“What are you, stupid? You’ll get nothing!” -- they said to art-director Leon Tsoukernik when he decided to build poker heaven in tiny town Rozvadov with population of 500 people. According to the words of the owner of the facility which is very successful now, this criticism gave him some additional motivation.

You are willing to make the biggest poker room in Europe. Where will it be placed?

Possible locations:

а) Prague, Czech Republic

b) Vienna, Austria

c) Barcelona, Spain

and d) Rozvadov, Czech Republic.

TonyBet OFC mini-series on Open Faced Chinese Poker finished in Czech Republic on Prague Poker festival. Russian players showed themselves from the best side and proved they owe this discipline. Russian Maxim Panyak won High Roller title and Alexandra Usoltseva triumphed on Main Event!

Opening tournament was the little one. 108 players took part in it. There were lots of recognizable names but the prize money weren’t that big.

Opening tournament of TonyBet OFC Results:

1. Isabelle Mercier (Canada) – €10,189
2. Frank Gohletr (Germany) – €6,304
3. Petteri Heinonen (Finland) – €4,081
4. Jan Stefek (Czech Republic) – €2,999.

As you can see, there is no Russians among those names.

€10,000 High Roller was much more interesting. There were two Russians in the heads-up: Maxim Panyak and Evgeny Kocherov!

Right before the start of Poker Festival in Prague where the best poker player in the world should compete, city authorities have made new amendments to the gambling laws and that have already led to the best city poker clubs to be closed, including Card Casino Prague. In the New Year situation might worsen….

European Union with its intolerance towards gambling came to Prague unexpectedly. Prague was different to Paris, Vienna, Oslo and other big cities in Europe. Serious changes are coming to Bratislava as well in the nearest future.

Major dissatisfaction cause not by the number of poker clubs but with everlasting slot machines halls, the number of which is overwhelming in the city. The issue is in these halls full of entertaining mechanisms. Local regional administration complain about gambling problems among locals.

Prague City Hall adopted an amendment on November. 26^th and it should come into legal force on January, 1^st 2016. But the process of cleaning has started in some places already. More than 200 slot halls are planned to be closed during the next year.

18 days, 70 tournaments and a bunch of new records – Prague Poker Festival again brings calm streets of Czech’s capital to live. Despite there is a huge number of interesting events, central place of the festival is most definitely taken by EPT.

As Russian proverb says, “We’ve all been there and drank honey and beer” – and it is true in the case. At least partly, because we surely have drunk beer – as it’s good and chip in Czech Republic. Even the creator of PokerDiscover, who have been into Top-10 of OFC World Championship Main Event, visited Prague. But we’ll talk about this sometimes later…

One can find more than enough opportunities for poker playing in a rather small Czech Republic. There are several well-known clubs in Prague only, and once in December the town turns into poker capital of the world.

In the Czech Republic there are approximately 60,000 slot machines. It is a lot for a country with 10.5 million inhabitants. From the end of 90s the number of slots was growing – 1,000 more each year. The explanation is the existed laws in force: licensed companies could install as many slot machines as they wanted and open infinite number of branches.