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Posts Tagged ‘Scott’

Oh Vienna! This place is awesome. It’s been snowing non-stop and it looks like a winter wonderland out there. Party Poker has been making sure that our qualifiers are having a great time out here with the usual Player party for WPT Baden (it was carnage and oh, so much fun) and a day out on the ski slopes as well.

I’m With The Band

I was able to tag along with them and the Royal Flush girls Violet and Sonia plus Wozz Lozowski, frontman for Poland’s hit band Afromental. We hit the slopes hard (no really, ouch) and spent the day zooming around on skis, boards and sledges. It was one of my favourite days on the WPT so far and I can’t wait to see what Party have organised for the next event.

I think we may have finally found the perfect new apartment in Italy (finally!) which means I’m one step closer to applying for residency and one step closer to being able to play online at PartyPoker.it. Seriously, this is cause for celebration. I miss playing online. For years, I’ve been living in the USA where I couldn’t play on PartyPoker and damn, it’s not been easy. I enjoy playing live poker but there are a few ways in which online is just head and shoulders above anything else.

1. Pyjamas.

This probably needs no explanation but just imagine the biggest, fluffiest and most comfortable PJs in the world. The perfect onesie. Who wouldn’t want to go to work in that!? It’s not just societal rules that say we can’t go to work in our pyjamas but sadly, most Casino rules too. But hey, my living room, my rules suckers!

2. Close proximity to World’s Best Snack Bar.

When playing live in a casino, you’re really at the mercy of their catering system. Some places won’t let you eat at the tables, some only serve basic sandwiches and in other spots, you have to leg it to the coffee place around the corner during breaks just to get a bite to eat. Playing at home online means never having to get hungry. Ahhh, snacks. I love you, snacks.

3. Privacy.

When super-raging tilt happens at home, I don’t have to keep my smiling public face on. There is no ‘seething in silence’ when I’m in my living room. I’m always a little embarrassed for people who flip out when playing live at the poker table. It’s unseemly, and often just plain rude. Sure, we’d all love to berate people for playing badly and then sucking out on us but when you really think about it, that’s bad for the game. In the privacy of my own home, I can rage and swear my head off and nobody has to know.

This has been an incredible week for me. I flew to Paris on Monday to host the GPI European Poker Awards, nervous and excited about working to a large, live crowd. I was all prepared with my script, had completed my research on all of the nominees and I’d even written a couple of (terrible) jokes to help the evening run smoothly. I was pretty sure that I hadn’t forgotten anything.

And then I won an award

Of course I knew that I’d been nominated for Poker Personality of the Year but in my mind, there was no way that I’d win it. I’d seen the names of the other nominees and I was completely comfortable with not winning. I can honestly say that at no point did I even wonder about it. My only preparation was to prepare my ‘I’m happy for you head nod and clapping’ pose. I was really flattered that I’d been nominated but so certain that there was no way I’d take the prize, that I even insisted to my (now slightly annoyed) boyfriend that he stay home rather than coming to Paris with me for the ceremony. Oops.

My mind went completely blank

Winning the EPA Personality of the Year trophy for 2012 is incredible. In the moment that my name was said, my mind went completely blank. I had nothing prepared to say and so I just fumbled some awkward joke (as I usually do) and then carried on hosting the rest of the evening. Because of that, I didn’t get to say just how grateful I am.

Where I first started

I love the European poker community. This is where I first started playing poker and became fascinated with the game that would become such a huge part of my life. It’s where I met the people that made me want to know more about poker, people that I admire and respect. I am (very proudly) both a British citizen and a Canadian. With my strangely muddled North American accent, it would be easy for people to struggle to accept me as European but that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve always felt completely embraced as one of the UK’s own. Being recognised as part of the European community is gratifying in a way that I find hard to properly express.

Outlandish dresses

Despite some of the outlandish dresses that I’ve worn over the years, I’ve always thought that my job was not to be the centre of attention but instead to make sure that the ‘other people’ (interviewees, co-hosts, poker pros) shine. I’m not exactly a party animal (*cough* understatement *cough*) and I tend towards the awkward when schmoozing opportunities come up. I don’t usually voice big, controversial opinions and I’m certainly not the person that people remember meeting at any given party. For all of these reasons and more, I really didn’t expect to win this award but I’m so, so grateful that I did.

