Lina Olofsson Blog

So we’re in Monte Carlo and it feels like I’ve been away from home for ages even though it’s only been like 1,5 week. Might have something to do with really long days and even longer nights (which of course ends up with me having a lack of sleep the whole time). Main Event started three days ago and we’re almost at the final 24 players.

Yesterday after 14 hours of work I went to hang out with my friends at Monte Carlo Bay. Me, William Thorson, Johnny Lodden, Joe Hachem and Daniel Negreanu plus a few people from Norway were having drinks, laughing and joking around for a couple of hours. It was nice. We had so many interesting discussions going on the entire night that I went to bed way too late which resulted in me being really tired today. Even tho I’m really happy cause my mission yesterday, after a few glasses of wine, was to get Daniel to talk to ADZ124 (Matt). I don’t like when people have a fight and specially when it’s for the wrong reasons. Around four in the morning they came and woke me up just to let me know that I had succeed my mission…

As William would have said: maise!

On Friday PokerStars are throwing a EPT Awards thing. Looking forward to it. Think it will be a nice party and it’s always nice to see people getting awarded for their achievements. On Sunday I’m going back to Sweden and Stockholm again. Hopefully where it’s spring (what happened to this very, very long winter with loads of snow all the time?) now and that the furnitures I ordered for my terrace has arrived

Here’s some pics from MC:

William and Katja Thater

William, Joe, me and Rebecca from Cardplayer

How many times have me and my friends said were gonna stop drinking Vodka Redbull…fail every time…

In one of the first hands of the main event one of Roland de Wolfe’s opponents looked down at his holecards and found a joker…interesting.

One of the best skiers in the world: Petter Northug from Norway and the former hockey pro Mats Sundin both played here in MC

Tournament room from outside…really nice

Twitter addicted Daniel…nice scarf btw…

Nice view from the 11th floor on Monte Carlo Bay

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Cold night in the tourneys. Couldn’t dodge many three outers this night and it costed all important hands in my tournaments. Came ITM in one out of seven tournaments, all apart from one with a pretty good structure. Ah well. I’m happy anyway. My grandfather is really ill back home and it kills me not being there with my family but still I have to work and he might survive and I’ll get the chance to be there with him until the end (he’s been ill for the last couple of months and I’ve been driving my grandma to the hospital every day to see him before I got here). He has cancer in his whole body so everything is shutting down. It’s hard to loose family members and this might be my second one within the last six months Even if it sucks being so far away it’s nice to have something to focus on and to do stuff that keeps you busy all the time. When at home it’s not like I go to the office every day even if I do loads of work but it’s not the same.

Gonna try to get some sleep (after the last episode of HSP) before heading to Monte Carlo around lunch time tomorrow. Might go and watch a little bit of the 5k heads-up tourney they gonna have or I just go to my favorite fashion mall and spend the day there

Under my umbrella hey hey hey

This kid, ADZ124, is insane…playing 24 tables at once and no mouse on a laptop with one hand…

ONE DAY I will learn how to run like those guys

…or like this guy *s*

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It’s my last night here in San Remo. Feels like I’ve been away for ages, only 1,5 week but feels so much longer. Having the best place ever when at home obviously makes it feel even longer. Tonight I’m gonna have dinner with some friends who are still here in San Remo and then I’m gonna head to the Royal hotel for some online grinding. Haven’t really felt like playing online since my big win a few weeks ago which is weird cause normally all I wanna do is to play when I’m in the zone. I guess watching poker and writing about poker 12 hours per day takes away the passion a little bit Tonight tho. Feel really focused and happy about playing which is the key to success. Hopefully it will bring me deep in the tournaments!

Very excited about Monte Carlo. Think it’s gonna be a great event but for us bloggers it’s gonna be totally insane with very long days but when it comes to watch great poker it’s all worth it!

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Just came home. It’s nine o’clock in the morning and my plans after we finished the tournament the day before yesterday has been totally messed up. First of all the plan was to get some tan. It’s raining here. The second thing was to get some shopping done but spend the entire day yesterday in bed really hungover after celebrating Liv Boeree’s win, my Swede Jakob’s second place and all the others who final tabled here in San Remo It was a really funny night and got back home really late/early in the morning.

Yesterday after sleeping the whole day I called my crazy friend Samer to see what the plan for the night was and they all were going to Nice to go out and celebrate our friend Pontus Khosravi. I decided to not stay in my room any more and went to hotel Royal to meet up with them. We took a minibus to Nice all the Swedes and Matt “ADZ124″ Marafioti. Fun car ride even if the destination didn’t offer much when it came to party. We only stayed there for some drinks at a bar then we left for Monte Carlo to go to Jimmys. I was closed. Damn. We tried the other night club but they we’re closing in 20 mins so instead we went to the casino to have a drink and then to Tip Top to eat before we went back “home” to San Remo.

