Delightful Deauville
We flew to Paris last weekend with the intention of playing the EPT event at Deauville for which I won a seat on Stars.
Handily there was a juicy 500E short handed NLHE tournament at the Aviation on the Sunday which would serve as an appetizer.
Unfortunately I drew a seat next to the best short handed player in Europe, Devilfish. Fortunately I declined his offer of a last longer bet, but that was the only thing I did right in the event. The 'Fish treated the other players on his table to an absolute clinic of how to play short handed no limit. He amassed a huge stack of chips without ever seemingly putting a large proportion of them on offer. I finally took a stand against him with a suited ace only to find him with AK. End of me. I must admit I was very shocked the next morning to discover he didn't make the final. It just goes to prove doesn't it? (I'm not sure what it goes to prove, but it definitely proves something!)
Monday was Valentines day. Katharine and I did a few of the touristy things in Paris we hadn't done before, namely Notre Dame and the Pompidou Centre. All very romantic. One question though, does anyone know how to hail a taxi in Paris? We were shouting and hooting and waving our arms like maniacs only to be soundly ignored. Does the little light being on denote the taxi is available or not?
Deauville is alot of things, but easy to get to isn't one of them. Tuesday was travelling day. There are only about 3 trains a day from Paris so we had to make sure we caught the noon train or face a 5 hour wait. Other players chose the Ferry followed by a drive through Normandy. I'm told one couple even chose the vagaries of the French bus system.
We were staying at the Normandy hotel which is linked to the Casino Barriere by a tunnel. I cannot deny it is a *very* expensive place to stay, but I honestly think the service was the best I've encountered. When we had the "Do Not Disturb" sign up, not only did they not bother us, a shutter was rolled down over our windows to prevent light coming in! One day I retired to my room during the dinner break to have a shower and a change of clothes. When I returned a few hours later my clothes had been folded up and put away! It was like having a butler for a week.
The restaurants and facilities were excellent too. All in all the hotel cannot be recommended highly enough.
The town of Deauville is also a delight. It is so beautiful it could almost be a toy village. Countless interesting bars and restaurants. Plus two racecourses and a high class golf course. And the walk by the seafront was just stunning. It was so refreshing to play a big tournament away from a big city. I would guess the town does get very crowded in the summer, but perhpas if you could sneak a weekend in mid april, it would definitely be a break worth having.
Onto the poker. I won't dwell too long on this as Mr Anon hopes not "oh god is this going to be a 'i have just blown another massive stack deep in a tourny' story??". Basically I played great for 1.99 days and awfully in the last 5 minutes of day 2. Then I lost 2 coin flips on day 3 and finished 10th. No regrets. Congrats to my mate the Cobra for finishing 6th, an incredible performance considering the pressure he was under.
The tournament like everything else in Deauville was just about perfect. A lovely quiet, elegant room was dedicated to the event. Excellent dealers and tournament staff. A structure that couldn't be faulted in any way. I suppose a report from me wouldn't be complete without at least one gripe. So here goes. 3% of the prize pool was kept for the staff. Fair enough. But, when I went to the pay out window I was pushed politely towards the tip box and "expected" to leave something. Because I thought the event was so good I did leave another couple of % of my win, but I feel 3% is usually more than enough and anything extra should be purely voluntary.
All in all a wonderful week. I honestly don't think I've enjoyed a week's poker more. Met some great people (including Luckyblind who played out of his skin in the big event and is a top bloke) had fun, and won some money. What more can I ask?
Handily there was a juicy 500E short handed NLHE tournament at the Aviation on the Sunday which would serve as an appetizer.
Unfortunately I drew a seat next to the best short handed player in Europe, Devilfish. Fortunately I declined his offer of a last longer bet, but that was the only thing I did right in the event. The 'Fish treated the other players on his table to an absolute clinic of how to play short handed no limit. He amassed a huge stack of chips without ever seemingly putting a large proportion of them on offer. I finally took a stand against him with a suited ace only to find him with AK. End of me. I must admit I was very shocked the next morning to discover he didn't make the final. It just goes to prove doesn't it? (I'm not sure what it goes to prove, but it definitely proves something!)
Monday was Valentines day. Katharine and I did a few of the touristy things in Paris we hadn't done before, namely Notre Dame and the Pompidou Centre. All very romantic. One question though, does anyone know how to hail a taxi in Paris? We were shouting and hooting and waving our arms like maniacs only to be soundly ignored. Does the little light being on denote the taxi is available or not?
