Paris 2003
It was an interesting time to be in Paris. It seems like all of Europe only wants to talk about whether or not to go to war in Iraq.
It was also very cold. That being said, I am glad I went. The ACF is gorgeous, the side games are great, and you are in Paris. Finding fun things to do and good food to eat is not hard. Bruno, the GM of the club, has a great policy for those traveling from the states. You can bring Bellagio chips with you, and get Euros for them . When you leave, he will sell you the chips back at the same rate you got when you arrived. One note of caution, if you can't handle smokers, don't even think of going to the ACF. Otherwise, I can heartily endorse Paris as a premier poker destination.
Now I'll turn my attention to the 10,000 euro WPT event. Before the tournament started, I was presented with my first big decision. When you went to draw your seat, you could choose smoking or no smoking. Since there are not any rooms that are smoke free in the club, I decided that it would not be much more uncomfortable to sit at a smoking table. I picked smoking. I was surprised that I was the only non-smoker to choose smoking. I was also pleased to see that I avoided the table that had Gus Hansen, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, Mark Seif, and Surrinder Sunar at it. After a long streak of drawing bad starting tables at big tourneys, it was nice have some unfamiliar faces at my table.
I had a quiet first day and finished with about 16,000. The structure was nice and slow, so I still had some play starting day two at 300-600. I love that Bruno had a 700-1400 round after the 500-1000. During day two, I worked my chips up to 100,000. I then finally caught a rush; the problem was, it was a rush of bad play. I quickly found myself with 25,000. I was able to recover and started the final table with 80,000, about par. Not much happened after that, and when I found myself the short stack, seven handed, with 55,000, I lost patience and moved in with K2 and was called by QQ. That was the end of me.
Congrats to Allen Cunningham on his third place finish. I did think it was interesting that the only Americans who cashed in the main event came over early. Allen had gone to France many weeks early to take a French course. And I went over a week early to visit Austria. One should not underestimate the negative effect that 6-9 hours of jetlag can have on your game.
I did see two of the most amazing plays I have ever seen.
Play #1:
50-100 blinds. Button opens for 400. Tight player in BB raises to 1500. Button calls. Flop-- QdQc9s. BB bets 2000, button calls. QdQc9s2d. Check, button bets 3000. BB calls. QdQc9s2d7c. Check, check. BB shows AdTd. Button shows 2c6h. Wow!!
Play #2:
300-600 blinds. Aggressive player opens UTG for 1500. BB calls. Flop-- Th9h7s. Check, UTG bets 3000, call. Th9h7s8h. Check, UTG moves in for 20,000 with a disgusted flourish. He is almost saying, if you have me beat, I should go broke. Otherwise you should fold. The BB calls. UTG shows 7h7d and the BB shows 8cKs!! For the UTG player to move in with trips only, and get called by a hand drawing dead, not counting 6 outs for half, is incredible.
Bruno is thinking of moving his 10,000 Euro event to his summer tournament. This way he would not go heads-up with the Commerce and we might be treated to some good weather. I think he would get 20-30 Americans compared with the 7 who played this time.