In Buenos Aires there are many wild cats, which seem to lead quietly contented lives, supported by the food scraps provided by tender-hearted matrons. In Mar del Plata, wild dogs share the streets and parks and shadows. They appear to live in a parallel world, accepting food when it is offered, but I never saw [...]
Category Archives: poker
All-in and Out
55 versus AQ. Opponent hits a straight on the river. Taxi to the airport, please.
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Alive but Crippled
Day 1B has just finished; there are 35 survivors from the starting field of 151. I’m one of them, but with about half the average stack. No one likes a bad beat story, but all the same this is my blog and you’re going to get one. A couple of hours ago, I was cruising [...]
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Getting Ready for Day 1B
The morning goes like this: breakfast in the hotel buffet, then a walk along the seafront and back to the hotel — narrowly avoiding Jack from near Sacramento, whose blustery attempts to bolster his fragile self-esteem are becoming rather wearing — then a shit and a shower (excuse me if this is more than you [...]
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Other People’s TV
There’s a rather charming game show on television here where contestants stand on a high platform in tight yellow leisure wear and endure the ordeal of holding a tray of drinks, with the aim of being the last person standing.
When that’s finally over, we cut to the studio where girls in bikinis take it in [...]
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We’re Under Way
This being Latin America, players go for a different kind of card protector here.
There were 140 entrants today, and after two-and-a-half hours, 136 were left, with the average chip stack being a little under 11,000 from the starting size of 10,000. Our Dutch friend, Patrick, in short-sleeved shirt and sunglasses below, had just under 30,000 [...]
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Day 1A About to Start
At the PokerStars welcome party in the Gran Provincia Hotel in Mar del Plata (tango dancers, buffet, well-stocked bar, speeches from dignitaries, or so I supposed) I fell into conversation with Jack, who’s from somewhere near Sacramento. Being surrounded by groups of vaguely autistic, testosterone-loaded, poker-playing lads is preferable when they’re doing their stuff in [...]
A Foreigner in Buenos Aires
There is a painting in the Malba gallery by the Argentinian Miguel Covarrubias from 1928, called ‘George Gershwin, An American in Paris’.
It’s one of those Modernist non-perspective cafe hubbub scenes. In the left foreground, shy, somewhat blank, unblinking, is the composer, suited and hatted, a foreigner more delighted than bored, but not quite either. I’m [...]
Nervous at Heathrow
The anticipation of playing in a big poker tournament is added to, or subtracted from, the joyful anxiety of visiting a city that I’ve never seen before, the prospect of solitary, self-determining travel.
I fixed upon Buenos Aires as my spiritual home long before hearing tango, before I ever saw Maradona play–but I’d always cheered for [...]