I was glad we arrived a day early to chill out, scrape off some jet lag, and learn the town a bit. Cory found a beach she wanted to check out on her jog that morning so we headed that way. I intentionally left boardies at home planning on buying a pair here, like a dumbass obviously. Over the course of several hours I found many options in speedos and “Havana cut” swimwear, but nothing that I would ever wear at the lake. Finally found a pair my size, hideously ugly in my opinion, and on sale for 55 Euro. Cory likes them somehow. We laid on the beach reading our electronic books while I wondered why we hate boobies in America so much and insist that they stay covered.
My stress level was building throughout the day though. I’ve been trying to learn French but it’s been super difficult phonetically for me. It’s challenging to feel comfortable in a place with a language barrier. Walking back looking for food I kept seeing menus I didn’t understand and talking to people who didn’t understand me, wishing that I could find a can of dip to buy and perhaps an In-N-Out for french fries.
After dinner that night I moseyed to the casino to play the 330 NLHE turbo. Since I won’t play cash games raked that hard I’m playing the side tournaments instead. I wanted to get an idea of how the Euros were playing, and it didn’t take long to realize the answer was badly. There were 30 runners total, two of us from Las Vegas, and we got heads up. It was 4300 for first and 2600 for 2nd, we made a deal where I took 3850 and the victory, winning back to back tournaments for the first time in my life. I walked home, rained euros on Cory, and went to sleep.
The first bracelet event was the next day, 2680 6max nlhe. I made a decent run but ran out of gas on the backside. French law concerning poker is effed. The 4% rake is tax. Payable to the French government. When they approved PLO they got it down to 2% hoping that NLHE would change too but it didn’t. Those are the only two forms of poker that you can play in France. They also have a goofy rule concerning minimum raise size. If you want to raise, it must be at least 2x the previous total bet size. For exmaple: blinds are 200-400, I open to 1k, if you want to re-raise, the minimum is to 2k, not 1600. I feel like these are good enough reasons to not have the WSOPe in France, but turnouts have been up and people seem to like the place so who am I to complain. There’s got to be a place just as good around here where 4% of the prize pools don’t go to the gov though.
After busting that night I wanted an adventure. Cory was still jet lagged and sleepy so I set out solo seeking a drinking partner. Couldn’t find one at the Majestic, nor at the casino, and I ended up at a bar with Guiness signs West of everything. Trance music and Frenchies, bartender didn’t understand “Hoegaarden et Jamison, si vous plaix”. Thought I wanted the shot in the beer after finally figuring what type of alcohol I was talking about. I left that place and hoofed it East, wandering past the Discoteque 7 that scared me, continuing until I found a place called Morrison’s Pub. I tried speaking French to the blonde bartender, she responds, “I’m not very good at French, what do you want?” Ahh, heaven.
Turns out the place is an English speaking Irish pub and awesome. I met a dude named John from the South side of England who was in town working on displays for some convention. He met this gal who’s the chef on one of the yachts and wants to open a restaurant in Barcelona. They were awesome, and after Morrison’s closed with the owner telling us to “Fuck off, time to go,” we continued our adventure to some nightclub called Da Da Da.
I had a great time. I couldn’t find my iPod or tobacco pipe the following day though, and upon returning to the club the following evening nobody in the staff meeting I crashed said they found anything either.
That afternoon I played the turbo event. With three tables left from 100 runners it folds to me in the small blind. I shove, Frenchie in the big blind thinks, looks at me, puts his entire stack in front of his cards, moving them forward about one foot, lets go, looks at me, and I turn my hand face up. I am pleased to see that I have A4o. He looks at my hand, shows me K9o, and returns the cards to the dealer. I’m like, wtf? You called. You can’t un-call. I didn’t call, my chips didn’t cross the line. I really feel like I’m getting angled hard, and even though numbers are close enough that I shouldn’t mind him folding, I don’t want him to get away with this and feel like I have to be 80-20 instead of 60-40 against this angle shooting son of a bitch.
The floor man ruled in my favor. The line is a courtesy line and doesn’t mean anything, it’s all about forward motion as it should be, and he gets his cards back so we can run it. Nine in the window. Ace on the flop. Brick on the turn. Nine on the river. “Shame on you.” Excuse me? Fuck you you toadsucking motherfucker, you shoot an angle on me, get caught, suck out, and then have the audacity to say shame on me? I wanted to do lots of things, but I put my (Cory’s) ear-buds in and turned up my iPod (iPad) instead. A while later he called my shove from the button and similar stacks with KTo, confirming to me that there wasn’t much of a chance that he was actually folding the K9o and indeed shooting an angle, but I sucked out on him with my T4o. I then busted like 18th and went to find food.
