While we were in Ireland last week, a chance encounter with BA Kildalen, Norwegian poker magazine entrepreneur, led me to accept the challenge of getting to a remote outpost in Sweden to play in the $1,000 Norwegian Open this Saturday. Snoopy bravely joined in this impromptu journey through the heart of Scandinavia, and so we found ourselves getting up at 4:30am today and heading for Heathrow, bound for, well, we weren't quite sure yet.
The idea was to hitch a plane to Oslo, then take a train to the city centre, then get a taxi to a certain hotel, where awaited (hopefully) a coach which would take us (and 30 other poker players) to some kind of outpost across the border where a large venue awaited the 300+ runners for the No-Limit hold'em tournament on Saturday. That was the idea.
Amazingly enough, that's about what happened - armed with only the phone number of my Norwegian contact, we caught all the forms of transport necessary to arrive at this truly unexpected holiday camp sort of complex complete with chalets and mini-golf. Snoopy and I picked up a third chalet-sharer and found one room with two sets of bunk beds, a kitchen and a bathroom, right next to a rather large and impressively grey lake.
With an hour to spare before the Friday competition (a $400 limit tournament) we grabbed a quick hamburger and decided not to have a nap (strictly, 5pm today is still last night for us). With the start tomorrow being 1pm, waking up at four would be less than productive - so, I would imagine, would be playing this limit event... but that hasn't stopped 125 of them diving on in as I type.
All the usual suspects are here - the Norsemen Frode Fagerli, Sverre Sundbo, Torstein Iversen, Anders Berg, Edgar Skjervold and Rolf Woods, as well as Jonny Lodden and others with Betsson hoodies, and several hundred more. I feel a bit like I have snuck into a convention of some sort, and may well be the only English person here, definitely the only one in the press area. Besides Snoops.
There's no dress code in the tournament area which looks a bit like an empty B&Q warehouse, nor, it appears, any dealers. The players seem more than happy, however, in fact the atmosphere is already convivial and it looks like no amount of legal grey area will stop the Norwegians enjoying the (very occasional) tournament, even if it means crossing the border and hiding in a kind of lakeside Scandinavian Butlin's.
I think we're in for a fun weekend. Snoopy is gathering data on some of our young (and slightly less young) opponents and news of the limit result will follow later.