Bond18 - Around the World in 90 Days: Day 9

Posted by Bond18 | Filed under Bond18

East Mediterranean Sea, May 8^th, 2008: I forgot to include a rather strange conversation from last night in my writing. The six of us had gone down to the poker room to register for the 550 Euro tournament. Due to Euro availability, we were both forced to borrow money from Cory (who’d made the final table) and pay my entry fee in a massive wad of 5 and 10 euro bills. We were sitting at a table while the tournament manager, Deborah, was counting down my stack of bills. The next table over I hear a middle-aged American woman on the tournament staff complaining loudly:

“These old French people won’t get of your way to save your life, it’s completely ridiculous. They’re so incredibly rude, I was trying to get off the boat today and there was a line of them and the security asked them in French to please move to the side and they just stared at him and refused. It was totally ridiculous. If it wasn’t for us they’d all be speaking German!”

I remarked to Pacman that it’s funny she’s over there ranting about that considering I just wrote about the same thing in my trip report the previous night. Pacman began talking to her for a moment about a similar experience he had, and she and a friend came over to join our conversation circle. I decided to inform her of the minor coincidence.

“You know it’s funny I hear you ranting about that. I was just writing about it last night, like how the fuck is it so hard for these people to take one step to the left or right?”

She holds out her hand and I slap it with force and exclaim “Boo Yah!”

She takes this as an opportunity to launch into full tirade mode.

“I KNOW! It’s totally ridiculous! They’re so rude, they won’t move for you at all! My friend here used to understand but since she moved to France, she’s turned on us!”

Her friend tries to cut in.

“Well you have to understand, some of them…”

The fired up one interrupts.

“It’s totally ridiculous. If it weren’t for us they’d all be speaking German! Some people say “Viva la France,” well I say “Fucka la France!”

I was left laughing at her antics while she raved in a room that was likely occupied by 20% French people and imagined a police officer filling out paper work that said Cause of Death: Bludgeoned to death by baguette.

“You got me all riled up here! I need to rub your head!” And with that she jammed her hand onto my head and rubbed it vigorously. Wacky Americans.

My exhaustion from the early morning, feeling sick, and long day in Istanbul led me to making my way to bed at an early hour, after ordering a 9:40AM wakeup call so they didn’t pack away the whole breakfast buffet before I could get there.

I wake up with a horribly stuffed up nose, aching throat, and moderate headache. Oh man, am I really going to get out of bed like this? I guess I already paid for the tournament and there’s nothing else to do with my day, so I’ll try to pull myself together and make a go of it. Ripping the blankets off makes me feel utterly freezing and I sprint into the shower as quick as possible and crank up the heat.

I make it up to the buffet just as they’re closing, and grab as much food as I can before they burrow it away. I find Pacman and Eden at a table and spend a few minutes chatting with them before we find our way down to the poker room for the tournament. The tournament has us starting with 4,000 chips at 25/50 blinds and 30-minute levels. I sit down in my seat and on my right is an older man wearing what I recognize to be a Crown Casino hat.

“Spend much time at Crown in Melbourne?”

“Yea mate, you from around there?”

“Down the street sorta.”

“South Melbourne?”

“More or less, St Kilda.”

“So how’d you do in the tournament?”

“Busted third hand of Day 3. You?”

“Worse, Day 2, but I had one amazing experience in particular.”

“Really, what was that?”

“When I came in on Day 2 to look at the chip counts guess what? It had my name, chip count and rank, which was 69! Awesome! I wanted to grab it off the wall and show it to everyone around home.”

“Hell yea man, put that thing on your front door.”

“Exactly mate!”

Wacky Australians.

Across the table the most famous player on the cruise sits down, JJ Liu. JJ is known for her TV final table appearance in the WPT and fairly outlandish tournament clothing choices. Today she is draped head to toe like an Arabian princess mixed with belly dancer without showing any midriff. The outfit is bright red with gold patterns all over it, sparkling more than the sea outside the window. On her head sits a circular matching bright red hat with lace dripping over her face. To top it off, she’s wearing a pair of Greg Raymer dinosaur eye’s sunglasses. Wacky Chinese. It is an odd ensemble for a tournament, but then again, I’m the only asshole who wears suits to these things who isn’t working the floor or Marcel Luske.

The tournament gets cards in the air and I find 5-5 on the first hand which I raise to 150. I get one caller then the CO blasts it to 900. I have a feeling it’s going to be one of those days. The first hand I see a flop with goes down as follows:

My stack: ~3,800. UTG: ~4,000. I hold 6-6 on the CO. Blinds 25/50

Pre-flop: UTG raises to 175, action folds to me on the CO, I call, everyone else folds.

Flop: Qc-Qs-7c

UTG checks, I check.

Turn: 2d

UTG checks, I bet 250. UTG quickly check-raises to 900. What in the hell? Put this down as one of the lines you will never see online, raise pre-flop with deepish stacks, then check both the flop and turn, and bomb the turn with a check raise. I fold while shaking my head in confusion.

A while later I find 7-7 in EP, raise it up, get three callers, and have to check fold a J-8-3 all heart flop. The blinds soon go up to 50/100 and my stack has slowly dwindled down to almost 3,000. A few hands into 50/100 I find Q-Q in LP and JJ open raises to 300. I make it 900 and she tanks while I do a mental prayer she sticks it in. She asks how much I’m playing for, then elects to fold. You win this time princess.

I spend the whole of the 75/150 level playing small pots and getting almost nothing going. At 100/200 the HJ limps and JJ limps the CO and the button folds. With 2,550 in the SB I jam 7-5s and the BB plus limpers all snap fold.

A round later I finally find myself in an interesting spot:

My stack: 3,150 MP2: ~10K SB: ~4K BB: ~4.5K Blinds 100/200, I hold 8-8 in MP1

Pre-flop: Action folds to me and I raise to 500, MP2 (new to the table) thinks it over briefly and calls, the SB who is an overly loose older French guy calls, JJ calls in the BB.

Flop: T-T-7 rainbow

Both blinds check to me and I’m sitting with a little over a pot-sized bet left. With three players in and both blinds capable of having all kinds of 10s it’s an awkward spot, but due to stack sizes I elect to move in. The player behind me thinks a little while before calling, and both blinds fold. MP2 tables 9-9 and I’m pretty screwed.

Turn: T

River: 6

Well that was fast. Didn’t even make the first break. At least I can get my sick ass some rest up in the room.

With the 550 Euro tournament over it’ll be a few days until I get to play any poker again. I won’t be arriving in Paris until the 11^th and there’s not much in the way of poker on the boat left outside a few cash games.

Five of us played the tournament this afternoon and four of us played the ME. The closest anyone came to cashing in anything was my 33^rd in the ME (it paid 24^th), and that wasn’t even that close. Cory went on to finish third after coming into the final table in eighth place, and the guy who busted me out, a young and polite German guy, finished first for around $350,000. It’s 1:02AM - I wonder how drunk he is right now?