Spring Poker Festival Review

[PhatPots]

I recently attended the Spring Poker Festival which was hosted by Party Poker. I thought I would give my thoughts on it.


The structure was pretty sweet with 15,000 chips and 25/50 blinds and 1.5 hour levels. There was a lot of room to maneuver and a lot of play. The casino was pretty small. Alot of the Europeans were smoking. This really bothered me. There was suppose to be no smoking in the tournament area, but people would be smoking so close by that it bothered me and a number of other players. People made repeated pleas to the tournament director to stop the smokers. When you went to the bathroom, on the way you would have to walk through huge smoke clouds.

Day 1 began at 2 pm and went until 1 am. Every other day began at 4pm which was kind of [censored]. Every night there was a buffet offered which was nice. The quality of the buffet was a solid 7.5 - 8 out of 10. They offered a little salad bar, selection of meats, salmon, pasta, etc.

The first two days of the tournament party poker offered a shuttle bus which was at 12:00. Kind of sucky that you got there at 12:20 and had an hour to kill. Otherwise it was a 15 Euro cab ride. I really wish party had picked a hotel that was closer. The holiday Inn was nice, it could have been closer to the city though. It was not easy to walk anywhere, you have to cab it.

The party poker staff didn't do a very good job. I didn't know who they were for the majority of the trip. There were a lot of questions that I had that the staff was not around to answer. There was a welcome reception at a bar, but there I couldn't tell who was staff and who wasn't. No welcome speech but free drinks and appetizers which was nice.

There was also a final party that was thrown by party poker but I didn't even know it was happening. Poor communication skills all around.

I missed out on a prize pack that just about EVERYONE else got (Except Canadians) because they gave out the prizes during the East vs West competition. I was pretty pissed about this.

I was talking with some other Canadians and they told me that they have been to a number of other big poker tournaments. They mentioned that in the Carribean adventures which was run by pokerstars, there was a booth setup and a welcome Gala. I think these two things would have made a huge difference.

Summary: Good tournament and ok job by the casino. Party Poker did a bad job.

[betgo]

Where was this located? What was the buyin? Were there side events and cash games? I assume they had satellites on Party but you could buyin directly.

No suprise that Party did a bad job.

[PhatPots]

[ QUOTE ]
Where was this located? What was the buyin? Were there side events and cash games? I assume they had satellites on Party but you could buyin directly.

No suprise that Party did a bad job.

[/ QUOTE ]

I left out a lot of details because my review was more of a rant how party did a [censored] job.

Tournament was in Vienna, Austria. The buy-in was $3000+ 150 Euros which is $4200 (US). They had a few smaller buy-in tournaments during the main event ranging from 100 Euros to 1000 Euros. They had 1/2 NL, 2/5 NL, 3/6 LHE and they had high stakes pot limit Omaha going for a while and I think there was a 25/50 NL game going at some point, it might have been higher than that. It might have been 50/100 NL.

The majority of ppl bought in directly. They had 204 and they projected 300 entries.

[The-Donk]

Dear Fatboy

Looks like you love to eat and more of a health freak that a keen poker enthusiast all the way

[mastr]

Makes one thankful for having the PCA.