We’re ill!!!

So I thought I didn’t get the illness “the percent” got in Prague…I was wrong. I got it but instead of getting it as a normal cold I got the virus in my brain membrane…this is something I’ve got a few times before so I know how to handle it but still frustrating with a headache worse than the worst you can imagine

“At least Casper is ok” I thought for myself today but I was wrong. He got a really high fever late tonight. 39,5 degrees and really ill with cramps and everything. I’m really good with those kind of situations and never panic so I just called the “hot line” we have with nurses who can help you out with what to do. He had cramps and a bad ache in his stomach. I was told it’s probably the winter flu and wanted me to give him max dose painkillers. Seems to help cause he’s asleep now without the cramps and nightmares. Phew! He will sleep in my bed tonight and I’ll take the couch. Don’t wanna get his stuff cause it seemed really bad and I don’t think he has the same virus as I do.

This really sucks cause it means we wont make it to the dentist on Friday cause he needs to be 100% healthy to take the drugs they give him (so he wont remember anything after). This also screws up my plans for tomorrow. Need to go into town to buy the last Christmas gifts which I wont be able to now. Yikes! If he isn’t better on Friday we have to cancel our dinner plans too. Fredrik and Kim we’re supposed to come over for dinner…

At least mom took me to Farsta shopping mall today where I bought almost all of the Christmas gifts. Now it’s only a few more to go. Thanks mom!!

Will try to get some sleep now. Was supposed to go to bed hours ago but didn’t wanna leave Casper without surveillance. Now he’s been asleep for 1,5 hour and his fever has dropped 1,5 degrees so I think he’s a little bit better.

My little ill Ghost…

ZzzzZZzzZzZzzzZzzzz

The final table could be the least interesting ever in EPT history. I’m soooo booooored and frustrated cause this seems like a never ending story. Gah!!! Grrrr!!

Pragus so far has been good and bad. The company, or like Mad now calls him, my percent and I had a great time but the hotel is a joke. Bad service, bad food and V-E-R-Y expensive. The expenses for this will be higher than Monte Carlo I think. Sick! We’re in Prague. It’s supposed to be cheap here. Ah well.

We’ve been out having dinner almost every night or at least went out for some drinks. Really nice party here except for the nightclub we tested on Wednesday. That was way beyond bad. It was crap and we were the only guests. Yesterday we went to a place called Mojito Café. What a lovely place. Looked like an mexican bar han they had a whole menu full of different mojitos. I LOVE mojitos and so does almost all of my colleagues.

It’s only like a week until Christmas. Feels sick. Will enjoy it though. Really looking forward to see Cicci! After that it’s only 1,5 week to the PCA which will be a total blast. I’ve had a great time there every year, can’t see why this year will be worse

Here’s some of all the pics from Prague. I’m better with the camera than the typing *s*.

Wille and Gus first night at the welcome drink

“I don’t know if I can take a bet on this one”, said William. Last year this tree had bigger balls in it and William had a prop bet with one of the Norwegians on how many

First night at some lovely Czech restaurant

Dinner on Henke’s birthday with a lot of people

P borrowed my camera. This is what he found at the nightclubs toilet

LL=Lina and Lou

Me and the bday boy

Me and the percent

William and Marc

Argentinian restaurant…lovely food

A cute little gift from Henke, a massage kit with happy ending *s*

A sit and go yesterday after the tournament finished

Me and Hilda on the football game

Next time I won’t get sucked out on…

Made it to the final table in the 50 grand on PokerStars but after three three outers I was busto in 8th place. Grrrrr… At least I achieved my goal with having ONE final table in a semi big tournament before Prague…

GG WP GN off to bed

Prague’s getting closer…

It’s only a few days before it’s time for the last EPT this year. Just like last year we’re heading to Prague. We had a great time there last year so I can’t see why it would be anything else than great this year *s*. I will stay at the lovely Hilton where the tournament is held. The rooms aren’t as good as they were in Warsaw but still ok. I’m going there midday on Monday direct flight from Stockholm which is always to prefer. Hopefully I also get P to come. Me, Hilda and J-Lo tries our best to get him to come