Deauville is alot of things, but easy to get to isn't one of them. Tuesday was travelling day. There are only about 3 trains a day from Paris so we had to make sure we caught the noon train or face a 5 hour wait. Other players chose the Ferry followed by a drive through Normandy. I'm told one couple even chose the vagaries of the French bus system.
We were staying at the Normandy hotel which is linked to the Casino Barriere by a tunnel. I cannot deny it is a *very* expensive place to stay, but I honestly think the service was the best I've encountered. When we had the "Do Not Disturb" sign up, not only did they not bother us, a shutter was rolled down over our windows to prevent light coming in! One day I retired to my room during the dinner break to have a shower and a change of clothes. When I returned a few hours later my clothes had been folded up and put away! It was like having a butler for a week.
The restaurants and facilities were excellent too. All in all the hotel cannot be recommended highly enough.
The town of Deauville is also a delight. It is so beautiful it could almost be a toy village. Countless interesting bars and restaurants. Plus two racecourses and a high class golf course. And the walk by the seafront was just stunning. It was so refreshing to play a big tournament away from a big city. I would guess the town does get very crowded in the summer, but perhpas if you could sneak a weekend in mid april, it would definitely be a break worth having.
Onto the poker. I won't dwell too long on this as Mr Anon hopes not "oh god is this going to be a 'i have just blown another massive stack deep in a tourny' story??". Basically I played great for 1.99 days and awfully in the last 5 minutes of day 2. Then I lost 2 coin flips on day 3 and finished 10th. No regrets. Congrats to my mate the Cobra for finishing 6th, an incredible performance considering the pressure he was under.
The tournament like everything else in Deauville was just about perfect. A lovely quiet, elegant room was dedicated to the event. Excellent dealers and tournament staff. A structure that couldn't be faulted in any way. I suppose a report from me wouldn't be complete without at least one gripe. So here goes. 3% of the prize pool was kept for the staff. Fair enough. But, when I went to the pay out window I was pushed politely towards the tip box and "expected" to leave something. Because I thought the event was so good I did leave another couple of % of my win, but I feel 3% is usually more than enough and anything extra should be purely voluntary.
All in all a wonderful week. I honestly don't think I've enjoyed a week's poker more. Met some great people (including Luckyblind who played out of his skin in the big event and is a top bloke) had fun, and won some money. What more can I ask?
8 Comments:
Ironside here
and an annoyed ironside forget mr anon give us more of the poker played and what happened where and when
if i wanted a travel report i would have gone to www.judithcharmers.com she is slightly better looking in a swinsuit
working man here
very true,Mr Ironside.
Less of the lifestyles of the rich and famous ,more hard core gambling and tips for the lesser mortals please.
Keith,
So you gonna let Mr Anon dictate what you write? Go on do a trip report. Good to see you're back in the swing again. I have to confess I don't have my finger on the pulse of the tournament scene these days - Bob was out of the final before I even knew he was in the tournie!
Anyway, good to see Wigan in better shape, I lumped on shorter than you, just before their unbeaten run ended. Still, I'm not too confident with them and may lay off.
And as for Neville, he's a c*nt - even Keane admitted that he deserves to get chased down a tunnel once in a while!
Copenhagen is a great city and expensive too, but the women are second to none! Paris, that sure felt more expensive when I went there the other week for a weekend - just before you (but i was on a stag weekend in Cop'!)
give us some of the playing badly in the last 5mins of day 2 and lots of the juicy good stuff!!!! this is camelpoker not cameltouristguide. Stuff the knockers - give us the goodies
Ironside here
Why are we waiting, why are we waiting.
You gonna come up with the poker stories or are we going to call you judith next time we see you.
you fans have spoken give us the poker of face the consequences
Okokokokok.
Will post a bit of poker from Deauville when I get home from Walsall.
poker high roller here..
Bugger these peasants and their wretched poker stories.
I'm thinking of rolling up next year.So tell me about the wining and dining.Did you stuff your face with fois-gras?Did you imbibe quality vintages?Whatabout the champers?And were there any high class hookers available?
tournament organiser w.karp was heard to say at one point."so i asked her how much she wanted for an hour.she told me 1000euro.i said to her i want to rent you not buy you"
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