Yorky Pud

There are those who say that the game of football brings people together and there are those that feel the same way about music but for me the game of poker is without a doubt one of the best ways to meet new people, experience different cultures and make friends who you will know for life.

Poker has been very kind to me in that it is allowed me to forge a career out of the game. Admittedly, I would rather be making a career by being a professional poker player but that is quite unlikely to happen so I have made a career out of following professional poker players.

During the last 12 months I have been fortunate enough to travel to Barcelona, Prague, a ski resort in Austria, Slovenia, Tallinn, Paris, Cannes and more recently Amneville all through working on the European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour, something that I am very grateful for because I have met some amazing people and hope to continue meeting them in future months and possibly years.

Last week I was in Amneville for a World Poker Tour event and on one of the nights the blogging team decided to give the free buffet a miss and try one of the restaurants in the complex. After going to two places that were completely rammed we settled on a little Mexican joint so the five of us sat down. This all seems pretty standard but in what other job would I be seated with such a wide variety of different characters from around the world, with different views and opinions who I have know for such a little time but still all get on like a house on fire? The four others were Lee Davy, Marko Saric, Tomaso Vimercati and Francesco Rizzo. Just from the names you can tell we were a pretty cosmopolitan group and just from our personalities this situation would never naturally happen but thanks to poker it did. We ate our food, had some drinks and took the piss out of each other and had a great time.

The camaraderie also spreads to other bloggers and tournament staff too. There are the same familiar faces at most stops of the various tours and you quickly become friends with them too, even if some of them speak as much English as I do Italian, Spanish or French. Working for 12-14 hours a day for a week, eating with them and socialising with them means you quickly learn a lot about each other and even if you do not get to speak to some of them there is a mutual respect because you are all working your balls off to produce a good product.

Then there are the players themselves, there are some great people on the tour. I get to regularly chat and hang out with people who I would only ever see on TV. I have discussed poker with a World Series of Poker bracelet winner, become friends with an EPT and WPT winner in the shape of Roberto Romanello and even James Akenhead knows who I am! This may sound like a Phil Hellmuth tweet with me dropping names but these are poker players that many look up to, players who I have written about and watched on TV and now players who I know.

Watching people go through the rollercoaster ride caused by the mixture of luck and skill is an amazing experience. Throughout a tournament you get to see bad beats develop, watch future stars run massive bluffs and there is always a champion. Watching an emotional Romanello lift the trophy when he won EPT Prague was a fantastic experience and I can say I was there when he won it. At WPT Amneville I saw Adrien Allain, who is definitely a star in the making, win his first WPT title and €310,000+. Seeing his face as his pocket tens held and the pure joy and elation as he dived into the crowd of his friends was special and I would be lying if I said it wasn't a goosebump moment.

I'm not sure why I am writing this blog post but there again I rarely plan anything I write so it must just be something that was in my head. I guess I would like to say thanks to everyone I have met on the various poker tours, including the names above, for helping to make working on the circuit such a pleasurable experience and making it nothing like work. I sometimes pinch myself because I cannot believe I get paid for doing it! Working away from home is very difficult because I miss the Mrs, my kids and the creature comforts of home but the people on the circuit are like a second family, a part-time family if you like, that I meet up with once a month but although they become my family on a part time basis, they will be my friends forever.