So, yes, this is a TOURNAMENT poker blog.

But it’s also called VIRGIL GOES TO EUROPE (see blog number one to remember why).

And Virgil… is actually IN EUROPE!

Ruth and I made the prescient decision NOT to go to LA this winter and instead we’re working from Portugal for the month of January. A little town called Alcabideche, a fishing village just a few minutes’ drive from the breathtaking coastal town of Cascais.

Look, I took these pictures!

And go figure, I can drive to the neighboring town of Estoril and its historic casino in about nine minutes. Seven, if I speed.

And while there are no tournaments there this month, there is a poker room! I swear, total coincidence. I had no idea when I booked our Airbnb.

Anyway, although I’m not a brilliant cash player, I couldn’t let the opportunity go by to pay an obligatory visit and write a few sentences about it.

And it was a good reminder of why I hardly ever play cash games. ‘Cause it’s boring as fuck.

Funny, though, the players at the table, look exactly the same as any poker room in Vegas or Miami, or Scarborough.

You got your requisite two young brazen punks with their eternal smugness.

You got your young American guy on a much-needed break from his bus tour (and his wife – his words, not mine).

You got your older American tourist in a powder blue Target sweatsuit (that is not half as intimidating as my black Adidas Tiro 24 Competition sweatsuit).

There’s the aggressive and wily South-Asian guy with the massive chip stack, and the loose-passive Asian guy who keeps running to the cashier to replace his.

You got your Estoril regular, Euro-trash old pro, who looks like the Portuguese version of my buddy Domenic, who clearly makes a living feasting on the tourists, which I don’t mind… but, Dude, learn to cough into your elbow FFS.

There’s the non-verbal, grizzled guy dressed in black and wearing the black wool beanie toque. Oh, wait a sec, the quiet grizzled guy in the black beanie toque… THAT WAS ME!

Anyway, how to make monotony entertaining. Can’t do it.

I played exactly one hour, won a hundred and fifty-two Euros and called it a day, while no doubt some 15-year-old dork in his parents’ basement in Bowling Green, Ohio made 6 mill buying Trump’s Crypto currency.

Oh well, we all have our strengths and weaknesses.

It’s 20 below in Toronto right now. I can’t really lose…