[Ed note: To read Phil's opening entry to his diary, please click here]
Well, nobody said it was going to be easy. Our proposed land based qualifier in France may now be run in England after the venue we were talking wiith decided they didnt want to run a sat for the Grand Prix as they had a high profile event taking place at a similar time and thought there might be a conflict. I can see their point too.So we are now looking into venues in the London area and I hope to move pretty quickly on this in the next week. It is really tricky trying to tie up ends with all the venues as these guys are all very busy and it seems to take a while to get replies and cast iron agreements back. The one venue that we are a long way down the road with is in Sweden which I think is almost ready to announce, we have a choice of two dates there and I havent yet confirmed one as I want to see what dates are available at the other venues before commiting.
We had a launch party In a swanky London members' club the other day with an assortment of Journalists from a variety of poker mags and daily newspapers. David Hood the PR boss at Hills is a master at these things and we got about 26 runners for a tourney with about £1500 of free bets to play for.
I was quite touched by the feedback from them of last year's comp and it was great to see how knowledgeable they were about the event. We ended up playing a few sit n gos and even got the club manager involved in the last game so we could stay past our alloted time of 1am. Cupcake (right) was a breath of fresh air and managed to make one of the strangest raises ever when four handed. He went to reach for some chips and whisper in the ear of someone he was giving tips to but the double motion seemed to unsettle him as he toppled over backwards off his chair and onto the floor. Legs in the air, he then raised three big blinds whilst on his back under the table and followed up by asking if anyone could help him up as he had hurt his back... guess who beat Steve Vladar heads up in the end...
All in all a good night was had by all and some good contacts were made by both parties.
The player list is being agreed between Hills and Presentable and we are trying to arrange a meeting in Vegas during the WSOP to present a package to a large number of great players which I hope will be successful, the only problem is I am not sure I am available to go, its a bit sickening to be sorting out Vegas meetings when you cannot go yourself but if we get the players we want it could be a nice coup.
Read Junior's blog last night and for the first time in ages I was sad not to be involved full time in the poker scene any more as I felt the pangs of sorrow that he mentioned about not being out in Vegas this year.To all the blondites out in Vegas, have a great time, play your best and enjoy it all and if you get to Binions take a look at the Wall of Champions and when you look at last year's pic take a look over Joe Hachem's shoulder at the blurred guy in the grey jumper... its me!!