This weekend will be busy. Don’t know how I will get time with everything. Priority number one is to take Casper to a doctor. He has this weird rash on his right shoulder. He’s had it for almost three weeks now. Weirdo. Tomorrow night we’re heading to Lena to have dinner with her and Noelia plus all the kids. Really looking forward to it. On Saturday I promised miss Nordenstam to join her to a party but somehow I also promised Jenny to hang out with them. We’ll see what happens. On Sunday it’s packing on the schedule.

I got myself a new haircut today. It’s pretty short but now I said good bye to all the toiled hair. I love the new color. It’s very cold and blond, something I prefer.

Back to winning at online poker. Byyyye

What happens when the government runs a Swedish Championship…

In Sweden we have monopoly on lottery. This means the only one who are allowed to run any kind of lottery in Sweden is the Swedish government and they are. They have lotteries, they have a casino (four actually), they have ATG where you can gamble on horses, soccer etc, they have slot machines and a lot of other “money machines” which gives them huge profits every year. They also have a poker site called Svenska Spel. This site is only open for Swedish players and is based on the Boss Media network (but you can’t play against anyone else than the ones logged into Svenska Spel).

The last four years we’ve had a Swedish poker federation who has been the ones who arranged the Swedish championship. First it was only live poker but nowadays we also have it online. Each year they let all the interested poker sites do a purchase. The one with the best offer gets to run the championship. Normally this is the site that can offer the best guaranteed prize pool that benefits all the players. The live championship we can’t have in Sweden so since two years ago we’ve had it in Tallinn, Estonia. Before this was held on a poker club in Stockholm called “Klubben”.

As you can see from the above we already had a Swedish championship but this didn’t stop Svenska Spel from arranging their own one. Of course this made a lot of people upset since we now have so many Swedish champions that it doesn’t even feel like a status to get. The Swedish poker federation sued Svenska Spel earlier this year since they we’re first to have a SM (=Swedish Championship). Svepof (the poker federation) already had the trademark trespass and the lawsuit is processed. What happens there the future will tell.

The tournament online last week showed how incompetent Svenska Spel is and with 21 players left the software couldn’t handle all the railbirds and collapsed. Two of the 21 players got kicked out and got blinded away. This was at 21:29 at night. Nothing happened, they (Svenska Spel) didn’t pause the tournament and it continued almost another hour.

One hour later they were 15 players left and now Svenska Spel decided to pause the tournament and start an investigation of what happened. They sent out a press release saying they would look into the problems and hoped the tournament could continue the day after. Another day went by. On Monday morning they sent out a new email saying they hadn’t found a solution to the problem but hoped the tournament could continue the day after this.

The next morning comes and this is when the big mess starts. Svenska Spel sends out a press release saying that they wont continue the tournament and the 21 (not the remaining 15 players but the 21) would split the money based on their chips when 21 players remained.

For anyone who has ever played poker and knows a little bit of math this is very wrong. First of all this meant that players who were short stacked with 21 players but still were in when they were down to 15 would lose a lot of money. One of the players had around average when 21 remained but was chip second when they broke the tournament with 15. He lost 20 000 Euros (200k SEK). Another one was in 20th spot with 21 but survived and 14th when they stopped it. He lost around 6000 Euros. The happy six players who already had busted out got more money than people still in the tournament… as you can see this is way wrong and out of the line.

Svenska Spel is now hiding behind the Swedish law. They say they cannot give compensation in this case and the most integral thing to do in this situation is to turn back the time and go with their stacks with 21 players remaining. They don’t lose a single crown in this big mess that they created. Their reputation is now even worse than it was before but they still made a lot of money on the tournament and continues to make a lot of money on their little site.
As well as the issues with the money there is the issue that Svenska Spel arranged a Swedish Championship and didn’t continue the tournament until we had a champion in it. It’s worst than bad. It’s derision to all the participants in the tournament.

