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Pics of my winter months in Bratislava are available in my photo archive. Late January comes with a Portuguese interlude and here are aerial photography shots of a recent flight between Vienna and Lisbon. 
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A new set of photos is online featuring shots of the last weeks. I'm about to leave Bratislava for a while from next week. The Banco Masters is on this week and we'll provide updates via PokerFirma as usual in addition to Denis' & Dominik's coverage.
I've been skipping live Poker for almost a month since mid-December. After averaging at roughly 70 hours of Poker per month, I barely made it through what for sure has been my toughest year in terms of Poker results. I've played a lot in 2022 and I've lost heaps - a significant break was needed and some fresh air.
I'm not turning my back to Poker (yet :-p) but I've been busy with many other things over the last weeks and there were a few fun winter thingies on my bucket list. Getting my feet back onto some sort of board was one of them. My latest intervention on PokerFirma is about a trip I decided to take to the High Tatras mountain range with Poker buddies. We had such a good time that we had not one Poker discussion over the whole stay :-) 
Germknödel is a fluffy yeast dough dumpling. It's often filled with plum jam, comes with a melted butter or vanilla cream topping and a mix of poppy seeds, sugar or cacao powder can be added on top. It mainly is a culinary specialty of Austria and Bavaria but it's also served in the Slovak High Tatras as we've found out this week :-)
 The first two months of my new year are more or less taken care of when it comes to #allineverywhere. I'll start the year in Slovakia before a hop to Portugal for the end of January and I'll be visiting Romania and the U.K. in February.
The original idea was to count all my cash game hours anywhere I play and to encourage fellow players to join me on the road to make donations for my #allin4ukraine solidarity actions but then came the opportunity to set up a grind house in the Slovak capital.  front door view It's been a rough Poker grind in Madrid and Bratislava over the last weeks! Matija Sinković from Croatia was the first player to join me for this #pokersolidarity idea. He's one of the most hardcore grinders of the Banco Poker room and and great company with a big heart on top of it, so it was a pleasure to have him on board for this first boot camp in the Slovak capital.  11 Nov - 3 Dec 2022 171.5 hours of cash games & 15 tournamentsOnce the enormous Polish Poker Championship has passed, Banco Casino still have a bunch of one-day events up their sleeve for the end of the year. The GRAND WEEK x-mas edition is coming up!  
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.
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.  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.  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 :-)   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.
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 :-)  
All photos of my Banco Masters week can be found in the album below. Expect plenty of Poker shots and impressions of Bratislava.
 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! |
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