In recent years, the World Poker Tour’s tournaments not held in North America were not televised. This will change for next season’s tournaments, starting with the Grand Prix de Paris at the Aviation Club de France in May, as Matchroom Sport will be producing European WPT events for worldwide television distribution. Matchroom will be looking to add to their success television poker events such as “The Big Game”, “Durrrr Million Dollar Challenge”, “Party Poker World Poker Open”, among other made-for-TV events.

The Season 9 schedule has not been released, but two tournaments in Europe have already been announced, the Spanish Championship in Barcelona May 13th and D’Amneville in France in November.

Almost forgot to tell you … the Paris poker room has closed. Life is a little rough for dealers in this town, as the entire casino biz is downsizing. As for me, I bid farewell to the rinky-dink Paris room with fond memories — as it was the only room in Vegas where I never lost. (I think I never lost at Stardust, either, but only played there twice.) Played the 1/2 NLH at Paris five times or so, and always won … a couple times won big … and thus it sparked the theory in my mind that the key to finding soft action in Vegas was bad parking.

Seriously, I haven’t tested it with scientific analysis yet … but it seems the better the parking, the worse my results. (The Wynn, and the Rio are prime examples.) I surmise it has something to do with bad parking keeping the locals away, who are generally better players than tourists — or at least strong enough to never give me their entire stack on a bluff, removing the implied odds I love to have when making a questionable call.

Also out of business is a restaurant that is near-and-dear to many poker players’ hearts: Antonio’s, in the Rio. Always a reliable upper-middle-class Italian dining experience during the WSOP, Antonio’s was the place where Jay Greenspan introduced me to the wonders of Lagavulin scotch, and Tom Schneider introduced me to the joys of gambling for the bill via 1-to1,000.

I remember our first “medium-big game” like it was yesterday … he had two numbers to choose from, and he stared me down looking for reads — I threw off the reverse tell to make him think I picked 724, when in reality the number was 725. Ahh, not paying making Tom pay made the lasagna I had just finished taste even better … and thus I always loved that 1-to-1,000 stadium, winning the next two matches I would play there, and never losing.

And maybe Tom … and their nice friend from Phoenix whose name I forget:

Somewhere along the way to posting six losing sessions out of eight and after receiving a severe tongue-lashing from Robert G (with echoes of Tulsa in my head) I abandoned my soccer-shootout tally and quest for five wins in a row. Hadn’t given it a thought since then, really, until today, upon seeing the results of my past four sessions:

DATE — VENUE — HRS — GAME — BUYIN(s) — CASHOUT — EXTRA — NET
15-Mar — venetian — 5.5 — 2/5 nlh — 600 (2) — 776 — 2 — 174
21-Mar — paris — .25 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 249 — 2 — 47
22-Mar — golden nugget — 3 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1709 — 0 — 1509
24-Mar — venetian — 2.25 — 1/2 nlh — 200 (1) — 1262 — 2 — 1060

I swear I won’t be thinking about it next time I play.