They said their servers can take up to 20 000 players at the same time. When their servers started to act weird and kicked people out there wasn’t even 5000 logged in. Now they excuse themselves by saying “we couldn’t imagine this much interest in the tournament”. Most of the logged in players weren’t even playing at this time only watching the resolution of the tournament.
First they arrange a tournament called a championship when we already have our champions since Unibet had the exact same tournament one month ago and then they won’t finish it and don’t get to crown one champion.

If this wasn’t bad enough they sent out an list of payouts yesterday which was totally wrong. I go to the Swedish press and they write about it and this morning Svenska Spel send out an new list. This time 140k SEK (14k Euros) are missing if you compare it to the “old” list. They not only wont give any compensation to all those players who lost money in their way of handling this they also take away another 140k from their money.

If Svenska Spel had stopped the tournament when they should have had, when the problems started, this list would be ok. Then it’s a fair thing to do even if it’s sick to make the decision not to continue a prestigious tourney like this. Now it’s their fault they didn’t have anyone who supervised the tournament (which is the biggest they have this year) and who could stop it before this happened.
The story continues. The 15 very upset players are trying to talk to SvS and have now contacted media in hope they could get some redress in this big mess all created by Svenska Spel on the players expense…

Lazy week…or not ;)

So. What have I been up to latest? I’ve been really handy this weekend. Me and mom did a total makeover for my bedroom. Haven’t liked it since I moved here since I think gray is just depressing. Now it’s brown with one wall with beautiful wallpaper. Very much Lina

Mom was the one putting up the wallpaper. I know a lot about decorating and stuff but there’s two things I wouldn’t do and it’s the drilling and the wallpapers. Ha ha. That’s why my mom does it all for me *s*.

As a treat I use to buy he nice gifts every once and awhile and on Saturday I made her a lovely three-course dinner.

Except for my bedroom IKEA came home with a loft bed for Casper. It was his Christmas gift from his granddad and Agneta. On Saturday I also put this together. THAT was a total nightmare. Not kidding.

What else? Yeah on Sunday Noelia and Kim came over (Kim brought her four kids) to have a “första advent” dinner. In Sweden we have first, second, third and fourth advent which is the fourth Sundays before Christmas and each one of them we light a candle. First=one, second=two etc… Casper made a candlestick for this in school. A lovely one! I don’t like Christmas decorations that much but all the stuff he brought home from kinder garden/school I really love and have it all up.

The dinner was great. I made them a stew my granddad used to make. Really nice one and the girls really appreciated it. When Kim left me and Noelia played some online. A cold night for me but tonight was better

Cas who took this picture

Noelia played some with Kim’s youngest Sidney yesterday and he threw up on her. Sooo much fun and I even got it on camera.

Except for all of this I haven’t been up to much apart from a lot of conversations with a certain person on msn and phone…

Back to the routines

The life on EPT totally turn my life upside down every single time but I still love it. Now I’m back to my more “normal” life with routines. I go up every morning to make Casper breakfast, help him get dressed and everything else he needs to do before his seven hours in school. When he’s there I normally just try to do all my to dos. If I don’t have any I normally sleep. I sleep soooo much whenever I’m at home. On the tour I sleep between four and six hours maximum. In Copenhagen less than three per night. When home I sleep between 10 and 13. Ha ha!

This week is busy as hell. Tomorrow I’m meeting one of the most popular fashion bloggers in Sweden to teach her to play poker for her freeroll on PokerStars later tomorrow night. While I’m there Casper is staying with Tessan. On Thursday I overbooked myself three times. Need to fix that somehow. On Friday mom comes over to stay with us over the weekend. We are going to finish everything in the apartment. Not everything cause I don’t think I ever will be done but we are going to fix my bedroom. Three walls painted in brown and one with a lovely “Lina” wallpaper.