The following day I was scheduled to play day 1b of the 1090 nlhe. The resounding advice that I’ve gathered and observed about the Euros is don’t fold. I have two queens, open in late position, get re-raised by the button to 200, the big blind makes it 700, I choose to not fold, hearing no voice saying fold, say all-in, and lose to the big blind’s two aces. Got me good.
Cory and I wander toward the port intending on catching a boat to one of the islands off the coast. One is owned by monks and basically a winery, the other is French and has a fort and some other stuff on it. We make it to the open air market, I buy a used pipe for 10 euro, and we decide to chill around here rather than trying to rush an afternoon on the island. I played the 200 turbo. Last hand before break playing 100-200 a lagtard opens to 600, somebody else calls, the SB with 3800 calls, and I stuff my 4k from the big blind. I have Q9s. Opener and flatter fold and then the small blind calls, turning over AQo. Got me good.
Went to Morrison’s that night, met some English kids who claimed to be in Kings of Leon, and I chose to believe them since I don’t see why they’d lie about it. They’re not trying to have sex with me, it’s pretty easy to pull up a picture of the band, and I’ve got some pretty outlandish stories myself that happen to be true. Cory on the other hand declared bullshit, they folded cause they weren’t in the Kings of Leon, and then told us about how well that speech worked on French girls.
The next day I wandered past Justin Bonomo, Ryan Di’Angelo, and Brent can’t think of his last name eating at Le Petit Paris down the street. I was headed to play the satellite to the shootout, they said join, I fetched Cory and did, then was joined by Scott Seiver and a couple others. It was nice to have a dinner with friends, and then i headed over to enter the satellite to the main event.
They have this structured poorly. Buy in for 550, receive 4k chips, play 3 20 minute levels: 25-50, 50-100, 75-150. Then for 500 euros, receive 8k chips. It made the first hour annoying because it’s pretty bad to bust before the break due to the add-on size, and only 5 of over 100 did so. Then another 5 or so didn’t take the add-on which is awesome, so it’s not all bad letting people make that mistake, I just think there’s got to be a better way. Late reg isn’t a great option either cause they’re letting these things sell out due to space constraints.
I sat next to (Cornel) Andrew Cimpan. It took me a little while to recognize him, and when I did I laughed my ass off because he was wearing a blue hat with the Italian flag once and the word “Italia” about a hundred times on it. Well played sir. I busted the last hand before break when I flopped a pair, got check-raised, chose once again to not fold, and was shown a hand better than mine that I never thought in a million years would have taken the line it did to get to where it got. Got me good.
Went to Morrison’s again, Cory and I met two Aussies who are on world holiday, and after being told to fuck off as they turned the lights on we told the Aussies that we’d see them in Vegas. Fun stuff.
I saw them the following morning though on my mission to find breakfast. One of them didn’t remember leaving the bar. Chilled out that afternoon gearing up for the shootout. Drew a fine table with Mike Watson and a bunch of French superstars. I watched them constantly roll over garbage, then I flopped top pair, called the c-bet, got checked to on the turn, bet small to induce, got check-raised, chose not to fold, and then chose not to fold when he shoved the river. Not only did he have the toppest pair, he also had the next pair too. Deu pair? Got me good.
I’m not sure if I’m running awful by running into the top of their ranges or if I’m playing awful and punting to perceived ranges, but I’d like it to stop soon, cause I’m about to run out of the euros that I won on the first night.
I came back to the room around 7:15pm. Cory had left on a jog around 4:15. She didn’t take anything besides her room key and iPod, and clearly hadn’t returned yet. I was worried, but what could I do about it? I went to dinner, ordered a bottle of wine, enjoyed a 2 hour meal like the French do, watched the Aussies asked the host for a seat, flagged them down and invited them to sit, they did, and after dinner I returned to the room hoping to find some indicator that Cory was safe. She was, eating at Le Petit Paris, I met her over there, and then we ended up at Morrison’s again. It was open mic night and the level of talent was extraordinary. The place is firmly entrenched in both of our top ten drinking establishment lists, not sure where yet.
Turns out Spain isn’t an option. Thanks for the comments on that, I also heard that the tax rate is through the roof, so no thanks. Gibraltar has become an option, not sure it it’ll work for Cory though, but from what I’ve heard everybody speaks English and Spanish there. It leaves us with an open week after the main event though since we don’t need to check out Spain anymore. So now we’re either going South to check out Gibraltar, North to holiday through Europe, or East for EPT San Remo which begins on the 21st about an hour away.
Peace and good luck,
Devo
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