Just When You Think Poker Can't Get Any Zanier …

Entrance of snow castle in Kemi, Finland.

In past columns, I have written about some of the goofiest things I have heard in poker, such as the guy who made a million-dollar bet that he could drive X number of players to a certain website. If he won the bet, he would collect $1 million, and if he lost, he would let the winner cut off his hand.



Then, there was the guy who auctioned himself off on Ebay. In exchange for the $10,000 buy-in for the World Series of Poker main event, the winning bidder could dress him up to promote whatever the bidder wanted to promote. Just when you think it can't get any zanier, it does.



Talk about an icebreaker …

You probably heard about Juha Helppi winning an Interpoker.com extreme underwater tournament. As the winner of the event, he was entitled to choose the venue for the next extreme tournament, so he chose Finland, his home country. More specifically, he chose to play in the largest snow castle in the world, the Arctic Kemi Snow Castle in Kemi, Finland. Having never heard of a snow castle like this, I did a little research and learned that the first Kemi snow castle, made entirely from snow and ice, was built in 1996 as a gift to the world from UNICEF and the children of Kemi. Its area is equivalent to the size of three football fields, but it has to be rebuilt each year. The castle includes an art gallery filled with statues made from ice, a restaurant, and a hotel, where guests bundle up in thick, insulated sleeping bags to keep warm in the below-zero temperatures.



There will be some special rules for this special event. If a player loses a lot of chips, he will have the option of buying back the chips in exchange for a piece of clothing. I'd like to be there for this one.



Helppi said, "The snow castle is very beautiful and very cold – just like the city where I grew up. I will be right at home in the castle and aim to take advantage of home-field advantage in every way possible." They'd better start playing soon, since the castle is open only from February to mid-April.



Find romance online …
PartyPoker.com has come up with a promotion to help you find a date while playing online poker. An online dating agency (Lavalife) is teaming up with PartyPoker.com to host a free no-limit hold'em tournament series that will offer single poker players a chance to meet other singles while playing poker online. The theme of the tournament is, "Play on Thursday. Have a date on Saturday." The online poker tournaments began on Thursday, March 23 at 9:30 p.m., and will run at the same time each subsequent Thursday for 11 weeks.



Speaking of finding love at PartyPoker.com, Gary Suffir and Jackie Johnson, who met during an Omaha game on PartyPoker.com, were married at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on March 7, with Mike Sexton as a witness. Their chance meeting occurred in March 2004 after Jackie defended Gary when someone cussed him out in the chat box for delivering a bad beat in an Omaha game. (Is there such a thing?) Gary sent a message to Jackie through the online buddy system to thank her, and they began corresponding. Eventually, she went to New York to meet him, and subsequently moved there to live with him in March of 2005.



Gary and Jackie decided to celebrate their honeymoon on the recent PartyPoker.com Million V. The couple couldn't have been happier as they began their all-in life together, said Mike Sexton. Jackie, a 27-year-old artist, said, "We're just so happy to have found each other and we can't wait to start a family. Gary, a 28-year-old attorney, added, "We were going to call the baby Mike in honor of Mike Sexton if it is a boy, but in honor of the way we met, we'll call him Chip. If our baby is a girl, we may call her Linda, after Linda Johnson, but Queenie also is a possibility."



I am extremely honored, and wish this couple lots of good fortune, love, and happiness.



Now, let's play poker.

Linda is available to host poker events, seminars, and charity and corporate poker nights. She can be contacted through her website at http://www.cardplayercruises.com/ or http://www.lindapoker.com/.