Poker Articles

By Zpaceman | Published Apr 20 2007, 03:23 AM
One of the reasons I enjoy playing poker is the feeling of being involved in something special, an escape from an ordinary life, and for that reason, EPT Monte Carlo really hit the spot. Monte Carlo is a playground for the rich and famous, a backdrop for James Bond movies, and, for a week, home to the most valuable poker tournament ever held outside of the United States. 706 players paid the €10.000 entry fee for the main event.

I had the Pokerstars package, which included a fantastic room at the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel, breakfast and dinner buffets, some good quality Pokerstars gear, a welcome party at the famous Jimmy'Z nightclub, and, of course, entry to the main event. Pokerstars does a great job looking after their players at these events, and that makes it much easier to focus on playing poker.

The poker room comfortably held 40 tables on two tiers with a panoramic view of the Monte Carlo shoreline and the famous old Casino. There was also a large stage area for the feature table. TK Events ran the room superbly with a great team of experienced dealers and floor staff. The only criticism I have is the registration process for the side events, which was slow, chaotic, and frustrating, but that was perhaps due to the unexpectedly large numbers of players.

I drew Day 1A for the Main Event and arrived in plenty of time to get to know my table. The first thing I discovered was that I was sat on the left of poker showman Humberto Brenes. I also had Ken “isuck123” Goldin at my table, but I knew none of the other players.

We started with 15k chips and would play seven 90-minute levels that day. Level 1 started with 25-50 blinds. With such a huge chipstack-to-blind ratio, I really felt like playing squeaky tight and closely observing the players until I could find some weak spots on the table to attack. During Level 1, however, I had AA and KK outflopped by Humberto on successive hands. Then I lost a bunch of chips on AKs versus A8o with an AQ8 flop and found myself down to 8k within the first hour.

I tried to tell myself that 8k was still a lot of chips. This would be fine in any normal online tournament I was playing, but this was the EPT Final in Monte Carlo with lots of great players. More than that, perhaps I was a little overwhelmed by the size and value of the tournament.

Nevertheless, I ground my way through the next few hours, picking up small pots here and there. Looking back, however, I wasn’t able to win any really big pots, despite getting some good hands. It’s rare for me to admit to this, but the reason now seems obvious: I was scared to lose. The entry fee and prize money really were way above my normal bankroll, and, as such, I was not able to play in my normally confident style. Here are some examples:

Winning my first pot from Humberto: I over-limped in MP with 99, and 5 players saw an Ad9c6c flop. With 750 in the pot, Humberto bet out 400. Normally I would make a 3/4 pot bet here to tempt him to stay in the pot, but instead I made it 1500 and chased him away.

I picked up KK in MP and bet 800. Ken raised to 2800 with 13k behind, and I had 11k behind. I shoved all-in, rather than making it 5-6k, and Ken made a very good laydown with QQ.

LAG Scandi raised my BB 900 from the button. He’d been very active, open-raising 30% of his hands, so I reraised to 3000 with TT. He quickly called, and we saw a flop of Td8d6d. There was 6k in the pot, and I had 12k left. I was scared of all those diamonds, so I shoved and he folded.

Near the end of the day, Super-LAG Marc Karam moved to my table, two spots to my left. Humberto bet 1300, and Marc, not having looked at Humberto’s stack, made an auto-reraise move to 3500. Humberto insta-shoved all-in for 5850 more. The TV cameras came over, and the shark act came out. Karam, getting well over 2-1 odds and having 30k+ behind, finally mucked his hand.

A few hands later, I picked up A5o and button raised 1500 into Marc’s BB. He insta-raised to 4500 in exactly the same way he’d done earlier to Humberto, and I immediately felt like he was stealing. I wanted to shove. I should have shoved. Damn it, I folded, and he showed 82o. In hindsight, the main reason I folded was simply to make it to Day 2, which was a big mistake.

Due to these mistakes in an otherwise good day’s play, I ended the day with 15.5k instead of 20-30k.

A card-dead hour into Day 2, I was down to 9k when Johnny Lodden opened for 2k, and I looked down at my best hand of the day: AdTd. Johnny had been playing 30% of his hands, so I was way ahead of his opening range. I shoved all-in, and it was 7k for him to call into a 12.5k pot, so he had just about the odds to call with 9d5d, leaving me at 67% to win. Unfortunately, the 554 flop sent me to the rail. The reason I was out, though, was because I didn’t have enough chips to force him to fold or survive a bad beat.

After busting from the main event, I played some of the side tournaments. The buy-in levels were well within my bankroll, and I was much more relaxed and not afraid of busting. In the 500+1 rebuy/add-on event, I got seated with Annette_15 directly on my left. We had fun for a while at an otherwise very fishy table and had 10k and 11k respectively with blinds at 300/600/75. I open shoved AcJc, and Annette called with AQ. Naturally, I made a runner-runner flush to haul in a 20k pot. What was amazing about that was that Annette, down to 900 chips, managed to quintuple-up with 87o and then triple up again before we got moved to separate tables. I busted around 50th out of 300 or so starters, but Annette made the FT and finished a very creditable 5th for 16k, which was her biggest live win to date. Well done, Annette!

On my last day in Monte Carlo, I played the 1000 Euro freezeout in a very relaxed mood. I really opened up my style and played a LAG game against the many French and Italian locals who really didn’t know much about MTT strategy and tactics. I was reraising in a very similar style to the one employed so successfully by Marc Karam in the Main Event. On one hand, I reraised a button raise with 34o, and he open-folded 24s: I showed him my hand, and we all laughed.

I cashed 21st of 297 in this event after one move too many, but while I didn’t make much money, it had certainly been an enjoyable tourney where I played a confident and comfortable game. The main lesson I learned from this experience was the impact that the size of the buy-in had on my game. I really was scared money in the Main Event, and if I’m to prosper in similar events, I really need to forget about the buy-in and just play my normal game.

The overall experience will no doubt improve my live game for future events, and I really look forward to tasting more of the incredible live poker lifestyle. Next time, which will most probably be the WSOP Main Event, I’ll really try to get into a mindset where I can play my normal game without fear of failure.

Stuart “Zpaceman” Taylor is a professional poker player and Guest Pro at online poker training site www.cardrunners.com.