PokerListings Diaries – Once Upon a Time in Nottingham
Player stories, interviews, tournament results, event announcements, promotional offers, you see them every day on the internet in one of the many poker media outlets that are there to support the industry we all care about so much.
However, what many players don't know is what effort it takes to set up media outlets, organizing live events, and everything what comes along with that. For live events, there are so many people who support the entire event from the location itself, or from a distance. Not to mention the months of preparation needed to have everything arranged from start to finish.
With PokerListings Diaries, we're going to put a different spin on this. We take you with us into the world of working in the poker world. A world in which it is a real pleasure to work, and where memories last forever!
Chapter I : Live Reporting With Melvin Schroen
For the past two years, I have been working with PokerListings and always have been responsible for creating content for our websites www.pokerlistings.nl and www.pokerlistings.com. Along this amazing job, which I rolled into thanks to the amazing Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk, I got the opportunity as well to be part of The Festival Series. An incredible epic live event which just recently had its 4th stop and this time in Nottingham, UK.
At two of the previous events, in Tallinn and Bratislava respectively, I had been working as an event host, and being responsible for organizing side events such as the Flip ‘n Go’s, and the Cash Game Challenge. But mostly, supporting the players with all their questions, and running around to help any other colleague who could use a hand. To be an addition to the poker community is something I really admire to do, and it is always a true honor to learn from top professionals in the likes of the owner of The Festival Series Martin ‘Franke’ von Zweigbergk, and my manager at PokerListings; Mauritz Altikardes. For the stop in Nottingham, the job description was about to change.
Rise and Shine; Nottingham
Already from the previous stop at Banco Casino in Bratislava, I knew that I would come along for the next The Festival Series stop, planned in February 2023 in Nottingham. Me, a 34-year-young Dutchman, who is currently living in Poland and being in the IT-business as a daily profession, I consider working in the poker industry as a true passion. The love for the game is immense, and the likes for the people which it attracts is full epicness.
After months of preparation, in terms of creating content and promoting satellite events for players, it was finally time to travel to the poker heaven of UK, the Dusk Till Dawn Pokerclub from owner Rob Yong. A place where I had never been before, and where the desire towards it was immense as its just wonderful to be around English people. Throughout all my life, I had about only good experiences with English folks, in both my personal life and professional life. I could not wait to set foot once again in the UK, first time after the Brexit.
12th of February, extremely early in the morning, I said goodbye to the loved ones back home, and set foot towards Warsaw Chopin Airport, to finally head to London-Luton Airport. After a pleasant flight, going back in time, finally arrived around 8:00 AM in Luton, where I had to take a bus to the local train station, and from there onwards to Nottingham. Luckily, I noticed just on time that my train was leaving from a different platform, and together with some other folks I made it just on time to take a seat in the right train. After a nice travel of around 1,5 hour, I arrived at my final destination. The place where legendary Robin Hood grew up, Nottingham.
After dropping off my belongings at the my hotel, the Park Plaza hotel, I made way to meet the magical duo Franke and Mau. Ironically enough, they were involved in a heated battle of Open Face Chinese poker (Just for you guys, hereby the rules of OFC), being held at a typical English place called Josephine’s Tea Lounge & Bistro, close to the main square. They weren’t here without a valid reason, as the hospitality package holders would also visit this place later in the week. After having had a cup of english tea and couple nibbles, and after seeing a blood shedding battle between the two, we finally went on the road towards Dusk Till Dawn Pokerclub.
Arrived at the premise, my main location for the next 8 days, I directly got to meet the owner of it all, Rob Yong. A very pleasant person to meet. And after having wondered around inside, it was time to open up my laptop and getting started to prepare for my first ever day of taking care of the live report for PokerListings. When the evening fell, most of the crew members were already gone as it had been a long day for them already, but I remained on site to finish off a couple of contents, and to read through all event information of the coming period once again. First day was in the books. With having met so many great people, and having seen familiar faces of The Festival Series crew and finished all my preparations for the day to come plus writing a recap of Day 1A which took place at Sunday. It was decided not to make reporting from 1A as it was arrival day basically. After all that, I called it a day and moved back to the hotel to drop off my stuff. It was time to explore the city a bit and that’s exactly what I did. Nottingham night life is very active, but to be part of that, was not in my agenda at all, as the first day of real work was coming close. So I left my dancing shoes tidy as they were.
PokerListings Championship Blog
Day 1 of the PokerListings Championship, an event being part of The Festival Series since the beginning, and where always a big number of players is battling it out to finally crown a Champion. With a low buy-in of just £ 120 and a guaranteed prize pool of £ 25.000, it was going to be a complete mayhem, with the first starting flight already behind us. And oh boy, it did! But first it was time to hit the roads with fellow Festival Series colleague and friend, Mairo ‘Estonian Weirdo’ Toom, hereby some pictures of the short sightseeing tour we had:
During the early days of this event, I was given the freedom to get used to the grand backdrop of live blogging, and as time progressed, I got into the right rhythm. It's not rocket science, of course, but hitting the right chord with a blog is pure art. That is my ambition in live blogging, and I will also continue to strive to continuously improve myself.
I don't consider myself an 'ABC blogger', purely because I like to improvise. My own experience as a player, and following dozens of live blogs about the EPT and WSOP and so on, has given me a better understanding of what the reader wants to see, which is important to players. That's what I focus on. During these first days I tested everything necessary to find the right gear. Partly because of the great people that come to The Festival Series, it really made my work a real pleasure. Poker players are generally very approachable, but if they also become familiar to you, then it's a win-win situation for me. I like being social, especially a bit of banter here and there, it makes working at such festivals really interesting, but it can also backfire on you. Meaning, poker players love to talk. Bad beats, previous tournaments, any kind of situation in the current game, upcoming games, online poker, it can become very endless conversations. Which is absolutely amazing off course, but when working as a live reporter at a festival, time is key to success.
With the starting flights being an absolute banger with 383 entrants, accumulating a prize pool of £ 37.151. The second day kicked off with just 57 players remaining, which gave me a more comfortable spot to focus on blogging actual action at the tables. If you would like to qualify for the next PokerListings Championship by the way which will be in sunny Malta at Portomaso Casino, head over to our Facebook Page for more information, as satellites are already running! All players were so kind in general and helped me to be up to speed when it had to be, and dealers even assisted in getting chip counts and what not, all very cool. With the Main Event also kicking off, it was promised to be a busy day for me, but the focus relied on the PokerListings Championship.
When going to the final table, after a long day already, I came in touch for the first time with ‘’stream blogging’’. I can tell you, rewinding is needed in certain hands, as it might not seem to go that fast, to be able to note down everything and to put it online, requires the needed attention. After all, it all went well, and with an amazing winner of the whole event in the likes of Colin Lovelock, and a true warrior in the name of Russel Bowman as a runner-up, it had two great personalities finishing on the top spots. It was an absolute banger of a final table and I am glad such a nice personality like Colin took it down. I will see you back in Malta as you took home a package as well for the next Festival Series!
As the first big event had finished and I absolutely loved every single bit of it in regards of the Blogging, I met some many players, in which loads qualified themselves through Unibet and PokerStars for example, an incredible ambiance! Now, it was time to get going with the Main Event. Loads of players were expected and the guaranteed was going to be crushed once again. But more about that in the second chapter of these diaries. I will go more into detail about some fun moments, poker action, and everything concerning the job: Live blogging.
Hope you enjoyed the first part of my PokerListings Diary. Stay tuned for more to follow!
