MONTE CARLO OR BUST! (poker)

I say this every time I come to one of these events:

“As an amateur poker player, why would you come to the biggest annual conglomeration of professionals in Europe?”

It’s like my trips to Vegas for the World Series of Poker; I should really go to Vegas when it’s full of people attending a conference, who often find their way to the card room almost by accident, or when people are in Vegas more to gamble on basketball, American football or horses but who, likewise, find their way to the cardroom. If one’s choice of game is the most important thing in poker, and it most certainly is, then a week in Monaco while the European Poker Tour is here is a bad bet.

Yet, here I am.

Partly it’s that I want to be somewhere I know people. I’ve already bumped into half a dozen players I know from London and that makes it feel less isolating to be here alone. It’s also the almost 24/7 availability of the types of game I like to play. And, if I’m honest, I like to mix it up with these guys. Test myself a bit.

And, to be fair to myself, I did well last time I was here: I came third in a small (for this event) tournament on the first day and used the winnings to play cash games. Because the money in front of me came from tournament winnings rather than a bank account, I played more aggressively than normal and did very well. At the end of the week, the bunch of Eastern Europeans who had usually been on the same table as me were probably glad to see me go.

I made the mistake of accepting €500 notes when I cashed in my chips, and had a hell of a job changing them in London. Only drug dealers, poker players and Russian Oligarchs use €500 notes.

And where are the Oligarch’s these days?

It’s too early to say how this trip will go. I lost a bit on the first day and won it back yesterday. Having not played for a month or two while I move house and deal with life in general, I think I’m happy with that. Certainly, for a good piece of yesterday, playing a biggish Pot Limit Omaha game, I felt in the zone, playing confidently and unbothered by the experience of the others at the table, or the relative depth of their bank rolls. I’ve been playing over twenty years and felt that I was someone at the table THEY had to deal with, rather than the other way round. That felt good.

However, at one point, my lack of recent playing time showed itself when I nearly threw away a huge pot by mucking the winning hand. I called all in (i.e with all my chips) with two cards to come, holding the nut flush draw.* We ran it twice and the final card on each board was a black three, and I was immediately reaching for my pocket to buy in again. But, for once, I did what you are supposed to do in this spot, though most people don’t, and mucked my cards face up. Perhaps, as an amateur, I needed to show I had made a reasonable call. It was the dealer, doing his job, who spotted that the black threes each made me a gutshot* straight to the five (or wheel as it’s known in the game). In truth, I hadn’t even spotted that possibility when deciding to call the big bet!

The abuse lasted for half an hour, but it’s always really, really easy to ignore abuse from someone when their chips are in your stack!

I’m thinking of starting a more poker orientated blog and test driving a few posts here to see how I feel about them. i promise not to be offended if that’s not your bag.

* Nut Flush Draw. What this means is that I held two Diamonds, the Ace and another card, and two of the four cards on the board were diamonds. If the other players don’t hold any diamonds 9 of the 44 cards I can’t see make me a flush. (A couple might pair the board and make my opponent a full house). I have only about a 20% chance of winning the pot but the amount I have to put in is small compared to the amount already there. This is what’s called Positive Expected Value and it’s what most poker situations are actually about, rather than having the “good poker face” of popular mythology!

*Gutshot. If there is, say, a 3/4 combination on the board and you hold a 5 and a 6, thein either an 2 or 7 makes a straight. This is an “open ended” straight draw. If there is a A/2 combo on the board and you hold a 4 and a 5, then the only card that makes five card straight is a 3. This is called a gutshot!