The Polar Vortex and the PCA

Yeah, it’s cold here, too. I’m looking at the headline on the front page of our local paper -- which I think we’re just about ready to cancel, actually, with the move out to the country -- and how it is screaming this phrase “POLAR VORTEX” at me.

How could I live this long and encounter an entirely new term for some sort of weather phenomenon? This one sounds made up, like something that can’t really be achieved without CGI or something. Reading further it still sounds a bit SF, with some sort of sentient-sounding “lobe” of cold air breaking free in a rogue-like maneuver to descend upon the continent from above.

Whatever is actually causing the temps to dive so precipitously today and tonight, we’re definitely feeling it here in North Carolina where our skins are thin thanks to the usually mild winters. We’ve got coats and scarves and hats and central heating, though, so no worries for us. Our main concern here on the farm over the last few hours has been to fashion some warm places for our newly inherited barn cats to ride things out as we dip further and further below freezing.

Meanwhile the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure has already started to heat up -- haha, get it? hooo boy! -- with the $100,000 Super High Roller event kicking off the calendar year. I’m seeing the temperature there in Nassau is in the 70s, making it a nice place to get away at the moment (if one can get a flight).

This is the 11th year for the PCA and it has now well established itself as a primary stop that kind of brings together all of the different tours as players from all over the globe carve out time to be there. The European Poker Tour kind of claims it as one of its stops, I suppose, and I think in the past the LAPT might have done so, too.

Really, though, it’s easy to imagine the PCA as existing at the center of all the various tours circling around it... kind of like a vortex spinning about with the Atlantis sitting there comfortably in the eye.

Image above by the great Joe Giron for the PokerStars blog, which is a good place to follow for features every day from the PCA. Also check over at PokerNews for live reports from the $100K Super High Roller, the $25K High Roller, and the $10K Main Event.