Paf’s Ola Brandborn enthusiastic about The Festival Tallinn
It’s been a while since we checked in with Paf’s head of poker, Ola Brandborn. So what’s new? “Same same!” he laughs, “I’ve been working from home for two years - it’ll be good now to start travelling and meet my colleagues again!” With The Festival in Tallinn now confirmed for the summer, Paf’s partnership with The Festival is back on track, and Ola is feeling optimistic about the permanent return of live poker.
Enthusiastic about timing and choice of venue
“We know for sure that players want to travel,” he tells me. “We had our own Destination Poker event in Åland just before winter when covid started to come back, and a few players asked, are you going to run it in Bratislava [in spring]? And I said I didn’t know, because of the covid situation, but I will for sure run it in Tallinn if covid allows it, so I was very happy to see that they moved it from Bratislava to Tallinn.” Indeed, you will by now be aware that The Festival in Bratislava has been pushed back to October, when we fully expect things to be more or less back to normal. Before then, though, The Festival in Tallinn will be taking place June 27-July 3 at the Olympic Casino Tallinn. Ola is enthusiastic about both the timing and the choice of venue.
“Bratislava in the spring, I wasn’t sure - but Tallinn in the summer is perfect. Tallinn fits our audience very well, as we are a Nordic operator. The Swedes have an easy way to travel to Tallinn [it’s just a short boat ride from Stockholm, and in fact Paf are planning to bring back their own legendary poker cruises on the route ASAP], so I think a lot of them will come. The Norwegians haven’t been able to travel for a long time, and I think they are eager as well, so I think it will be a good turnout. We’ll also be running the Swedish Championship in Bratislava in August - it’s the same guys running it, Franke and Mauritz and so on.” You know it’ll be a good one with those guys in charge.
Tallinn has become a destination very familiar to Nordic players
The lavish Paf player hospitality will be returning along with the poker. “We’ll be organising some dinners, drinks, that kind of thing,” Ola says. “All of our players at Paf know about Tallinn though!” One of the most popular stops on the European circuit, with fantastic and reasonably priced amenities and entertainment, and of course very easy to reach from Nordic countries, Tallinn has indeed become a destination very familiar to Nordic players in recent years. Pressed on details, Ola admits they’re still in the planning stages, but, “There will be something - but we only decided this yesterday! So we have no plans yet, but there will be something.” Going by previous experience, we have no doubt that Paf will be putting on a proper party. We can’t wait.
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