Very expensive wallpaper but I decided not to look at the price and instead just chose the one I liked

Except for this IKEA is delivering Caspers new loft bed. It will be nice in his room since it’s small. Now he will have more space on the floor and I’m making him a little playing corner for his Playstation.

This is what I’m up to for the next few days. I promise I will post the results here. I know I’ve been a bad blogger here but since I have all the other blogs this one doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves

xoxo

Home sweet home

I just got back from Warsaw where I’ve spent the last six days to do the EPT. As always it was a great time. I miss my little family there when I’m at home. The tour wouldn’t be the same without all of them on it. Even though, normally when I get back home I’m exhausted and wanna sleep for a week or two. This time I’m not that tired and this time I slept less than I use too. I guess the whole week gave me inspiration and joy which have been something I missed out on when focusing 100 percent on work and nothing else. I still managed to do a great work there I think even though I was hungover and tired all the time. For some reason I had the extra strength to carry on.

My life is close to perfect. I have the best friends you can imagine, I have the best colleagues, I have a son who’s intelligent and happy, I have a great family who are always there for me no matter what happens. Except for this I also have the best job ever. I know I have it because I’ve fought hard to become where I am today and it makes me proud of who I have become.

I arrived in Warsaw last Friday. Got to the hotel and had a coffee with Hilda waiting for Pontus to show up a few hours later. He was sharing room with William but W wasn’t coming before two days later. First night me and a lot of great people went out to have dinner at Cinnamon. A restaurant that becomes a nightclub after midnight. It was a lovely dinner and a lot of interesting discussions as always when you’re with intelligent people…like I am at every single EPT. After Cinnamon we ended up at the nightclub Platinum and I came home around four I think waking P up when trying to get undressed which is a big problem when you have problems just standing up *s*. On Saturday the tournament started, worked all day to around midnight and then we all went out again. I was planning to go home around three but couldn’t refuse Pontus, Andreas and Robert when they asked me to join them to Cinnamon at five o’clock in the morning.

On Sunday I was a wreck. Not kidding. I had ache in my liver cause of all the alcohol and really needed a day off which I had just hanging out with P and William who had arrived that day. On Monday we threw an after party in the PokerStars lounge after the play finished. A lot of people and a lot of fun. That night remembered me of the “old days” at the tour when we weren’t that many and always did things together. Nowadays we are so many that we split into groups and do stuff with our little community’s. Of course we hang out together too but not as often as it used to be.

On Wednesday morning after like two hours (at the most) I got woken up by William who wanted to have my VISA-card to book a flight back home. He was exhausted after Amsterdam, had tilted online and just wanted to get back home to Sweden. When I woke up a few hours later ha had left. This didnät stop me and P to go out the last night in Warsaw and so we did. Arnaud Mattern and Ludovic Lacay threw a party celebrating their final table finishes at Platinum and we all went there. Only problem was that we were the only ones at the night club which made it a little bit boring so we went home pretty early.

I slept to 1pm today and then just packed my stuff and went straight to the airport to catch my flight back home. So I thought. My flight was canceled and I had to wait at the airport for six hours before the next one. Damm. I was sooo tired that i fell asleep when having a coffee with Hilda at the airport and then for three hours at the gate even though the couch (in metal without any pillows on it) was a nightmare. I got woken up by one of the other passengers who asked me if I was supposed to be on that flight or not. Ha ha! I also slept the entire way home so I, for once, feel fresh and awake.

On Saturday I’m going to my mom’s place to have dinner. It’s a late birthday dinner since I’m traveling all the time and this was the only date everyone in my family (we are like 20 ppl) could make it. It will be nice to spend some time with them. I was thinking of getting Cas two days early but decided not to since I have some deadlines for Monday and wont be the funniest mom to hang out with this weekend.

