I've just got back from a 10-day holiday in Italy during which I didn't get to play poker at all.  Booo.  I had thought that it would be great to play in Venice as I know that it has hosted some tournies in the past and the buildings themselves are so old and sumptous.  So on my second day I walked around to the Casino and asked about what poker games they had.  The receptionist said they only had "Australian poker" but he had no idea what that was and it wasn't on when I was there for me to go and find out by watching.  Any ideas, guys?

He then said that there was a game of Texas Holdem in their other casino and they could transport me there if I came back in the evening.  Hmm, interesting I thought, so I asked where that was.  "If you come here, we'll take you by boat across to the mainland, about 20 minutes.  Then a bus will take you to the casino, about 30 minutes drive."  Now, a 50 minute minimum trip each way didn't thrill me but when he couldn't tell me the buy-in, the structure, whether it was limit/no limit, I decided to give it a miss.  Can you imagine going all that way and finding it was a crazy 5/10 euro cash game?  It still amazes me that casinos don't see the importance of giving good information on games to punters.  Surely they don't think that all games are more or less the same?

Anyhoo, apart from a particularly odd dream about playing a Heads Up tournament where I had to play two different games at the same time(????) I was relieved to find that I didn't really miss playing at all.  But I'm glad to be back and will be hitting the local live tourney this afternoon.  Wish me luck. x