I had been organizing the Sunday tournament in Baden-Baden already for four years. Every Sunday from 6 pm onwards Texas Hold’em and Seven Card Stud were played. The tournament regularly attracted roughly 40 players of whom the majority were regulars. Of course that meant that for 50 Sundays in a year I was not at home, nevertheless, I didn’t feel uncomfortable about this as I was doing things that today I am still passionate about.

On top of these tournaments I also organized in the Baden-Baden casino, City Championships, Baden-Württemberg Championships, German Championships, European Championships as well as the Poker Classic tournament series and the Poker festival. All in all this added up to some 110 tournaments in the year. For the casinos it was very lucrative to work with the GPPA as they could offer up to five cash game tables and collect the proceeds the whole evening. After visiting Las Vegas again in the summer and returned with prize money amounting of some $5,000, I flew again to Aruba in the West Indies. The first large Caribbean poker event arose through contacts I had made in the previous years on this paradise island. The event consisted of a number of tournaments and was a great success. We printed 100,000 flyers as advertising material, I was also drumming up business in Las Vegas and I used my connections in Germany to encourage some 60 players from all over Europe to jump into a plane and fly to Aruba. A further 40 players came over from nearby Venezuela to participate in the tournament. The event ran from the end of October until the end of November and was a great time for everyone. The prize pool consisted altogether of $200,000. The following year the number of participants drastically declined. That was the year of the attack on Twin Towers in New York and it was incredibly difficult to persuade even one American to fly and the situation was the same for Europeans. I was also afraid and played with the thought of remaining in Europe. On the other hand I couldn’t imagine anyone attacking a plane full of holidaymakers on the way to the Caribbean. After 2001 I didn’t try to promote further events in the West Indies but concentrated remaining on track with non-cash tournaments in Germany.