I hope that Cardplayer Lifestyle fans have enjoyed my coverage from the 2019 European Poker Tour stop at Sochi over the past couple of weeks. Going into each poker trip, I always try to craft a content production plan and it always feels special to be crossing the last item off the list; this vlog. From the trip preview, to my interview with PokerStars Team Online pro Mikhail Shalamov, to my depiction of Russian cash games, to my lengthy feature “Poker Without Borders,” and all of the social media posts in between, it’s certainly been fun to document my experiences.
My coverage during this trip was significantly more focused around on the “Lifestyle” aspects rather than the “Cardplayer” aspects. Given the rather unique destination, I felt that angling my coverage in that manner made sense. Outlets like PokerNews and the PokerStars Blog do such a great job of documenting all the action at the tables and if you don’t already do so, I highly recommend that you visit those sites for live reporting coverage from the felt and for winner interviews.
By contrast, I felt that the best I could offer you all was primarily a look at what goes on away from the felt. Sochi, while it attracts plenty of tourism, is a far off destination for most Westerners. I hope to have perhaps given you all a bit of perspective on a place that might’ve at first glance seemed quite foreign. Moreover, I hope that after checking out my coverage over the past couple weeks, that maybe in the future you’ll place Sochi on your list of places to visit. There’s plenty of great, fun poker to play there, and there’s also plenty of other extracurricular activities to engage in that’ll ensure you’ll have a great vacation.
Words and pictures can, indeed, tell a good story, but I also know that in today’s day and age there are few things more powerful than video. Throughout my almost week-long sojourn in Sochi, both by the Black Sea as well as up in the Krasnaya Polyana mountain resort area, I always had in mind to have my phone at the ready to try and capture good footage.
A recap and highlights vlog is almost always my favorite piece of content to produce because it quite literally takes the entire duration of the trip in order to do all the filming and it also gives me closure on each trip. Of course, I couldn’t produce this without the assistance of Mike Burgher, my amazing video editor. I have thoughts and ideas in mind then dump all the footage on him, and he weaves it all into a beautiful few-minutes-long video story, complete with soundtrack and after-effects.
I suppose I’ve rambled on long enough. Thanks once again to all of you for taking an interest in this latest trip of mine, to the 2019 EPT Sochi. I hope you enjoy watching the vlog, and if you do or have any other sort of feedback for how I could improve content like this in the future, please share and comment on social media.