Today I’m gonna chill then tomorrow it’s time to go to Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final. It’s gonna be a nice tournament and I’m looking forward to cover it.

Liv Boeree won EPT San Remo. Soooo cool. Such a nice girl!

Liv with the tournament directors Thomas, Gerard and Allen

My colleague Marc with Nenad Medic and his friend

The minibus we rented to go to Nice

Me and my good friend Samer outside the casino in Nice

The only bars Nice had to offer a thursday night

Cheers to Pontus

In Monte Carlo

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Long time no see. I’m now in San Remo after a long brake since Berlin. It’s really nice to be back on the tour and I’m really sorry for not blogging in between but have had sooo much other things to do and haven’t found the time for it. My wish is to update twice per week here but as you can see that didn’t really work out.

Here in San Remo we have sooo many big names. I’m not kidding. Today was insane with 585 players starting and a field full of B-I-G names in it.

I wish I had more time to tell you about the tournament and everything else but I will get back to you guys. Until them I just got confirmed Isildur1 will be playing EPT Monte Carlo. For me, who watches all the big games, it’s gonna be nice to follow him there with all the other really big names. Hopefully we will also be able to see him in some of the side action

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Yesterday I really didn’t wanna go here but today I’m really glad I did. I got better with the antibiotics and felt good when arriving here. Went out to do some shopping then to the gym for some light exercise and to treat myself I had a facial. At nine I went to the welcome party and it was probably the best one ever held at an EPT. Seriously. Great food, great people and great music. Couldn’t have been better. I stayed sober since I’m on antibiotics but had a great time anyway!

Here’s some pics from tonight:

Jeff Sarwer with friend and EPT Copenhagen winner Anton Wigg from Sweden

EPT media coordinator Mad Harper have had a white month and celebrated this by double fisting wine

Mad and William Thorson on the dance floor showing the latest moves

Stephan, Raffe, William and Ishak is four of the players I will gladly follow in the tournament the next couple of days

I think this was the first time the dance floor has been this busy at a PokerStars party

See! You can have a great night on water too

Tournament area…of course I needed to check it out

Tournament director (the best one in the world by far) Thomas Kremser and his wife Marina

Now…it’s time for a looong night sleep. Tomorrow is gonna be insane with nine levels, 90 minute dinner break. It will be a marathon for sure Luckily I have a really nice bed here at the Hyatt so it wont be a problem *s*.

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It feels like we just finished the reporting from Copenhagen. Tomorrow it’s time again. This time it’s Germany on the schedule and a completely new stop. We’ve been in Germany before but not in Berlin which feels so much sexier than Dortmund. Germany is a popular event for so many reasons. First of all they are like Scandinavia three or maybe four years ago. They are in their peak right now and it feels like everyone plays poker. They expect to have as many as up to a thousand players which will be the biggest event apart from the PCA. This means it will be loads of work for us bloggers but I actually prefer to have it that way than a slow event.

It’s pretty cool with the tournament area in Berlin cause it didn’t exist a few months ago. They built it just for this event. Gonna be great I think.

Only thing that doesn’t feel great about leaving for Berlin around lunch tomorrow is that I just got back from the doctor who said I have a bad throat infection and gave me antibiotics. I really hate the fact I have a bad immune system, a son who gives me all weird illnesses and the lack of healthy food on the tour. It’s a nightmare cause I get ill all the time during the winter period. I’ve worked EPT:s with tonsillitis, pneumonia and all other weird infections in my body. At least I’ve already started a antibiotic treatment when it’s time to rock and roll in front of the computer on Tuesday

We’re all staying at Hyatt. I love Hyatt. Haven’t stayed in this but the one in Warsaw and it’s one of the best hotels in the world. Great service and comfortable beds. I really hope this place will be just like in Poland.

This weekend has been calm but on Friday I went to play some at the local poker club. Always so nice to go there cause they all make me feel like home with hugs, laughs and friendly faces. Sadly I busted out the tournament on 13th place (86 started) with nine prizes. I ran queens into aces. Not much to do there but the way he played the hand was such a major slowroll. I pushed with eleven big blinds and the guy on BB asked “do you wan’t me to call?”. He put up a show and then finally called with his two black aces. Sooo sick. Not the first time either. I don’t now why people do this to me all the time. Maybe they just wanna end up in my blog *s*.