Ah well…it’s 3am and I’m catching up all the episodes of my favorite programs that I’ve missed in Warsaw so I’d better get back to it and try not to turn my days up side down once again…

Hugs kisses & cookies
xoxo

Budapissed

Up in Johnny’s room. Just watched him getting brutally bad beated on PokerStars, FT in 109+R. Still trying to do my best as a rail pro but I think I have to give up soon and go to bed. Very tired after the lack of sleep yesterday…

Got just a lil bit to drunk yesterday, just a tiny bit. Apparently I yelled to Frida in the hotel lobby when I came back from the party “I’m soooo drunk”. I guess I was a little bit more wasted than I thought. After looking through the camera pics I also realized I wasn’t the most sober person last night. Ah well. Had a great time and I didn’t have a hungover today so it was all worth it

I have loads of pics. Should get them on Facebook but internet is pretty much crap when you stay at a hotel with 500 poker players who all play online and do other stuff at the same time. Regarding the hotel…it’s G-R-E-A-T and so is Budapest! It’s even more than nice and G-R-E-A-T. It’s one of my now favorite towns and will be included in the list with Barcelona, New York, Gothenburg and Vegas. I wanna stay an extra week but I’m afraid that’s not possible since I have a funeral on Monday (yikes…still don’t wanna realize K is dead so I will have a chock then I think).

So tomorrow is day 1b. A lot of my favorite players on EPT will be there. Today was pretty slow actually. Only a few nice names to cover. In fact tomorrow will be very busy being a rail pro to all of them! Nice thing is that we finish every day after only eight levels and no dinner break!!

Ok…I’m off to bed. Hugs kisses and cookies from Budapest…

Lovely beds…I didn’t even wanna go up when the clock rang this morning

Hilda, Mad and Tori

Moi and Hildie

Group hug!!!

Pink panter’s

DJaaaan Heitmann

Some nice Hungarian bar

YAY! More “no smoking” pics…we’re collecting those from the entire world

Before the after party I put Mad to sleep

Bad Beat on Cancer

Hi my dear friends!

Please read and pleas participate! It’s for a good cause.

On November 22nd at 2:05pm EST, Full Tilt Poker along with Hold’em Poker Chat will be running a charity tournament for the Bad Beat on Cancer Organization.

Cost for the tournament is $5 for the prize pool, plus an additional $5 for the charity. We have also added $150 to the prize pool. Full Tilt Poker pro Rafe Furst will be playing the tournament, and we hope many more of the Full Tilt pros will also be in attendance.

Details for the tournament are as follows:

November 22nd, 2:01pm ET
Full Tilt Poker
Private tournament tab: Bad Beat on Cancer
Password: charity
$5 plus $5 with $150 added to the prize pool
Tournament #64689765
(Under the Private Tournaments tab)

Even if you can’t make it, please consider registering anyway since all proceeds will go to the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation. I hope to see you all there.

About the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation:
The Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation was started in 1985 when Founder and President Carolyn Aldige first understood the power of prevention to defeat cancer — and recognized that too few of the country’s resources were used to promote cancer prevention research or education. Today, it is one of the nation’s leading health organizations and has catapulted cancer prevention to prominence. Since its inception the Foundation has provided more than $74 million in support of cancer prevention and early detection research and education programs. CRPF peer-reviewed grants have been awarded to more than 250 scientists from more than 150 of the leading academic medical centres nationwide. This research has been pivotal in developing a body of knowledge that is the basis for important cancer prevention and early detection strategies.

About Bad Beat on Cancer:
Bad Beat on Cancer was started a few years ago by Rafe Furst and Phil Gordon to help fund cancer research and prevention – by playing poker. They ask professionals and amateurs alike to donate 1% of whatever they win at the WSOP. They’ve been extraordinarily successful over the last few years, raising over $1 million for a very worthy cause. It’s a very fiscally responsible organization, nearly 86 cents from every dollar goes to the cancer research programs that they’re funding. It’s a great organization and they have most of the world’s greatest players signed up.