Godfather of Crazy Games
Great Games, Company and Beer at The Festival Series, Malta, 2024
The Festival Series, Malta edition has now wrapped up, and what a crazy week of poker, general gambling, eating, drinking and socialising it has been!
Poker: All The Games Podcast Presence - and Next Episodes Teasers
Shawn Grigus, the main host of the Poker: All The Games podcast flew in from the United States to sample what European mixed games poker life had to offer. There were several mixed games events on the tournament schedule and of course there were cash games aplenty!
We also took the opportunity to record some interviews with excellent mixed games players and these will appear in our next two podcasts. First, episode 54 will feature two interviews: one with poker streamer Scott “pokerbrahs” Kenyon, a regular at the top end of the Festival Series leaderboards thanks to his consistency in making the podium in mixed games events. Then we interviewed Eva “Chic” Jiretorn, Swedish player often to be found at The Festival Series who won the leaderboard at the European Mixed Games Poker Championship in March 2024. Both of these consummate mixed games players had plenty of interesting things to say about mixed games and Chic even gave me the new nickname… Godfather of Crazy Games!
Episode 55 will be a trip report for both Shawn and me, and will also feature an interview with Eirik “Rekegutt” Presttun - winner of the HORSES mixed games main event this week. Eirik dominated the tournament from very early on and he recaps some of his journey to the title, plus tells of why he has karma points that help the poker gods decide in his favour in close spots!
Look out for those next two episodes - they are well worth a listen.
My Play
I will save more details for the podcast trip report, but here is a quick breakdown of the games I played:
Sunday 8 Sept: HORSES mixed games main event day 1A followed by 1/1 “Super Dealers Choice” PL cash game with fixed limit games of 5/10
Monday 9 Sept: Sviten Special tournament
Tuesday 10 Sept: 8 Game tournament follow by 2/2 PL “Super Dealers Choice” cash game (FL games 8/16)
Wednesday 11 Sept: 1/1 PL Sviten Special cash game
Thursday 12 Sept: 1/1 PL “Super Dealers Choice” cash game with fixed limit games of 5/10
Friday 13 Sept: 1/1 14-game rotation with fixed limit game of 4/8
I made a small graphic to summarise my results for the week:
As you can see, I failed to make a cash in any of the tournaments, but did well in the cash games. At the end of the week I was amazed to find my total cash game profit exactly matched my tournament losses!
But the most important takeaway from the week was how enjoyable the whole thing was, and that was overwhelmingly because of the social side of things. There were so many great people to spend time with, at the poker felt, on the rail when friends were going deep in tournaments, and in the restaurants and bars. This was not just the players, the dealers were amazingly positive about dealing mixed games and the floor staff, tournament directors and all other staff were first class.