#11 Dragonara Casino - Malta

Dragonara - Malta

After a bit of research, I discovered that there are 2 casinos in St Julians, the Dragonara Casino and the Portomasso, both of which offer tournaments as well as cash games. As the girls were looking to catch a bit of sunshine, this was the perfect place to head to for a long weekend.

The Dragonara has a pretty spectacular location on the edge of the town. You go through the old city walls, and a long straight road leads out towards the Roman Temple shaped casino.
Its a single storey, white building in a square shape surrounded by white pillars.
On closer inspection, the whole thing is of course a fake, and probably not much more than a few years old. It's done up lavishly inside and the attention to detail on the place is very impressive, with sistine chapel type paintings on the vaulted ceilings, and even the card room has seats in the French Rococo style!
For me it was all trying a bit too hard. The place was jammed with bandits and gaming tables, but had a tiny poker room with maybe 5 tables.
Still, the other casino in town - the Portomasso - which is much bigger had a WPT event on when I was there, with buy ins in the 4 or 5 figure bracket, which are unfortunately a bit out of my league!
So I played a couple of tournaments there which didn't go particularly well. The last one I remember very well, as I was in the big blind with pocket Aces and was pretty sick to see everyone chucking there cards away until it got to the small blind, he raised for about a 3rd of his stack, so after doing the obligatory hollywood routine, I jammed all my chips in the middle and I was delighted to see him call instantly and show the AK of spades. Giving me 87% chance of winning the lot.
The dealer duly delivered the flush on the river, so I put my jacket on to the sounds of the villain whooping and banging the table with delight.

Fortunately I couldn't get a seat at the cash game at the Portomasso on the way back to the hotel, so managed not to donk off the rest of my euros whilst in full tilt mode.


Venue:Dragonara - Malta
Year:March 2011
Tournament Success:None
Cash Game Success: None
Summary:Poker is a bit of an after thought for this place. I suspect the other place is alot better but, never got the chance to give it a spin.