Last night at
DTD the invasion began.
Queuing to buy in to the Sunday night competition I heard the unmistakable American english accent of a would be Rolf Slowboon (you know who I mean) behind me as this delightful blonde young man
shouted across the room 'Tikay Tikay'. Yes the scandies had arrived. Delayed at the airport by the weather the first contingent had arrived straight from the airport without checking into their hotel they were that desperate to play poker.
Tikay introduced me to a guy whose first name was too difficult for me to get even on the umpteenth time of trying due to the gutteral inflections and the fact it was all consenents and no vowels - so we agreed I could call him John.
Play was interesting, as most of the players on my table (I was initially only one of two non scandie players) were not used to playing much live poker there was a fair bit of acting out of turn and lots of reminders that it is English only at the table. Nice bunch though and they were really up for playing scandie poker - calling my raise under the gun (I had
) with
and catching the
on the flop......they bet out and I decided to make a stand and pushed all in - they crumpled (just the once) and couldn't call. Proudest moment of the night - making a scandie fold!!
(Although for a moment there I thought I was a gonner)
Great atmosphere, lots of cash games going and Claw was drooling watching the Omaha game where there was to quote her "Free money" to be had.
One of the players told me, through a mouthful of snuff, he was delighted to be here because for the last month he hasn't been able to go anywhere because of the snow and he was looking forward to seeing some nice weather. However he would be playing poker from opening to closing for 9 days here and going back to the hotel every morning to play Chinese. Catching a few hours sleep here and there. I don't think he will be seeing much sunshine...
Best quote of the night "I don't like to look at my cards before raising, it spoils the suprise later on". Amazingly not from the mouth of Tikay but one of our Scandie cousins. At my first table everytime one of the visitors won a pot they all clinked glasses and had a glug of their beers - men and women. It was a fun night - and hardly any of them were there - tonight is going to be mad.
Good luck Simon and the team!
Author