/ Matthew Pitt / 28 March 2011 / Leave a Comment 
Welcome back boys and girls and anything else in between, I am now back on home soil, in fact I am sat at my workstation which consists of a small leather sofa, some rather gay cushions the Mrs bought and a coffee table in my bedroom, a far cry from the Austrian Alps where I wrote my previous entries in this mini series.
I read through Part 2 whilst I was waiting for my shuttle from the hotel to the airport, something I rarely do (read old entries not take taxis) and it may be perceived that I wasn't enjoying myself in Austria at all. I think I wrote that particular post hungover, or the day after a hangover, and was feeling pretty negative about the whole trip. There were some politics involved before the start of the trip and I guess I was kind of letting them cloud my judgement, influence me a little ans generally made me read too much into a few things.
That said, the last few days were really enjoyable. Chris, Dana and I had a couple of great meals in the restaurant, we went to a PokerStars Pros belated birthday party and the last couple of day's play were great fun to watch and report on. The eventual winner, Vladimir Geshkenbein, was a real laugh and I'm glad he won it because rather than just adding to his bankroll like most of the EPT regulars would he'll go out and have fun with it. I like how he isn't bothered about being different, he looks at his cards as soon as they are dealt to him, he drinks heavily, he speaks his mind and he plays like a complete nutcase! A worthy and entertaining champion IMO.
Being away seemed much harder this time around for some reason, mainly the fact I was working 14-18 hour days and the hotel was so bloody warm it was uncomfortable. However, that also allowed me to discover how brilliant water is and how drinking loads of it makes you feel ten times better. I always used to think it was doctors talking balls as usual, trying to get us to do something because lab rats reacted well but drinking plenty of water made me feel great. As did not drinking alcohol. Yes I got completely wasted once and had plenty to drink on another night but the days I didn't drink at all I slept like a log and woke up feeling brilliant, so much so that I am massively cutting down on my alcohol intake. I'll probably never stop drinking completely because it has always been part of my life and is part of my social network but I am going to be drastically reducing the amount I drink.
I'm also going to cut down on the calorie intake too and try to shift some timber of my fat body! One of the Dutch PokerNews employees, Remko, has lost a load of weight just by cutting down on "bad" food and stopping drinking and increasing exercise since the start of the year. I guess he has been inspirational on that front and we had a good chat about drinking and how it effected him for a day or too afterwards with regards to focus etc and I recognised himself in me and seeing how he approaches life now and how much enthusiasm he has for everything makes me want to be do the same.
As you can probably guess the live poker scene is not one that makes it easy to have a young family due to the time you are spending away from them. The only person I have actually spoken to on the tour was the PokerStars blogger Stephen Bartley, who happens to be one of the funniest people I have ever met, though many would disagree as they simply don't get his sense of humour. The problem is I only ever seem to talk to him when I have been drinking so will need to change that when I next cover and EPT. Anyway, if you were to mark us on some sort of chart we would be at almost opposites but we have children as a common denominator and we'd often be the first ones into the media room trying to log on to Skype our families back home. I also got talking to a number of the EPT dealers, one of which also had kids, again one of the few on the tour, and he was another top bloke. It was quite comforting to have other dads around, I'm not overly sure why but it just was!
Usually in the balla EPT hotels we have internet in our rooms but this time we did not. This meant instead of logging off in the media room and going back to play some poker or whatever in your room, all you could do was go back and sleep, which give plenty of time to think about life in general and has spurred me on to be better around my family and make more of an effort. Sometimes when you live and work from home you take everything for granted, your kids being there and wanting you, your Mrs doing little things around the house and you can get stuck into a rut and get into really restrictive roles that you assume that person will do. For example, the Mrs might do the clothes washing etc but when that is all you do then it literally becomes a chore and you start to piss each other off and resent each other. Although it may not seem much I've made a point of doing stuff since I got back, just my washing and hanging it out, taking the kids out on Sunday and spending some time with Step Pud today (though I could have killed him but meh). It all adds up to a happier home life and that, not poker, is what it is all about IMO.
I'll leave it there for now because it is on quite a positive note and poker this month, well my poker playing, is massively depressing and deserves its own post!
So, as always thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!
Related entries
A Pudding Abroad: Österreich Part 1
A Pudding Abroad: Österreich Part 2
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