First, apologies for not updating the blog for some time. There has just been too many activities. Let me get to it and give you a run down on what’s been happening over last few days.

I would like to start with the latest news. In the middle of the $400 event all of sudden the table started shaking. I first thought it was a fellow poker player who was tilted and kicked the table. But after a short moment I realised that this was not normal. The chandeliers starting to make a resounding sound and people began standing up. It’s an earth quake! And this at the same time as I had pocket queens. I have never experienced anything like it. It’s like the sound of a freight train coming down the hall. And just as quickly as it started it ended. And big blind had folded my preflop raise.

Let me go back in time to yesterday morning.

I woke up after an excellent nights sleep, the first one for days. Today is the big cruise day. I looked out the window expecting sunshine. But. WTF as we poker players say in the chat. It was p-ssing down. Slightly tilted I went for a shower to come out again. And 10 minutes later, order restored and we had full sunshine again. Lovely.

I went down to the lobby to meet up with 75 players and their guests all geared up for a big day out on the high seas. One of the first ones I meet is Juha who continued to batter me with requests that he started a few days ago:

Henrik, sometimes my one year son Sami wakes me up in the middle of the night, disturbing my nights sleep. It might be better if I put him in your room directly?

Henrik, you know strong exposure to the sun is not good for one year olds. Can’t you following him around holding an umbrella and make sure that Sami stays in the shade?

And on it went.

Juha’s little monster Sami

We got on the Catamaran and got a warm welcome from the crew. It was Leroy, Elvis and Dexter. They ran through the safety procedures, declared the bar open and out on the open turquoise water we sailed. 

After an hour on the sea with refreshments mainly being Rum Punch, Beer and Rum Coke we stopped for an hour of snorkelling. Fish in every colour but no sharks except some of the players.

Next stop the neighbouring island of Nevis and it was time for lunch on the beach. Barbecued chicken straight from the grill. Yummy. The InterPoker players enjoyed themselves and some of them risked their limbs on the superfast jet-scooters that were available for rental.

After a few hours on the beach we headed back home to St. Kitts and the Marriott Resort. In conclusion a great day out and we all sent our thoughts to our loved ones at home hoping they enjoyed the cold and rain and in some cases snow. Our Canadian player Terry said they had -35 when he left.  

Next morning.

Woke up after just a few hours sleep. I played poker till 3:30 in the morning and was woken up at 5:30 by someone trying to call me on my cell that was positioned on the other side of the room. I ignored the call. 6:30 another call I ignored that one too. 7:15 next call and I had to go up and turn off the bl-dy phone. At this stage I was so winded up so I couldn’t go back to sleep. 

Today is the day when we are about to do the Extreme Poker Event. We were about to play the Deep Underwater Series of Poker III. We had an impressive line up with the following players attending:

Juha Helppi, Rob Halshaw, Alex Ferguson, Mark Shanta, Martin Wickholm, Hugo Asenjo, Emile Petit, Thomas Richter, Florian Langmann, Phillip Schuster, Andreas Torbentsson.

All fine poker players with millions in winnings to their name.

So for the second day in a row I was back on the boat. This time it was Kenneth who was the captain and responsible for the security of the operation. Once we where on site Kenneth and his crew started to lower the tables down to 15 feet under water. We ran through all the security measures once more and the structure of the tournament; 15 chips with 1-2 starting blinds that goes up every third hand. Yes you heard me right, it was a true fish bingo set up.

Tournament director and dealer was yours truly.

As expected the action was fast and furious. Alex Ferguson went out in the first hand when he ran into a straight beating his two pair. And then they went one by one until we were down to the final six and the final table.

It was the following players that made it this far; Juha Helppi, Emile Petit, Florian Langmann, Andreas Torbentsson, Martin Wickholm and Hugo Asenjo.

Final table started and players continued to go out in rocket speed till we were down to heads up. The two battling it out was Langmann and Wickholm. Langman had a massive chiplead and Wickholm immediately started with the all -in approach. And for a while it almost resembled something that could be played in a real poker tournament with flops and turn bets etc. But that didn’t last to long. After freezing the blinds when we came to heads up I was forced to raise them because we where about to run out of air. Not to mention that one starts to get cold after an hour under water without wet suit.

Finally all the chips went in the middle. Again. And this time Wickholm held K9 against Langmann’s Q10. Nothing hit and we had a new Extreme Poker, Deep Underwater Series III winner in the Swede Martin Wickholm. Well done!

If you want to read more about Extreme Poker check out the web site at www.extremepoker.com (a little bit of shameless self promoting).

Now it’s time to take an early night and I will be back with a new blog tomorrow

Yours truly

Henrik Nilsson

Head of InterPoker

www.interpoker.com

 

Second day. Wake up and the sun us shining. Again. Jetlagged so it’s 7 in the morning and impossible to sleep in. After a painful workout at the gym (every workout is a pain if you’re in bad shape) I have to go back and take care of some office work in my room. It stinks when you have the pool 10 meters from your balcony. After I got my duties out of the way I head down to the pool to see many recognizable faces. Most of them pale, pink or red. Hopefully that will be brown before the week is over.I head up to the poker room and can see that the $200 freezeout is filling up fast. I would expect approx 220 players. I would love to play it but don’t have time due to something as boring as a product meeting with one of our business associates. Now someone is coming up with a stroke of genius and move the meeting from the board room to the pool. And actually we moved it to in the pool. This is the best business meeting I have been having in my whole life. Discussing Tournament filters, Ecash improvements, Promotion engine optimization is so much more interesting if you can combine it with sunshine and a rum punch.

Meeting over and I go for a short snooze before dinner. A dinner that went on Caribbean time which meant a three hour sit down, but that’s a different story.

Tomorrow it’s time for the full day cruise. I will give you all the details about that later.

Henrik Nilsson

Head of Poker

www.interpoker.com