What a day that was!!! A very good and promising start to the GRAND SLAM tour for 2012.
This year’s flair season once again started in Riga, Latvia with the second edition of „Olympic Casino Flairmania”. 30 flair bartenders from 9 countries arrived in Riga to split 4500 EUR between themselves on this chilly (speaking Northern Europe + Russia) or freaking cold (heard from some of the judges and Southern Italian guys) day of January 26th.
The qualification round started at early 11.00 hours and there were plenty of new and original moves and routines throughout the heats. The time limit for the elimination round were 4 minutes, which as always a pain in the ass for all the bartenders, because everybody is used to the 5 min rounds and now suddenly you have to shorten the whole show. The tricky thing is - which moves should one leave out this time… Should you go for the confident part and play safe or push yourself to the limits and go all or nothing. Well sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t.
10 out of 30 qualified to the finals leaving 11. – 15. place in the battle for additional 100 EUR in the Big Ass Move Competition.
So at 22.00 the finals started. The „Olympic Voodoo Casino” was overcrowded. The staff of the casino could hardly even get to their tables to deal cards and spin the balls.
It started with the Big Ass Move comp. Adam Branczyk, Miika Mehtio, Marcin Cebula (Happy Birthday Marcin), Kamil Szuchalski and Jakub Gorzewski had to write down the number of objects each one of them is going to use in the move. Adam landed his amazing 7 tin 1 bottle move, he practiced it all day in the practice area – and luckily for him he did it on the stage as well and took home 100 EUR cash.
So first on the stage was Maxim Polozyukov from Russia. He had an amazing routine in the qualifications, but a major deduction occurred for missing drink (started to pour the drink 1 second after 4 minutes) dropping him to the 10th position. If it wasn’t those 40 minus points Maxim would be qualifying 2nd and who knows how it would turn out in the end. Maxim is a very technical bartender and it can be seen by his moves – very precise, very clean, smooth and unbelievable. We will hear a lot from Maxim this year and it will be very interesting to see him crawl up each competition.
Next on the stage local home boy Ivars Rutkovskis, who has also put his hand to help and organize this competition. Yet he decided to take part in his own masterpiece. He did a quite good qualification round but messed up in the finals. Total 19 drops – that’s a lot. He said that he wasn’t ready for the finals. But you have to be. Every bartender reaches a point where you have to prepare two shows for each comp, one for the elimination and one for the final. And they both have to be good. Otherwise it is not going to work.
After that is Sergey Bulakhtin’s 6 minutes to prepare two cocktails with Stoli vodka. Sergey definitely knows how to make a good show on the stage – and it can be seen on the scoring list as well. He had the highest score - 19 pts in the „showmanship” section in the heats, and the second highest in the finals – 19,67 pts (1 pt behind Dyer in this section). The look, the style, the music – everything counts. He may not have the highest score in difficulty, but he is close to the leaders by having less drops. Sergey had the least (total 3) drops among the finalists. This is a lesson in it self as well – you have to do, what you are capable of. Make less mistakes and you will score high.
Matteo Mellara were the first from the 3 Italians that made it to the final 10 on the night. Great solid flair from this young man who has been working very hard on his routine and it paid off and got him a place in the final.
Next representing Team Italia was Marco Sdrubolini. This Italian has got such an interesting, intricate style that flows it’s hard to see how difficult and technical his style really is. Very smooth routine but some mistakes cost him in the end.
Last year’s „Viewers Choice Award” winner Riccardo Mastromatteo was last from the Italian trio on Finals night. As always a very polished routine and 2012 might just be a very good year for him judging by his performance in this competition.
Vyacheslav Gazukin … he may have eating the same stuff as Ivars before the final started. It was almost as if the bottles and tins were desperately trying to touch the floor. Despite those 14 drops Slava showed extreme originality and loads of his signature moves. A variety of bottle grabs, and the rap around dripmat slap…Very creative stuff indeed. In Russia they have a name for Slava’s style – square flairing. Original indeed.
Denny Bakiev before the comp said that he wants to place higher than last year and he went for it. This Ukrainian secret weapon is not only a nice and friendly person, but also a total bad ass on stage. His combined speed and difficulty makes his performance stand out immensly. Loved the turns. those speedy turns… Well one thing is for sure – if he keeps going faster, judges will need a time lapse, slow-motion camera to go through all the moves. Human eye has limits.
Next up was it the French master – Sylvain Glatigny. Originality just flows out of this bartender with every single move he does. Loads of tin stalls, bottle grabs, tin grabs as always had the crowd to their feet. His whole routine was filled with his signature moves. Sylvain made some mistakes with the cocktail that got him minus 10 pts but luckily those points wouldn’t change his position in the overall ranking.
The last competitor on the stage was Tom Dyer. He has been to Latvia many times but never as a competitor. Everybody wanted to see him + all his titles – boy that’s hell of a pressure. Despite all of the facts listed, he went on the stage and he did his job like the true professional that he is. Amazing technical skills, amazing difficulty, plus originality… Moreover he did so good with the music – all the accents was on time. Even his moves were flowing to the sweet beats and the crowd went wild for him before, during and after his performance.
1st place - Tom Dyer - UK - €2000.00
2nd place - Denny Bakiev – Ukraine – €1000.00
3rd place - Sylvain Glatigny – France -€ 700.00
4th place - Maxim Polozyukov – Russia - €300
5th place - Sergey Bulakhtin – Russia - €200
6th place - Riccardo Mastromatteo – Italy - €100
Big Ass Move – Adam Branczyk – Poland – €100
Bartending.lv Viewers Choice – Ivars Rutkovskis – Latvia – €100
Looking forward to the next Grand Slam event which will take place in Poland during the month of April. Next stop Warsaw Flair Challenge 3
Article by Ivars Rutkovskis