Visit my photo archive to browse through tens of thousands of photos from everywhere in the world. These weeks, I'm spending a lot of time in Bratislava, Slovakia.
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Since November 2022, I set up a charity grind house in the Slovak capital. The project was initiated with the precious help of Banco Casino together with Poker Belgique and is called ' #allin4ukraine Bratislava Poker Boot Camp '. It aims to regroup players willing to make a generous contribution to our global fundraising project targeting to raise 10 million Euro in order to buy and restore 112 rescue vehicles for Ukraine. Details about it are available in a recent post.  count on 28NOV2022
Check out my shots of this late November week in Bratislava. I've been playing quite a bit myself for the ongoing #allin4ukraine Poker Boor Camp but there are always at least a few dozens of photos piling up in my archive at the end of a week of Poker...
 The Banco Masters will soon be back in town with a huge new-year guarantee for a low buy-in and it's possible to skip the rake on the first bullet of the Main Event.
2023 will start with a bang for the Slovakia MTT Poker scene. Banco Casino will waste no time and put on big guarantee events from the very beginning of the year.  
I've always liked Bratislava. No specific reason. For plenty of reasons. It is like falling in love or finding a new friend. I've simply liked it here from the beginning.
Also, since I was in Slovakia when the Russians made their move on Ukraine, Banco Casino was one of my very first partners for the #allin4ukraine campaign providing job opportunities and accommodation solutions at both their Kosice and Bratislava casinos for example. 
Link to some of our Ukraine pics in image.
Poker Boot Camps for Ukraine
It basically is what it sounds like. The idea is to regroup players for a kind of high-intensity interval Poker project and to donate a part of the winnings.
No poker last night in Bratislava. I made my way from Madrid to Vienna and Bratislava yesterday. I was intending to visit the Baden CAPT but plans changed and you can follow our PokerFirma coverage online. Banco Casino was closed yesterday on the 17th November. That's ultra rare. The place is usually open around the clock almost all year long but no worries, there are two great one-day events this weekend :-) However, when the presidential palace takes on the colours of the Slovak flag, something bigger is usually going on.  
Torrelodones is a municipality located in the northwest of the Autonomous Community of Madrid, about 30 km from the city centre. Due to its location between the 'Sierra de Guadarrama' and the suburbs of the capital, Torrelodones has both an agricultural side and an urban metropolitan aspect with excellent connections to the centre for the seven small towns that make it up.
I'm shooting loads of photos for the Circuito Nacional de Poker Gran Final at the Casino Gran Madrid Torrelodones these days. Head to the photo section for links to my pics. Live updates are provided by Poker Red. Official photos are taken care of by Gema Cristobal and published on the CNP Flickr. There's also a streaming schedule starting from today. View it on Twitch.  I'm not staying until the end of the festival because Madrid is calling but I'll be in the Slovak capital until Friday morning for the France / Benelux Masters by PokerBelgique. Denis and Dominik will be in charge of the festival coverage throughout the weekend on the Banco Casino Bratislava website and an archive of my photos is available in my PHOTO section.   A lot has happened since our chaotic first spontaneous responses days after the Russian invasion started in Ukraine. Today, shattered emotional individual actions have grown together as a network of way more rational plans executed by numerous devoted volunteers and administrators putting together support project after support project. One of these organisations is LUkraine based inn the country I was born: Luxembourg. In late October, they launched a very ambitious global fundraising campaign aiming to buy rescue vehicles and send them to Ukraine.  The Dublin Poker Festival website got an update ! It is now possible to skip the queues and do tournament registrations online. A link to book a room at the Bonnington Hotel **** has also been added beside plenty of additional info.  I like airplane and helicopter sounds and I often look up as soon as I hear one. This Sunday, a particular sound was heard above Bratislava beside the privately owned small leisure aircrafts. A heavier and louder sound ... usually announcing a big flying beast incoming :-)  While the Spanish Poker Festival [ SPF ] Donosti is under way, only two stops remain on the SPF circuit for 2022: Rozvadov and Madrid. It's still not likely that I will end up in the Czech Republic these weeks but Madrid is still in the race for my early December agenda planning and there's an opportunity to play the Main Event without rake.   The Danube is one of the most striking symbols of Bratislava. The water brings life and energy to the city and everybody enjoys himself on its banks. Lately, new activities are gradually emerging on or near the water and many parts of the river are already being used, while others are still waiting for new developments. If you're playing Poker in Bratislava these weeks and you happen to bust early, you can check out the 'River in the City' exhibition. No river drama or such this time and a good opportunity to stroll in Bratislava's pedestrian zone. The exhibition shows projects that have already changed the face of the Danube banks and are set to do even more so in the future.  