I want to thank

I want to thank my sponsor Party Poker who have given me so much support and also pushed me for the past 3 years to work hard and get better at my job. They’ve given me so many opportunities to become a bigger part of this industry. They treat me incredibly well and I’m so happy to be their ambassador! I’m also really grateful to the people at Poker PROductions in Las Vegas for taking a chance on me years ago, with High Stakes Poker and then the WSOP coverage with ESPN. My employers are the reason that anybody in poker even knows who I am!

To everyone who voted to nominate me

So thank you to everyone who voted to nominate me, to the GPI EPA and the Jury panel at this year’s award for surprising me. I love working here in Europe and I hope to be around for many years to come!

(Also, I loved being able to hand out awards to the people who had worked so hard and found so much success in poker in 2012. It was particularly cool to congratulate my friend and colleague Marvin Rettenmaier for winning both German Player of the year and European Player of the Year.)

The first week of 2013 went by in the blink of an eye! I think that has something to do with the best Christmas gift I received this year – a Kindle. I’ve always been a big reader and have been known to fall completely off the grid for weeks at a time, immersed in dozens of novels. I’m always curious to know what other people are reading so if there’s a book you really love, note it down in the comments for me please!

I haven’t JUST been sitting on my sofa reading though. I’ve also been sitting on friend’s sofas and reading. Last week, I headed to England for a quick trip to renew my passport. I was flipping through my old passport, looking at the different stamps and reminiscing about the incredible places that I’ve been able to go in the past 10 years. Out of all of the different countries, I think my absolute favourite was Thailand. I spent a fair amount of time there about 5 years ago and bringing back those memories has me all pumped to visit again. How about a WPT Koh Samuii? It’s a brilliant idea, lets get someone on that!

In the meantime, I’ll be downloading a travel book on Thailand and dreaming ~ Kara Scott

Here at PartyPoker there’s one thing we all love, yep you guessed it a good poker face, I mean who doesn’t? It’s really one part of the game that you truly need to master when playing live.

Now that doesn’t mean what you’re about to see is a collection of poker face stoic, emotionless, like stone faces, no far from it, some are wacky, others are crazy one is dam right scary. Here from a recent trip to the WPT Copenhagen we present “Best Poker Faces” Enjoy as we sure did:

Now Show Us Yours!

Were you at the WPT Copenhagen? Can you make an awesome Poker face? Yeah right, prove it then. Just film your best poker face it and send us the link in the comments below, we’ll even add the best to this story, and remember to follow us on Twitter for even more poker greatness.

What a week! I got back to Italy a couple of days ago but I’ve been sleeping so much that it feels like I’ve been home only a few hours! Working on the WSOP final table for ESPN was an amazing experience again. I really love being part of that incredible crew of people, both behind the cameras and in front.

I have a lot of hours of live TV behind me after working on the UK-based Sky Poker channel and also the very oldschool Poker Night Live but there’s something about working for the flagship ESPN channel that makes me really have to raise my game and wow, was it ever fun.

Loved The Final Table

From a poker point of view, I loved the final table. I was able to meet up with all of the players (aside from Andras, although I did speak to him through his manager/friend/translator) a couple of days before the final table played out and I can genuinely say that I liked all of them. They were a really varied group of people but each of them was interesting, incredibly likeable and a real pleasure to interview. It was my favourite final table ever and I can’t wait to see how far each of the players goes from here.

A Kind Of Marathon

The two day final table turned into a kind of marathon and when 3 handed play lasted over 11 hours, a lot of people on the crew and in the media were starting to get really nervous about missing their flights home in the morning. We were all pretty exhausted when it finally finished around 6am but I found it a lot easier to stay full of energy and focussed this year.

This was in part because of how incredible the crowd was – they roared and shouted and danced without a break the ENTIRE time. It was also due in part to a friend of mine, Deyl Kearin, who was actually running a REAL marathon at the time. And not just one marathon. Six of them, in 6 days through the Sahara Desert. He left for the Sahara a few days before I arrived in Vegas and ESPN did an interview with him and I’ve been keeping updated on his blog

Any time I felt tired, I thought about him slogging through sand dunes to raise money for charity and then the fact that I was a little bit sleepy just seemed silly. It’s amazing what the human body can do and I’m really proud of him.

