Prague Poker Festival Summary

We have been in Prague this weekend to play a couple of tournaments at the Prague Poker festival.  Here is a summary of our trip.

We arrived Wednesday the 7th. The Wpt main and Ept main event have already started so our first tournament and main focus was the GSOP 1650$ tournament the 8th. Because of the tournament the day after, the arrival night was pretty peaceful. We went to a sports bar and watched Man U go bust in champion’s league while we ate a Rooney burger and had a couple of Czech beer. Because of the poker festival, GSOP set a new record for the number of participants, 500 players starting in one day was also a record of most players in a day in Prague.

Both Johan Wehle and Petter Petersson, the two players from Prostaker got pretty tough tables. Petter had the Swedish pro Micheal Tuerniec and couple of young guys on his table. Johan got Giuseppe Pantaleo, 5th in Ept8 Barcelona on his. Petter started out swinging but didn’t get in the right flow and was short pretty fast. Petter later busted on blinds 200-400. Wehle on the other hand started out cool as a cucumber, took the spots he got and was around average the whole day. At the end of day one, Wehle lost an important pot with JJ vs. A9. They were all in preflop when his opponent hit a backdoor flush on the river. Wehle managed to get through to day two with 15 of the original 20k. Day two was a bad day for most of the Swedish players. Wehle pushed his 15bb stack early in the day with JJ once again. This time he was up against AA and couldn’t find a jack. He left the tournament in 197th place.

So it’s Friday night in Prague and no one has to play the day after. Of course went out to party. We started out the evening dining at one of the restaurants at Hilton hotel. They were the only restaurant that could make a reservation for 20 Swedish poker players with bad long-term planning skills on a Friday night.  After a great dinner we went to zo za zu, a big club just outside of the Centrum. This night it was a bit too big because it was not that many people there. We therefore took some cabs to the Centrum and the bar street. It’s not easy to hold together a group of twenty so we finished a great night in different places. A lot of the trip after that was spent at the 5 star player hotel, grinding cashgame, relaxing in the spa area and playing some side events.  We also found some time to see the city in broad day light. Some of us took a sightseeing tour in an old classic convertible; some went to the Christmas fair. To recharge our batteries in between the many stores on the main street we ate huge sausages and drank glühwein.

Thanks Prague and thanks everyone for a great trip! Next stop of the GSOP will be in Salzburg; hope to see you who didn’t come to Prague there! Sbohem!
/ Prostaker