Katja’s leaving

15. February 2006 | Category: 50outs

Katja’s leaving to Cardiff right now.

“The Poker Nations Cup is coming to Wales this week, pitting country against country in a battle of wits. The competition further pushes poker into the realm of traditional sports, which have international competitions of their own, such as the World Cup and the Davis Cup for soccer and tennis, respectively. While the $100,000 prize pool may pale to that of other international poker competitions like the WSOP, it affords the winning team bragging rights for its entire country. And that is priceless.

In the running for the Poker Nations Cup are Denmark, England, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, and naturally, the US of A. Each country’s team will be comprised of six players. Each player will play in one of six sit-and go tournaments, and each team’s starting final table chip stack will be determined by the cumulative performance of all team members in these tournaments. At the final table, the poker competition will adopt a sort of relay race format, with team captains having the options of switching team members at the table.

Each team will consist of five pros and one online qualifier sent by online poker room Pacific Poker. Some of the poker stars joining in the competition are Robert Williamson, Julian Gardner, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Hendon “Mobster” Ram Vaswani, Jan Sorenson, and Noel Furlong. The German team will consist of the five poker pros Katja Thate, Andreas Krause, Christoph Haller, Roland Specht, and the online qualifier Sebastian Zentgraf. The Poker Nations Cup kicks off on February 16th and runs through the 19th.”

In her last preparation for the trip she won just annother 26 player 200€ buyin tournament (top two splitted pricemoney) so she is in good shape. Bankroll is loaded to the max for all the various sidebets, ahem, sidegames that will go on there.

The german online qualifier, Sebastian, contacted me yesterday about some details. He seems to be a nice guy, he even writes a blog himself, www.badbeatbasti.com (english). Futhermore, he seems to know at least enough of the game to write regulary on www.pokertips.org (also available in german). So, the team is set, it could be mixed up much worse I guess 😉

That leaves me here. Sitting on my desk in boring Stuttgart, doing a job I dont like (I get forced to do so by the ridiculous amounts of money they pay me). Makes one feel left over, especially a dedicated poker player compulsive gambler like me. Honestly, I would love to go there and meet friends, make new ones, win or lose some money and have a good time, alive-and-kicking. Better than burried-and-dead like here. But, thats true in my case for almost each and every tournament and high-limit cash game around so I am used to that. And having Katja going there is almost like going myself, is is really as close as it possible can be. I wish her the absolute best, fantastic time and a sharp game. I will gladly spend the money she makes, like always 😉

Whenever I will hear something about the event I will post updates here, so stay tuned.