24 March 2008

Tournament Schedule

I hope everyone had a great Easter. Mine did not go as smoothly as planned, but everything is fine now. I went on a last minute vacation to the Canary Islands to spend a few days with my good friends Jani and Mikko. We are staying at a beuatiful five star hotel, but my first room had no Internet, they moved me and now I am set. We all have been working extra hard on our golf games because we are so competitive with each other. The trash talking has been non stop and the way Mikko is talking, he is ready to take on Tiger Woods.

I have started to host some Bounty tournaments on Martins Poker. All the information is available on Martins Poker, click the link for all the details. The tournaments are €5 + €1 buy in with rebuys for the first 4 levels. If you knock me out, you receive €200 immediately into your account.

Here are the dates I will be playing:

Tuesday: March 25 at 20:00CET
Thursday: March 27 at 20:00CET

I look forward to seeing you all at the tables and good luck, your going to need it.

18 March 2008

Exciting News

I just returned from a small little golf vacation with my good Finnish buddies Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies, Jani Vilmunen, and my accountant Tommi Majala at the beautiful Four Seasons in Nice, France. It was a great trip and my golf game took a big jump. I am now shooting from 92-96 consistently which is a lot more fun then shooting 114 like I was doing a few weeks ago.


While were on the way to the airport we were enjoying a few drinks and it was not long before we were in a heated debate over who was was the best at all the different games. Jani is not a big guy, and he was working on his third beer. Three beers for Jani is about nine beers for the average guy, so you can imagine that he is really feeling good and his confidence level is at an all time high. He was bragging about how he has not had a losing heads up PLO session in a long time. Ilari who also had about three beers was sober as could be and knew that it was the perfect time to challenge Jani to a match of some sort. I joined in the negotiations and we were trying to come up with some interesting HU battles for a large amount of money. We decided to call one of the most successful HU no limit players, our friend Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelpuro to see if he would be interested in gambling with his buddies. Sami is only 23 but he has established himself as an online legend and has a hard time finding opponents that will play him. The boys flew back to Finland that night and met Sami at the night club and got him to agree on a bet. It is going to be a team HU match, Ilari and myself vs Jani and Sami.

All matches will be played on Martins Poker with 200BB stacks.

I will play LarzLuzak in NL HU and Ilari will play Jani in HU PLO.

If one team wins both matches, then they are crowned Champions. If it is a split, then I will play Sami in a final tie breaker, the final match will be NL to decide the Champion.

Just when you thought that was an interesting heads up match, there is another one that is in the works that would be a dream come true. I made a little challenge to Doyle in the latest Card Player magazine, and it seems like Doyle has gladly accepted.

Since I am in Europe I have not yet seen the cover or read the article. It is my first ever CardPlayer cover and I am excited to see it. My new agent Chris is working on getting the match on TV. I will try and talk to Doyle and iron out the details. No matter who wins, it will be an amazing experience playing Doyle, one of the great legends of all time, heads up for over a million dollars. I am getting excited just thinking about it.

I have been playing a lot online the past few days on Martins Poker. I have been running really well in NL, but Ilari has been getting the best of me in PLO the past few days. I have been playing 50-100 to 200-400 Euros games.

Starting this Friday I will be playing in a few Bounty tournament on Martins Poker. The entry fee will be $5 Euros and the bounty on my head is $200 Euros. You can download Martins Poker by clicking on that link, unfortunately USA residents are not allowed to play on Martins Poker currently, hopefully that changes soon.


Maya has been putting some finishing touches on the loft and it really finally feels like home. I am still waiting on my computer chair to arrive, I have been playing online sitting on the kitchen chairs and it is not very comfortable.


I forgot to mention in my last blog that I bought a new car last time I was in Monaco. It has been awhile since I bought myself something really nice, so I decided to go big time and get the newest Range Rover, the SE Vogue. I sparred no expense and got all the top accessories and extras, needless to say, Mila will be having fun in the backseat with all the TV's and other gadgets.

I write soon with more details about the bounty tournaments on Martins Poker. And hopefully I have news about the match with Doyle as well. I am going to try and play a little tennis this afternoon or hit the gym. Hopefully I will see some of you on Martins Poker battling with me in the upcoming tournaments.

Good luck at the tables
-Patrik-

07 March 2008

Back Home

I was visiting Vegas for a few days to play in the NBC Heads up and have a few meetings. I played the NBC Heads Up tournament this past weekend, and unfortunately I did not last too long. I was up against poker commentator Gabe Kaplan in the first round anhd started off well and built a nice chip lead. The levels are not long, and was forced to push the action faster than I would have liked. When I had a slight lead, we got it all in before the flop and I had JT and he had AJ. The flop was a good one for me, 89K, but I did not hit any of my outs and we were close to even. The blinds were 600-1200 when I looked down at 22 and pushed all in from the button and Gabe called with A5 with the 5 of diamonds, and the flop came A K Q all diamonds.

I had a great meeting on the golf course yesterday which could lead to a lot of interesting deals for me. I wish I could give you all the fun details, but you will have to wait a few weeks before I can public ally announce them. We discussed one interesting golf bet involving a few friends and it looks like it might even be on TV, which would be a lot of fun.

It is nice to be home in Monaco, it really feels like home now, because Maya and Mila are here, but the first few days have been rough for them, because they are struggling with the jetlag. Naturally, with all the travels I have been through, I do not feel any jetlag.

It was an adventurous trip from Las Vegas. We took a Southwest flight from LV to LAX, and naturally one of my bags did not make it. Thankfully my assistant made the flight with us to LA in case of a situation like this. He waited for the next flight from Vegas to arrive and rushed the bag across two terminals to us while we checked in for our American Airlines flight to London. Mila is a pro traveler, she has flown around the world a few times now and sits quietly and enjoys the flight.

I will be playing a lot of golf and tennis the next few days and have a big golf match with my buddy Jani in a a week or so. We are playing 18 holes for $100,000 and he has to beat me by 15 shots. We are playing from the club tees at the Four Seasons golf resort in the south of France. I think I have an edge and hopefully I can pull it out. I want to thank my favorite caddie and golf coach Joe, who has helped my game a ton the past few weeks.

I will be in Monaco for about six weeks before heading back to Vegas for Poker after Dark and the WPT Championships in the middle of April. Hopefully I can get a little action online in the meantime and make some money.

-Patrik-