Poker en Francais
I recently had the good fortune to play in the Partouche Poker Tour Main Event in Cannes, France and looking back I am very glad I did. Although I didn’t cash and came home with way less money than I went there with, I have zero regrets.
It all started at the WSOP convention where I was introduced to a fellow by the name of Eric Zana. He is the French representative for the Partouche Company here in the States and right away I took a liking to him. I had never heard of this event – maybe ‘cause it was the fi rst time it was being held… COULD have something to do with it – however my interest shot through the roof when I found out that they had been running satellites all year at the 41 Partouche properties in France. Out of the 480 entrants over 350 of them had qualifi ed through various satellites. I’m not sure about you folks but where I’m from we call that EQUITY!
The tournament was being held at the Palm Beach Casino Resort in the south of France in the wonderful city of Cannes. Wonderful, yes – inexpensive, defi nitely not! Things must be real good in Europe because a Patron pineapple at the bar (granted it was at the best nightclub in town) cost 25 euros (about 40 U.S. dollars). Thank goodness I wasn’t in the mood to get drunk!
The casino was right on the beach as was every other place we went. I’ve been to many different poker tournaments around the world and I must say this was defi - nitely in the top three given the overall experience. For one, location is very important to me – seeing as how I am so used to busting out before the fi rst dinner break I always enjoy a venue where there is something to do and Cannes was just that. With perfect weather and beachfront everywhere Cannes was an excellent place to be after busting out. People were just happy here. In my previous visits to France I’ve had a few unpleasant run-ins with the locals (mostly in Paris) but nothing of the sort in Cannes. The people were very kind and extremely pleasant to be around.
The tournament itself was put together with incredible precision. All around the board I was impressed. Structure was slow with plenty of chips. And the skill level of play was maybe the worst I’ve EVER seen. I can honestly say there was more equity in this tournament than the WSOP Main Event. I am pretty sure Gus Hansen or the Grinder can attest to that as well – they both played and both actually went pretty deep (Gus fi nished, 9th and Michael [Mizrachi], 14th). When it came time for dinner, we were lead to an outside corridor where one seriously delightful buffet awaited. I’ve had catered food on many dinner breaks but I’ve never, EVER seen anything like this! They spared no expense, that’s for sure.
I made it to Day 2 with an above average stack as did my travel companion David Wells. I started Day 2 off with a bang, doubling up and playing strong until that one hand… I just couldn’t put my opponent on 6-7 off-suit when he limped and called a huge raise from me on the button. To give you an example of the level of play: he limped in middle position, I made a signifi cant raise on the button (irrelevant what I have… okay okay, I had K-K, I just don’t want to make this a bad beat story – I guess I just did! LOL). Flop came down all smalls and I bet about a third of my stack only to get called drawing to a gutshot ONLY… I will spare you the rest of the story but that was happening all the time. A guy would look at A-8 off-suit and couldn’t wait to get his WHOLE stack in. I’m telling you, I’ve never seen anything like this before.
David too couldn’t pull anything together and after both busting out we drifted around Cannes enjoying life. I was shocked at the quality of the women. It seems as if somehow beautiful women are just drawn to the south of France. They were everywhere! I wonder what I would pay to speak French flflflflflflfl uently. At least $100k, that’s for sure.
Speaking of such – David and I were having a random conversation and after drifting off into my random thoughts I said something along the lines of “Hey, I should just move to Cannes, learn French, and take it easy,” and he replied that I could do all that except learn French. I said back to him, “Are you mad? I can learn French in less than a year if I wanted to!” and of course he said there was no chance. You know what’s next. David and I made a bet. And of course the bet was not to see if I could actually do it, because the only way I would make that bet is if someone bet me $30 million MINIMUM. I’d have to give up my life entirely, move to France, and eat, speak, sleep French. Which I would happily do for $30 million! The bet was for 500 euros and we asked two of our ‘relatively’ smart friends if they thought I could learn the French language in one year. I only say relative because both are geniuses 93% of the time but sometimes that 7% kicks in and I am shocked at the things that come out of them. Phil Laak and Henrik Gwinner would be the judges and in order for me to claim victory they would BOTH have to answer “yes” – one “no” and it was a wash. They both said yes, of course, and I collected my 500 euros. There are many great pleasures in life, but beating David Wells out of money might be one of the highest level.
Congratulations to Alain Roy for taking home the Partouche Poker Tour championship along with the cool one million EUROS fi rst-place prize money! A million euros never hurt… Amazingly for Alain, he won his seat through a 125 euro satellite!!!
I’d like to thank Messrs. Isidore and Patrick Partouche, founder and CEO, respectively, of the Partouche Company, as well as their young and effi cient poker team: Maxime and Prospere Masquelier, Benjamin Abou, Maurice Schulman, and Jean Jack Hichai. They put together such a fantastic event and the fact that it was done so well, being their very fi rst event of this kind, is very impressive. And a very special thanks to my buddy Eric Zana who was fi rm in making me attend. Thank you Eric.
And for all of you party animals out there, let me give you a sneak preview of my next article… I just got off a boat – not any old boat – a huge Carnival cruise ship chartered for the Kandy Kruise. It was THE MOST insane trip of my life. All my buddies joined, including Eric and my dad, and we tore it up like never before. You will read all about in next months BLUFF. Good luck to everyone and please remember to eat your veggies. Log onto www.clubwpt.com to play poker with Antonio.