There's something odd and interesting going on in Belgium when it comes to tournament Poker.
My latest PokerFirma.com contribution deals with the emergence of Poker clubs as serious competitors for casinos in the Belgian MTT environment. 
I'm going to spend some time in Bratislava over these coming weeks and I'll be playing and shooting at Banco Casino so I've updated the map of places I like in the Slovak capital. Together with PokerFirma.com, we are working an a dedicated website including resources for traveling Poker players. This map is sort of the first taste of it. The project is ambitious and will feature tips, photos and descriptions of things to do or places we like in cities where we enjoy to play Poker. It's supposed to eventually function as a guide for Poker trips.
 When I visited Bogota, I spotted a colourful neighbourhood from my high-up hotel balcony while shooting the sunrise over the Andes. Turns out the zone has an interesting story. The streets are narrow and mostly cobbled and the architecture seems pretty dull from afar. I was told it could be a little risky to wander there alone especially with cameras since the area is rather poor and rough so I skipped it but after doing some reading about it, I'm already regretting this decision :-) I'll make sure I'll find a local who would know his ways well enough to take me with him for a tour when I'll return to Bogota. The reason why it's so colourful today is a large-scale street art project lead by a graffiti collective called INK CREW that, together with locals, started repainting hundreds of houses of Barrio Los Puentes a few years ago in order to unite the local community around a common rehabilitation project in their home streets and to make the area simply look nicer as a start.  Ink Crew Bogota since 1999 
February 2023 looks pretty packed with potentially non-stop Poker and travel action between the 6th to the 26th. Romania, UK & Ireland are solid options in my agenda with: - the Vamos Poker Tour in Bucharest - the Festival in Nottingham - the Dublin POKER FESTIVAL  The Poker Trips section is up to date. December is still a bit of a blur but I know more or less what I'll be up to during November. Beat the Rake promos and full schedules are online in the POKER TRIPS section. Coming up: Slovakia - Spain - Austria - Romania ... and the usual last minute randomness :-)   This is information I got from a partner in case someone is off to Romania soon. It's highly unlikely that I'll attend myself but I can help fellow players out with closing a deal if needed.
All details can be found below and you can stay tuned via the POKER TRIPS section for more #allineverywhere. Another major Poker event is coming up under my ROMANIA tag in February 2023. The Vamos Poker Tour will be off to Bucharest for its second leg.  courtesy of unionplaza.ro The Vamos Poker Tour is one of the latest additions to the jungle of European Poker circuits after a starting event in Bratislava during September 2022. Now, 2023 is coming up fast and the promoters have been busy since this autumn. The result is the next VPT leg announced in Bucharest, Romania in February.   The question arises naturally: 'Why a Polish Poker Championship in Slovakia?' I asked myself the question too, sneaked around a little bit, did some reading and I'm preparing an article about Poker and gambling regulations in Poland as an explanation to why the Polish Championship specifically is one of the historical big partners of Banco Casino in Bratislava and Kosice.
The Poles will be back in Bratislava from 28th November to 5th December for loads of Poker action!  More Poker in Slovakia is coming up for me over the coming weeks since I've been invited to join the Banco Casino crew for The Hendon Mob Championship Grand Final in late November.
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