San Remo pre-tournament report
I'm here in San Remo, Italy. As I write this, it's noon, the scheduled start time for Day 1, but due to registration issues, bureaucracy and so forth it looks like 1:30 PM is the new start time.
When I ran into EPT Events staffer Mad Harper at the PokerStars party on Tuesday night, she gave me a big hug and exclaimed, "Terrence, we never see your presence here at EPTs!" While not technically true, it is the case that the two places where I spend most of my time -- Hong Kong and Vancouver -- are pretty darn far hikes to get to most European stops. Nevertheless, I've heard such amazing things about the action from last year's San Remo event that it would be a shame to miss a 5k Euro buy-in when I have nothing better going on.
The timing for this poker event is pretty good. I competed in gi BJJ last Sunday in Hong Kong, and posted about it here. That night I flew out from Hong Kong to Istanbul, spent 8 hours in the IST lounge, then flew on to Nice, which was nice.
Nice is very pretty. I don't think I've ever been on a drive that nice straight from the airport. The airport is actually on the coast and it's less than a 15-minute drive down Promenade des Anglais, which is the primary tourist attraction for its scenic shore. My trip roommate Dan and I spent less than 24 hours in Nice before heading on to San Remo, but it was pretty enjoyable. We even got to experience authentic French waiter snobbery at the restaurant where we ate dinner!
The train ride from Nice to San Remo kinda sucked. The train was packed and cramped as any Hong Kong, Tokyo or New York subway. Dan and I were the idiot tourists with all our luggage on board, and we were standing for about the first 30 minutes of it. Once we hit Monaco, most people departed and we were able to find seats the rest of the way.
San Remo is also pretty to walk around, but has gotten boring pretty fast. It's very small, and you can see pretty much all of it in a couple hours, which doesn't leave much. Dan and I went for a 4-5km jog along the water which was probably the highlight. But other than fashion shopping or eating there isn't much to do. Walk along the streets, see churches, that kind of thing. Usually the most entertaining thing to do is just sit on the street and have coffee and pastry. Heck, the city is so small that poker/the casino are the two lead items of interest on the Wikitravel page under the "Do" section, and we were featured on the front page of yesterday's newspaper.
In any event, we are paid through this hotel for the week, so hopefully I don't get coolered or do anything dumb. I can't think of a better way to create positive vibes about the town than by winning a million Euros or so.
When I ran into EPT Events staffer Mad Harper at the PokerStars party on Tuesday night, she gave me a big hug and exclaimed, "Terrence, we never see your presence here at EPTs!" While not technically true, it is the case that the two places where I spend most of my time -- Hong Kong and Vancouver -- are pretty darn far hikes to get to most European stops. Nevertheless, I've heard such amazing things about the action from last year's San Remo event that it would be a shame to miss a 5k Euro buy-in when I have nothing better going on.
The timing for this poker event is pretty good. I competed in gi BJJ last Sunday in Hong Kong, and posted about it here. That night I flew out from Hong Kong to Istanbul, spent 8 hours in the IST lounge, then flew on to Nice, which was nice.
Nice is very pretty. I don't think I've ever been on a drive that nice straight from the airport. The airport is actually on the coast and it's less than a 15-minute drive down Promenade des Anglais, which is the primary tourist attraction for its scenic shore. My trip roommate Dan and I spent less than 24 hours in Nice before heading on to San Remo, but it was pretty enjoyable. We even got to experience authentic French waiter snobbery at the restaurant where we ate dinner!
The train ride from Nice to San Remo kinda sucked. The train was packed and cramped as any Hong Kong, Tokyo or New York subway. Dan and I were the idiot tourists with all our luggage on board, and we were standing for about the first 30 minutes of it. Once we hit Monaco, most people departed and we were able to find seats the rest of the way.
San Remo is also pretty to walk around, but has gotten boring pretty fast. It's very small, and you can see pretty much all of it in a couple hours, which doesn't leave much. Dan and I went for a 4-5km jog along the water which was probably the highlight. But other than fashion shopping or eating there isn't much to do. Walk along the streets, see churches, that kind of thing. Usually the most entertaining thing to do is just sit on the street and have coffee and pastry. Heck, the city is so small that poker/the casino are the two lead items of interest on the Wikitravel page under the "Do" section, and we were featured on the front page of yesterday's newspaper.
In any event, we are paid through this hotel for the week, so hopefully I don't get coolered or do anything dumb. I can't think of a better way to create positive vibes about the town than by winning a million Euros or so.