Malta is every bit as beautiful as I remember. I was out here to play the WPT event but had a bit of a problem with sending my buy-in over and sadly arrived with only one bullet instead of two for the re-entry. I played Day 1b and it was a bit of deja vu as at my starting table was my friend (and really great poker player) Fabrice Soulier. We played last year at WPT Malta as well and both had very frustrating days from what I remember. Sadly, I didn’t make Day 2 but I did go and have a drink after play finished with my teammates Tony G and Marvin Rettenmaier to catch up on their stories.

One Of The Best Stops

I’m always surprised when people miss out on this tournament because I think that Malta is one of the best stops on the WPT Europe calendar. The nightlife is great here and being able to lay on the beach and get some sun is the perfect antidote for bad beats. I’ll be here for a few more days enjoying the scenery and then it’s back to Italy for a little time away from the tables!

Some very dear friends of mine had a wedding this past weekend so I flew in to celebrate with them and have a chance to catch up with all of my friends. The wedding was held on a friend’s farm so most of us decided to camp there for the night. We all used to do a lot of camping at festivals or weekends away and so it felt just like old times to see all of the pretty Bell Tents pitched together.

And of course it meant that we could stay up until almost dawn, talking and joking around a massive bonfire. It’s good to be back. In fact, I’ll be spending more and more time back here in England and have even rented a room in a friend’s house so that I have a base of operations while I travel through Europe for poker until 2013.

Brighton

It’s been a bit rainy so far but the view from my window looks out over the Brighton seafront and there really is something quite magical about the English Channel when it’s a bit blustery and grey. Soon enough I’ll be leaving for Paris where I’m going to play the WPT event but until then, I’m settling back into life in England with relish.

Poker Personality of the Year!

I was really surprised and honoured to be nominated again for Poker Personality of the Year at the British Poker Awards. They’ll be tallying up the votes very soon so if you haven’t voted yet (there are lots of great categories to vote for) then you can do that at thebritishpokerawards.com

Phew, what a year it has been! I had a great birthday this weekend and thank you to everyone who posted messages for me online – I really do appreciate it! I’m looking forward to another year of friends, poker, food and all the other good things in life. I get to travel to some pretty incredible places and I think that this year will be no different.

A lot of traveling

I’m still in Italy for a little while longer, having a nice summer holiday, but soon I’ll be travelling off to Paris to play the WPT. I was going back through my calendar from the last 12 months and I’m amazed at how much I get to travel and the great cities that I get to visit, many of them officially for Party Poker. I visited 23 different places last year! I’m curious to see what the next year will bring.

Mad Marvin Rettenmaier

My teammate Marvin Rettenmaier has recently set a very high bar for the rest of us at Party Poker after winning back to back WPT events. I’m so happy for him and honestly, it’s so well deserved. He’s a really incredibly talented poker player and a great guy who I’m glad to call a friend.

Viva Italia!

After 6 weeks in Las Vegas, I’ve flown across the pond to Europe where I’ll be making my home for the next few months. I’m going to be traveling around playing some poker and catching up with life on this side of the world for a while and I can’t wait. The first month will be spent in Italy.

I flew straight into Venice to play the WPT National Series event there this week and I had a great time. Venice is my favourite city in the world so I’ll go there for ANY excuse but playing a bit of poker there was an added bonus.

The tournament was well run although the schedule didn’t really suit my jet-lagged self and I was struggling around the middle of Day 2, just to stay awake. I didn’t manage to make Day 3 but did go back to the Casino to watch some of the play for the Final Table and catch up with people.

I’ve been trying to learn Italian but it’s been slow going. I want to be able to communicate more easily with people when I’m in Italy so I’ve bought a few books, got the Rosetta Stone on my computer and am asking a million questions as I try to figure out a whole new language for the first time in years.

I’m frustrated by my inability to have more in depth conversations with the people I meet over here. The women on the Italian poker scene are really lovely (Giorgia Tabet, Carla Solinas and Claudia Cerantola to name a few) and have been so welcoming to me and I’d like to be able to chat with them better! For now, I’m stuck with basic phrases but I will learn!