Monte Carlo Full Report

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PowerHausAA United States. May 07 2009 08:25. Posts 29

Monte Carlo
Day 1: We leave JFK (New York) close to midnight Sunday. We arrive in Paris at some point and wait 3 hours for connect flight to Nice. We get to Nice around 5PM and I get conned into taking public transportation. Bad move as it was pouring and a lot less convenient than I thought it’d be. The view is absolutely gorgeous as well as the resort. As we’re checking in all I see is extremely young faces. Nothing exciting, we unpack go down to the bar have few drinks and some snacks then I head to bed. A bottled water is like 7 Euros lol.

Day 2: Unfortunately i wasn’t able to switch to day 1b so I’m playing on Tuesday. I get there early to check out room temperature and snack situation as I didn’t have time or thought to pack food. I’m the first one at the table I make some chit chat with the dealer and the seats start filling up. To my right is younger lad from Texas, very nice kid, from what I remember he won the supernova elite tournament which meant that he got supernova elite status with almost no work? To my left is Entropyxx and we have a kind of awkward moment when we realize who each other are as we played tons of hands with each other and plo200. Seats 1-4 were all Stars regulars. Day 1 I really didn’t get dealt anything. I remember getting kings twice one flopped an ace and second one I missed a huge value river bet. I thought the whole day I earned most my chips. At one point I was down to 17kish when I called on the button with J 10 Clubs and flopped trips and turned quads to double up against seat 9’s kings. Seat 8 was pretty much trying to steal every time and two times I actually did call him down he managed to catch backdoor flushes. Pretty much he would call in position with nothing on flop and try to out play turn and river. If it weren’t for him I think I’d easily be over 70k chips for the day. Day 1 ends with 41k.

Day 3: (Wed) the other day 1 is going so I have the whole day to venture. Amanda(My girlfriend couldn’t come so she got a bit lucky and called me at the exactly right time and went with me) and I went to the beach grab some unbelievable food. It was unreal how fresh the food was, but I guess that’s what a 70 euro lunch buys. I tried to keep the day short as I still had 3k vpp to go for the 50k vpp minimum for the month. Procrastination is my specialty; it’s funny because Entropy was in the same exact spot as me. So I return to the hotel room and setup my internet (20 euros/day) and of course the mouse I got at the airport only works when its right next to the USB thingy so now I have to cross my hand to the left side of the computer to play. UGH!#@!@! MrBIond and I have been planning to meet up the whole time and we finally do. I was scared he was going to be a total tool but he ended up being really cool and he gave me the best advice ever, to Email scotty from stars about my situation.

Day 4: So I wake up really early on Thursday for day 2 (this whole trip I barely slept). I start going at it cross handed multitabling and I just give up and email scotty. He hooked it up and gave me the 3kvpp I needed. On to day 2 of the main event. I end up at an awesome table, I actually had a lot of chips compared to most of the players at my table and the biggest stack was about 70kish. First hour I get up 80k, im getting dealt beautifully and im running over the table. DOOMSWITCH, table got broken up and of course I take the last table assignment card on the table. I get moved to the heaviest table in the tournament. Lee Nelson had about 330k and of course Entropy is to my right with over 100k, Eric Qu is to my left with over a 120k (who ended up final tabling). Pretty much every other seat has a good stack size. Every other hand I come into the pot I get 3-betted. So I adjust my range to JJ+AK+. I’m pretty stagnant the whole time lingering around 60k. The only hand I showed down was Kings and that was when button shoved and I wake up with kings in BB. I am in the second dinner break and I’m starving. First group is in the middle of dinner break and were just about to take ours when middle position opens for 6500 (1200/2400 blinds) I have about 65kish left and I have A 10 H. I think about squeezing but decided that I can outplay him on flop. Flop comes K Q 4 two clubs. Check check Turn is 5 spades. I lead out for 11k he calls. He called pretty quick but I’m pretty much putting him on jack’s /tens as I’m pretty sure he would’ve lead out A Q here. River is 2 clubs. I realize that at best he might be on a weak q here or some lower pair. I put 23k in on the river. I’m representing pretty much K Q here or A,J, or A,10 clubs. In retrospect I should’ve definitely put like 7-8k on turn and valued bluff 10k on river. He tanks for about 6-8 minutes ( I don’t call clock as I want to miss the blinds before dinner break), he finally declares a call and flips over 9’s. at first I was baffled but made more sense that I have monster or nothing there and im definitely kicking myself for not value bluffing river. I have about 19k left next hand I get dealt 9’s. Entropy makes standard raise one off button and I shove. BB doesn’t see that I shove (I don’t know how) and tries to call just the 6500, the tournament director comes over and has to tell him that his options are fold or call leaving the 6500 he put in there already. So he opts to call. Flop is a 10 4 turn q river blank. BB has K,j entropy had k 10 I would’ve lost either way. I was somewhere in the 180-220th place range as I just picked up and left.

Overall I felt good about the whole tournament. Played well in my opinion minus few hiccups when I didn’t declare raise a few times. Anyways started instadrinking and went to an awesome dinner and ate a risotto that I’ll never forget. It was by far the best thing I had there.

Rest of my stay there was relaxing got pretty trashed Friday night, paid 80 euros for 4 beers and Nelly the rapper and his entourage were few feet from where we were all dancing. Actually I may as well tell you about my NELLY experience in Monte Carlo.
So Amanda and I are walking through the hotel lobby and I do a double take on Nelly. I turn to Amanda and I was like “yo I think that’s nelly.” She thought it looked like him but was like nah it can’t be. As we’re walking back up to the events center we see him taking pictures and what not. So of course I can’t miss this opportunity lol to meet nelly. So I give him one of the most touristy “HELLO” I’ve ever given. Of course his bouncer his setting me to the side asking him to give him a minute. So finally he agrees to snap a few pics. At first he got a little ticked about Amanda’s lens cap being on still, but nonetheless I got a picture with him. Later on the week I found him playing battleships poker with some kid and his bouncer brings him this big bag of mcdonalds and he pulls out a filet o fish box. Only a millionaire rapper named nelly would get a filet o fish in gorgeous Monte Carlo, one of the most exclusive places in the world. The story doesn’t end there. Friday night we go to Jimmy’z, (the 20 euro/beer place). Of course nelly is there with his entourage. Every so often he would get champagne with fireworks type of candles in the ice bucket (lol it was totally announcing that he got more champagne). It was kind of crazy, he was surrounded by bouncers and bitches, quite a scene. So I’m pretty smashed at this point and I’m sick of paying 20 euro beers so I go back to get a 24 euro room service cheeseburger. Amanda told me that when nelly was leaving that his bitches were having a squabble/serious discussion over who’s going back with nelly. Only adds to the hilarity of the filet o fish. So that’s my Nelly story.

My monte carlo in general was amazing. Got to meet house_advantage, mrblond, entropyxx,bfl4me as well as a bunch of other players. I met a guy named Ted and his wife who I found out was Poker snoopy. It was definitely nice to meet others in person that do this for a living too. Somewhat of a redeeming trip for me as far as my poker career goes.