The reason is because it means that the summer is here soon.
It’s like finding reading the menu the highlight of the restaurant visit. Or railing the game when you're waiting for a seat the best part of a poker session.
When I read stuff like that I don’t feel Swedish; not one bit. To me the summer is the clear-cut favorite of the seasons. But I prefer summer elsewhere.
The Stores Sell Out of Ice Cream
A perfect Swedish summer day is absolutely wonderful and if you’re lucky you can get 20 or so during the course of a summer.
Sometimes you get real lucky and get two days in a row. Once every decade or so something spectacular happens – we get a whole week in a row when the sun is shining on a clear blue sky.
The Swedes cry tears of joy for God's blessing, the stores sell out of ice cream and artists create poems and songs about the happening that sings in the summertime forever, raining or not.
One time, in 1978 or so, we had 10 days in a row of lovely weather. Swedes still talk about that magical summer.
It has rained two straight days as usual but this morning the dark sky was taking a break. I went for a walk.
The only person I met on my 45-minute walk was a woman in a puffy jacket walking her dog. She burst out laughing when she saw me in shorts and a t-shirt.
“Aren’t you cold?”
I was going to the gym today but now it's raining again so I’m writing this blog instead.
Like a Poker Flashback
Thank god for poker when the weather is bad. Look out for the Swedes during the summertime. Four Swedes are currently ranked in the top 11 of the world online poker tournament rankings.
Last Friday I had a 3.5-hour lunch with a poker friend. He asked me why I never show up at the casino for some poker.
Casino Cosmopol is the government-owned casino in Sweden. They have four casinos in Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö and Sundsvall. They all offer poker but if you don’t live in any of those four cities you must be prepared to travel.
It’s not a coincidence that there are a couple of hundred private poker clubs in a country roughly the same size and shape as California. I told my friend that I have small children at home and don’t fancy playing the whole night and ruining my rhythm.
The casino in Göteborg has poker from 6pm to 2:45am or 4:45am depending on the day. Everybody knows that the last hour is gold so leaving early is not an option. The tournament starts at 6pm and if you get lucky it's all night, too. Hence also out of the question.
The casino opens at 11:30am seven days a week so I have no idea why they cannot offer poker a bit earlier. It would make sense business wise but since Casino Monopol is just that they don’t care.
My friend understood, even though he is a revolutionary communist. I asked for gossip and he told me about a private tournament in Varberg a few days back.
I wish he told me before the tournament and not after because I like those kinds of events. It's like a flashback of poker back in the day.
The Father and Son Who Came Very Close
The only thing Varberg is known for in poker in Sweden is that Olof Thorson and William Thorson come from there.
Dad Olof Thorson came very close to changing poker history but instead went from chipleader to bust in two hands in the 2003 World Series Main Event -- perhaps the most classic event of all time. This magnificent call deserved a better fate:
If Olof wins that hand I really believe he would have rewritten poker history. Now he is forgotten at 16th.
His son William Thorson is a bit more famous in the poker world. He also had a lot of chips in the Main Event once. He finished 13th in 2006, the biggest event of all time.
They could have been the first father and son to both make the Main Event Final table. Instead they're now the father and son who came very close.
William Thorson doesn’t play poker anymore. I will tell you why in another blog.
Perhaps it was the Dealer's Suggestion
I was talking about Varberg and the private tournament. The value is always great in those kinds of events but you want to get knocked out as soon as possible because the cash games are even juicier.
In private poker games people usually deal themselves. They were using the English cut in Varberg; the guy to the left of the dealer cuts the deck and the guy to the right puts them together.
It’s a very good way to prevent hot hands and cold decks. In these kinds of tournaments people drink like there is no tomorrow - until that day arrives.
One cash-game table decided to not bother with the English cut. Perhaps it was the dealer's suggestion.
He has a reputation of cheating so when he got a set of kings versus a set of jacks and a set of sevens in a pot that grew to 5K the accusations started to fly.
Words were not enough and soon fists started flying. And then bottles. And then chairs.
It was the wild, wild west all over again. Oh, how I had wanted to be there.
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