Ah well. Time to get started on the packing. Don’t feel like it what so ever but it can’t wait…

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Finally I’m back home. Already on day 1b it felt like I had been in Copenhagen for a week and was ready to give up. When you do loads of traveling you get used to it but after a month at home it was really exhausting in the beginning. Specially this event with so many scandinavians to follow and loads of extra work for me. On day three it all felt better. I had a good flow in the coverage and my scandis were doing great. Yesterday was a marathon big time. The heads-up almost lasted for four hours. I can’t blame Anton who knew he played better than De Vivo and wanted to grind him down and not take any big shots. He played it well. Got the money in good all the time but got sucked out. With 14 times BB he worked himself up both one and two times to loose it all again and starting the grinding all over again. Everyone who saw it on EPTLive know what I’m talking about.

Anton has a pretty good run right now. Before Copenhagen he played in a big tournament in Sweden and made the final table there too. Really happy he won and now Sweden have five victories in EPT:s which is pretty damn nice.

Flight was delayed on the way home but only an hour. With the snow chaos in Stockholm I wasn’t surprised and the first thing I saw at the airport was all the big headlines. Nothing works at the moment. Soooo much snow, the tube doesn’t work cause of the cold (minus 25 last night), the trains have been cancelled…yeah nothing works. For me it took like 30 minutes just to get out my car from the parking-lot cause of all the snow. Insane…

Now I’m finally back home and the drinks in the bar is switched to a dinner with two eight year old’s my son and his classmate), the media room is changed to my comfortable sofa and the very bad sleep schedule will be changed to early mornings and loads of routines. Very nice even if it’s only for a week. Next Monday it’s time to do it all over again. Then it’s time for Berlin…gonna be a great event. Are you playing?

Some pice from Copenhagen…

Tournament director Thomas Kremser and the crazy as always Peter “Nalle” Hedlund

Early day two I picked this guy as one of the favorites to win the whole thing…Roberto Romanello. 6th place finisher.

It was cool to follow Viktor Blom in the tournament even if he didn’t last long…

The finalists

William Thorson doing the commentary on EPTLive

Johnny Lodden also did some commentary…

Another week full with candy…I really need to start exercise NOW!

My friend Christel who works at the casino in Stockholm came down for a day with another friend of ours

Was about to register for Sunday Million yesterday but decided not to after seeing how many were in…what to say other than OMFG

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One of my Swedish friends just won the EPT Copenhagen!!! So very happy! Congrats to Anton Wigg!

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Yesterday it was the Nordic Poker Awards. Today has been a very long day of work…

It was a great awards thing yesterday. Ville Wahlbeck from Finland got two awards. Patrik won one and Kristoffer “Sumpas” Thorsson won the last one. All well deserved and I was one of the fours award presenters. Beautiful Michelle Orpe was the host last night. She really did a great job up on stage and that girl is really funny. She’s herself and a little bit crazy. Probably how others describe me too so we got along great

Me and Michael Holmberg from PokerStars

William Thorson and Michelle

I’m giving out the award for best online player…had some struggling to do with the envelope before I got it up tho

Ville had to come up on stage AGAIN to pick up Patrik Antonius prize

Swedish Kristoffer who won Master Classics of Poker etc got the rookie of the year award. He was nominated in three out of four categories

My great colleague Mad also gave out a price

After the prize ceremony Ville took a bottle of champagne and poured some on William Thorson. What Ville wasn’t expecting was that William would to the same thing back ten times as much and there Ville was all wet when it was time for group shots and winner shots. Haha!

Ville pours some champagne on William

William returns the favor

As always the Scandi’s made their own little party and it was a long time ago I saw that many bottles of alcohol served to one table. Don’t remember how long we stayed at the party but I actually got some well deserved sleep tonight

A typical Scandi party

Michael and Thomas. Two great country managers working for PokerStars

Me and my colleague Andrew

Day 1a of the EPT Scandinavian Open was a great success. 191 players showed up and there will probably be more than 400 which PokerStars predicted earlier this week. As many as 41 Danes survived today which is an insane amount. It’s more than one third of the remaining field. Sicko! Only nine Swedes but the ones who are still in are all excellent tournament players and every one of them have a shot making it all the way to the final table.

After a very long day (started at two this afternoon and I wasn’t finished before 1:30) I’m finally getting some chill out time up in my room. There was absolutely no energy left to be social in the bar tonight even though it was full with nice and funny people.

Arnaud Mattern does a Lina…

A picture of me that Benjamin Gallen took during WSOP this summer. It ended up in a french magazine

I really hope my two big favorites Christer and Birgitta Johansson will play tomorrow. Not sure they will but they are two of the nicest and warmest guys there is and both are also great poker players and I love to cover them in my blog on PokerStars in hurdy-gurdy language.

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