Up Close

Joe 'The Elegance' Beevers, 29/01/2005

EPT Casino Copenhagen, Copenhagen
Report by Joe on Saturday, 29 January 2005 at 1:29 pm

I can remember a few years ago when there were gaps in the poker calendar and any new festival had a choice of date. These days there are no gaps and there are often three or more different festivals going on at any one time. There aren't many poker venues that I haven't been to at least once so when the other three went off to Atlantic City for the inaugural WSOP Tour Event I really wished that I could have gone with them. A mixture of business and personal circumstances dictated otherwise. Warren Karp has told me that he wasn't overly impressed with the structures of this $10,000 buy in event as the organisers tried to get it over as quickly as they could. Nevertheless Barny had another strong finish and collected over $23,000. I really fancy a big result for the senior Mobster this year.

Tunica had always been high up on the list of events for 2005 and when the EPT announced the dates for Copenhagen it was obvious that it was logistically impossible to do both. This is the first EPT event of the year at a new poker venue, there has never been poker in Copenhagen before, and we were keen to give it the Mob's support.

On our way from the airport to the SAS Radisson we learnt that Denmark has more pigs than people, although I still haven't seen a pig. Apparently, unlike the picture they paint in the Carlsberg adverts, they send all the best bacon abroad and keep the worst of it here. I won't be having a bacon sarnie until I get home. You are also never more than 50 miles from the sea and Denmark is the least corrupt country in the world. When I queried how you could possibly measure that it was pointed out that if you try to cross the road without a green light then other pedestrians will shout at you because it's a bad example to children. We might have to test that later :-).

I have already seen a number of the faces here: Current world champion, Greg 'Fossilman' Raymer, Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliott, Dutch Boyd (I wonder what he got for the share he sold on E-Bay?), recent Luton winner Julian Thew and Keith 'The Camel' Hawkins.

One of Copenhagen's residents is none other than Jesse May who is working with ex Late Night Poker producer, Robert Gardner, on a series of shows for the new poker channel called Up Close. There will be a series of ten shows where Jesse interviews for 30 - 40 minutes players from the poker circuit much more in depth than has been done previously. As Rob put it 'The movers and shakers of the poker world'. Barny and I were invited to take part in the first series together with Greg Raymer, Dave Colclough, Marcel Luske and Padraig Parkinson and there wasn't a coffee cup in sight.

The Poker Channel will start on the Sky TV Network mid March 2005 and the EPT Scandinavian Open 2005 starts in about half an hour.

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