. From a Poker point of view, I am still on the low profile side of the Poker media action with a few shootings here and there but I keep playing myself quite a bit. Still cash games. Still PLO! Online, I have not been achieving much ...   I made my way to the Poker Belgique room in Soignies today after a meeting in Maastricht. A few drinks, a few photos and a few hours of sleep in the area before continuing to the Belgian coast tomorrow for Day 1B of the Unibet Belgium Poker Championship. Info about the Unibet festival in one of my last posts. Some photos of my stay in Soignies ara available below and the full album is online in my photo archive and on Facebook.  UNIBET BELGIUM POKER CHAMPIONSHIP BLANKENBERGE - it's not Portugal but it's still a beach...8/23/2019  I did not get a chance to go back to Portugal since last March and I am genuinely missing it. The coffees in the morning by the ocean, the excellent food, the amazing bikinis ... :p It's been a tough grind over the last months in the Belgian forests of Spa so I guess I deserve my beach time too! The UNIBET BELGIUM POKER CHAMPIONSHIP will soon be back on the Belgian Atlantic Coast with a €550 Main Event and a bunch of side events from the 29th of August to the 1st of September. I will be playing the Main Event only and I'll probably be in for some terrasse side events with ocean view.    Last weekend, I visited the Poker Room of Spa for a cash game session and I stopped by the tournament Poker room upstairs during the regular Friday event to shoot the trophies of the upcoming Spa's Poker Feestje in the middle of this month. All festival details are online under www.pokerroomofspa.com.   Two weeks to go before the Spa's Poker Feestje at the Poker Room of Spa this mid-August! The detailed schedule including full structures in online under pokerroomofspa.com and you can use the flyer below as a nice recap of all that will be going beside the cash game action.   While the Spa's Poker Feestje mostly stands for a Poker tournaments, a fully detailed cash game planning has been released. Find all there is to know about the festival cash games openings in THIS ARTICLE. What is more, another great August cash game spot will be the Tbilisi Cash Game Weekend for a second stop in Georgia this summer. You will find more information about this event in a former blog post. Where will I see you?  After a series of one-day events during the July Ranking that ended last night, the Poker Room Of Spa will soon be back in the Poker festival business with the SPA's POKER FEESTJE. Find out the complete schedule of the festival and the results of the July Challenge under pokerroomofspa.com in the NEWS and CALENDAR sections. I will be on the spot at least between 14th and 18th but probably a bit more in case someone cares to join us in Belgium.   Although I am not working at the Spa Casino anymore as such, I am always welcome to shoot a set of photos over there. This past weekend, the Dutch organisation of Deaf Poker was hosting the Spa DEAF POKER FESTIVAL at the Poker Room Of Spa and I decided to show up on Sunday during the bubble of the Main Event :) You'll find the full set of photos below and on Flickr or Facebook. Enjoy! :)  |
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