Bigger Deal

“Send in the clowns”

Sitting in the press room at the EPT Dortmund , looking out the huge windows at the rain coming down on the forest that surrounds us. The trees are late-January bare, and a Smokey Mountain mist hangs in the air. Who knows – Mount Mitchell could be right across the valley below us. A lot of people wonder why the Casino Hohensyburg is parked out here in the middle of nowhere, but at times like this, I don’t ask – I just dig the view. The bus ride is worth it.

And bus rides are pretty damned interesting around here. The welcome party was at a cool nightclub, but after a long day, I was ready to crash and be fresh for the excitement of Day 1a. So I got on the first bus; it was going to leave at 10:45pm. I wasn’t the only one with this plan – the bus was fairly full at 10:40. So when 11:00pm came and went without departure, I went to the driver and said, “We need to leave now. The other bus leaves at 11:30 – people can get that one.” He listened politely and then said, “No English.” Nice read, Lee. I enlisted one of the German-speaking passengers, who explained the situation to our driver.

That sort of did the trick – he pulled out at 11:15pm. As did the other bus. I guess taxis picked up anybody who thought they were getting on the 11:30 bus.

Speaking of 11:30 busses… we walked out of the Hilton the next morning to get on the 11:30am bus that was going to the casino. It was about 11:20. Got there and noticed a bus missing. “Where’s the 11:30 bus?” “It left.” We looked at our watches; it wasn’t yet 11:25. Fortunately, one of the German-speaking PokerStars staff was with us. “How is it that the 11:30 bus has already left at not even 11:25?” “We thought it was 11:30 already.” We took a taxi. We heard that the 1:30 bus, though, left at 2:00, to make up early departure of the 11:30 bus. It all evened out.

Which brings me to the conversation that I had at the bar with Sunset+Vine staffers Francine Watson and Dave Corfield. S+V does the TV production of all EPT events, and their people are as much a part of the EPT as, well, the cards and chips. Francine and Dave are probably the only two people on the TV side who have been with the EPT since Season One. Francine is the EPT Producer and Dave is one of the ace cameramen who consistently produce astonishing video of the EPT events. Over a cappuccino yesterday, Dave allowed as how the EPT is kind of a traveling circus. The same people move from town to town, set up the tent, and put on the circus. Except in our circus, the townspeople can be part of the show, if they’ve got the buy-in. Anyway, there is a comforting, if unusual, convergence of the same faces everywhere. The PokerStars/EPT staffers, the bloggers and photographers, all corralled by Mad Harper. The Sunset+Vine people.

And then there’s Martin. Martin works for Trans-sport, a company that ships the TV set and various other key ingredients to each venue. Martin walks like a sailor and works like three people. I’ve never seen anybody who seems so delighted to work so hard. If you ask if he’s well, Martin says, “Sound, thanks.” And sound he is. If you ever wonder how that amazing EPT TV set gets from Point A to Point B, the answer is “Martin”. He and his “lorry”, as he calls it, get the pieces from Nottingham, England to wherever the EPT is. Then he helps put together the TV set. I didn’t even want to ask Martin how he got all the stuff to the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas. But there he was, running gaffer tape over carpet seams. Martin and his magic lorry.

And as I’ve thought about it, I can see why the carnies – the denizens of the traveling circus – think of each other as family. We have a special kind of job: providing entertainment. Some of us provide that entertainment by making the poker tournament run smoothly. Others – Neil, Lina, Mickey, Mark – bring the pictures to the people around the world wanting to peek into the tent. And the bloggers – Stephen, Brad (when we can get him on this side of the pond), Klaus, and so many more – transmit stories that share the fun with the whole poker community. They, along with the Sunset+Vine folks, and the EPT Live  crew, turn a local circus into a worldwide celebration of this amazing game.

Which got Klaus Housmann, who’s a staffer at Intellipoker.de, and me to thinking about the number of hands that he and his ilk report on at every EPT event. We were thinking that we need a shorthand to describe all-in poker hands. After all, we’ve probably seen pretty much every permutation of the scenario. There’s no need to say “Roland de Wolfe and Thomas Fougeron both had pocket 9’s and split the pot.” The bloggers could just write:

             RdW-99/TF-99

Of course, you have to play on the tour for awhile before you get referred to by just your initial code. And if a four-flush comes and Roland busts Thomas:

             RdW-99/TF 99! xTF

Or Marcel Luske sucks out on the river with an underpair against an unknown to double up (as I think I just saw on the tournament floor below me)…

             ML-44/??-88 _ _ _ _ ! 2ML

Leaving the bloggers much more time to describe the local color. Such as the German passion for licorice candy, which is a story for a different time.

But I think Dave Corfield has it right – this is just a traveling circus with cards and chips. And I’m proud to be one of the clowns.

“Quick, send in the clowns. Don’t bother, they’re here”