Estoril :: the summer bad beat

Seven months into 2021 and some Portuguese have been confined or living with Covid restrictions for almost 5 of them until now. Having my base in Cascais since last September, I am one of them. The latest lockdowns were enforced in January and it took authorities until May 1st to reopen Casino Estoril. The action was great in May but I had to leave Portugal for 2-3 weeks in early June for film shootings abroad. Unfortunately, while I was away, Covid numbers started rising rapidly again and, in a total despair move, the Portuguese decided to confine large parts of the Lisbon area again. The casino has been closed since early June again with no sign of any reopening to come.

Trusted sources and contacts of mine amongst the casino management staff are confident they will be able to open again during August but there is no sign for that coming from authorities and they have no idea about the playing conditions they will be able to offer to players.

I have been in touch with the Troia Casino that are timidly resuming with one tournament per week on Saturdays and 'possibly' low stakes cash games on weekends. They are open but it would not change much if they remained closed to be honest. I am also getting feedback from a fellow player living in Povoa. He told me the casino management over there is not excluding to keep live Poker games closed for the rest of the year and maybe until spring 2022 since this summer season has been ruined anyways. By now, I have given up on my Portuguese Poker summer and I am already preparing to go play elsewhere. Slovakia seems like one of my nice options for now and I am getting info about nice games in Georgia. Madrid is also emerging more and more as my favourite option for this August.

​In May, I was about to leave my Cascais flat to take another one in Estoril closer to the ocean and to the casino but I didn't return to Portugal since then. I sticked to playing online in Luxembourg instead and made my way to Bratislava for 2 weeks of live cash games in July. I am now back in Luxembourg hopping between online games and live games in Namur (Belgium) and I will be flying to Portugal in early August only to cancel all those beautiful summer crushing plans and give up the two flats I rent there for nothing and nobody at the moment. I will consider a return to Estoril when the casino reopens. Hopefully this fall but who knows what will happen until then?! Wanna place bets? :-p

Thanks for reading me and keep checking my POKER TRIPS section here for updates...

Sunset over the Cascais bay.