Travelling – the biggest perk of being a poker player!

Posted by Kartik Ved on 2019-04-19 at 11:36 AM

Hey guys, I recently traveled to Barcelona and Sochi for a live series and wanted to blog about my experience. Being a poker player gives you several opportunities to travel to various countries to play. It’s always great to explore these cities in your time off from poker.

I recently won a package to European Poker Tour, Sochi, through a satellite organised online on PokerStars.in. I decided to combine the trip with another live series, WPT Barcelona.

Barca was my first destination and I decided to stay back for a week after the series. I had heard a lot about the city before I visited it, and I have to say it blew my mind! We explored the entire city, and even went to the Sagrada Família I.e. the big church.
We visited the bunkers junket from where we could get a magnificent view of the entire city. I didn’t play much poker in Barcelona as it was more of a warmup for Sochi. I really loved the overall vibe of the city and would definitely visit it again.

After Barca, I was off to Sochi for the EPT where I was accompanied by PokerGuru Ambassadors Jayjit Ray and Tathagata Sengupta. The poker experience was fantastic. EPT sets a standard by itself. It was a class apart in comparison to all the Indian and Asian tournaments I have attended. Very good numbers, great up top figures. The casino was fantastic, The dealers, the structures, it was just brilliant.
We just went there with whatever knowledge we had and were determined to play aggressive and crush.
There were some good regs and the field was pretty good. It was definitely fun battling it out with some very good players. I had a deep run in the national event where I finished 4th for almost 46k usd. Eventually busted AK to A10 but that’s all good, Bad beats are a part of the game.
I’ve learnt over the years to not get attached to the end result and to move on with a strong mindset.

I was happy with my performance and my mindset was good. I even punted the EPT high roller the next day which was a fun experience! We ended up bricking the main and the High Roller and that was all for poker for this trip as it was time to explore a bit of Russia!

Sochi was a beautiful city filled with Snow clad mountains. The view from our hotel was magnificent and I got to see snow for the first time! We also visited this husky house nearby which was like paradise. Being a dog lover, it was a great experience spending hours in the husky house getting pictures with so many cute dogs!
Our last stop was St. Petersburg and what a city that was. It looks extremely European in its outlook and architecture as compared to other Russian cities. We visited the St. Isaacs Cathedral and took a tour through the city and learnt about its history which was extremely fascinating. My overall experience this trip was great. The biggest perk of being a poker player is travelling to different countries to play the game you love and I’m looking forward to more such trips.

Next stop, sin city aka VEGAS!

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Kartik Ved

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