Poker and Sports (and Fun and Games)

Earlier this week Victoria Coren Mitchell was interviewed over on PokerNews about various topics, one of which was the participation of no less than 22 men in this year’s women’s event at EPT11 Deauville. You might have heard about the men overrunning that event, with one of them eventually winning. In fact there were but 83 total entrants in the €200 buy-in tournament, meaning men made up more than one-fourth of the field.

I’ve written here before on several occasions about the subject of men playing in tournaments designated as women’s events. In fact I’ve even written about Coren Mitchell’s opinions about the subject, a post occasioned by my having covered the Ladies Event at the 2012 WSOP when around 10 men participated, as did Coren. That was before she would add Mitchell, and before the WSOP would add that inflated 10x price tag to the event for men wanting to play.

To summarize that earlier discussion, both she and I find the men playing in ladies events a huge bummer, a point of view she reiterated in the interview this week. There was another point she made at the end of the interview, however, that I found newly thought-provoking, something that came up in the context of discussing the Hendon Mob database.

Coren Mitchell has known the Hendon Mob guys from way back, having participated in the old forum, written columns in the past for the site, and also shared many funny anecdotes about them in her excellent poker memoir, For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair With Poker.

In her comments she somewhat laments the Hendon Mob site’s having been taken over by the Global Poker Index group, primarily because it disconnects the site from what it once was (and from her friends the Boatmans, Joe Beevers, and Ram Vaswani). “It was all a bit of fun, and now they are not involved in it anymore,” she says.

Continuing from there, Coren Mitchell speaks directly to the effort by the GPI and Alexandre Dreyfus to “sportify” poker.

“If the website is trying to seriously make poker a sport, I think they may have lost some of the comedy of the enterprise,” suggests Coren Mitchell. “But it doesn’t matter. Is snooker a sport? Is darts a sport? Is chess a sport? I don’t think it’s an important question, really.”

Again I’m finding myself agreeing with Coren Mitchell, sharing the same ambivalence about arguments over poker being or not being a “sport” (something else I’ve written about before.) But the idea that focusing on poker’s sport-like elements could potentially drain some of the “comedy” or fun from the game isn’t necessarily something I’d considered before.

I can see the point -- that is, how heightening the significance of competition perhaps diminishes that of community, thus (potentially) making things more serious and less fun. But it’s an idea I’ll need to think about further before deciding if I agree.

What do you think? Whatever your thoughts might be about efforts to “sportify” poker, do you think those efforts might in some way serve to reduce “the comedy of the enterprise”?

Understanding Standing

Dipped into the always entertaining EPTLive stream today to watch some of the action from Day 3 of the EPT Deauville Main Event. I was there the last couple of years, but after the PCA trip last month I’m not minding getting to spend the days here watching the action from the farm this time around.

The field had shrunk down to under 90 players from the 592 who started, and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier was among those at the feature table. Not long after I tuned in, a hand arose in which a shorter-stacked opponent found himself all in and at risk against ElkY -- Joseph El Khoury, sitting to Grospellier’s left.

The hand was mildly interesting with Grospellier starting out behind with K-J versus El Khoury’s K-Q, then flopping a jack to grab the lead. The turn was a second jack, but a nine on board also gave El Khoury a gutshot, and when a 10 dropped on the river, he survived with a king-high straight.

As the board was dealt, commentators Matt Broughton and Joe Stapleton discussed how El Khoury rose from his seat to stand behind his chair as the community cards were being delivered.

“We were just talking about this move,” said Stapleton of El Khoury’s standing up. “We don’t like this move when you’re ahead.”

Broughton picked up on possible superstitions involved with standing while a mathematical favorite. “The thing is you’re asking for trouble, because now if you do get sucked out on [others are] going to go ‘Well, you did stand up.’” But Stapleton suggested there could be a slight etiquette problem involved, too.

“I don’t know, it’s almost kind of poor sportsmanship, I think,” speculated Stapes. “You’re ahead... [it’s] a needle, you know what I mean?”

Broughton noted how El Khoury’s being at risk probably was enough to absolve him from such a charge. “I guess his [El Khoury’s] tournament is the one that’s on the line, so there’s a bit of anxiety and you can go ‘Okay, okay’” and forgive standing while ahead.

Then the jack fell, and El Khoury was suddenly behind. In fact, by the time the second jack came on the turn, he had already started to put on his jacket when the saving 10 fell on the river.

While the etiquette question is certainly applicable in similar situations, I think most of us would file the standing up and even going for the jacket under the heading of “reverse jinx” behaviors, if we assign any meaning to them at all. That is to say, we’d look at the actions as those of a person who has accepted his fate (or is trying to appear as if he had). But his readying for that eventuality also serves to lessen expectations the reverse will occur, with the superstitious among us viewing the latter as somehow helping to elicit the hoped-for friendly card.

As poker players, our minds often instantly focus on negative outcomes such as when all in and at risk in a tournament. Even in non-poker situations, it can be hard (if you’re human) not to let our thoughts seize upon potential misfortunes. Whether we’ve “got it in good” or not, we focus on the bad cards that will hurt us rather than the others that will not. Standing and backing away in such situations would almost constitute a “tell,” if it weren’t already beyond the point of tells having strategic significance.

I myself tend not to stand from my chair in all-in situations, whether ahead or behind, at risk or not. But I think I can understand standing.

On the Run

Spent much of the day working then went for a run this afternoon and now the day has already mostly slipped by. After going weeks without running at all, I’ve been five times in the last eight days thanks primarily to Eugene Katchalov.

While in Deauville last week I had a chance to talk with Katchalov a few times, including after his near-miss winning the Main Event as he finished second out of a field of 671. Besides being a talented tourney player, the Ukrainian is also an especially friendly, outgoing guy with lots of interesting ideas -- both about poker and other things -- and a willingness to share them.

On the very first day of the tournament I’d interviewed Katchalov at the first break and we talked about his newfound commitment to fitness and eating well over the last couple of years that had produced many good outcomes for him both physically and mentally. I wrote up a post for the PokerStars blog titled “Before and after Eugene” sharing what he’d said.

During the week I was talking with Vera who was back home following the coverage online. She’d mentioned how the Katchalov post was inspiring, and looking back at it I realized it was.

One point he’d made with regard to sticking to some sort of workout regimen was to have a partner or someone to help keep you going when your inspiration to do so started to waver. For him it was his friend Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier who served that role, with their hired trainer also helping a great deal of course.

“It’s always nice when you have a partner or friend to go through it with you,” explained Katchalov, referring to having Grospellier likewise working on his fitness with him. “So with ElkY if I’m working out it pushes him to work out and vice-versa. Even if you don’t work out together, just having someone to compare your progress with is important.”

I used to run regularly but over the couple of years had fallen out of the habit. Looking back on the blog, I see myself in early 2009 writing about starting to run every day. (I was also playing poker every day then, too.) I actually kept on running right up until I went out to the World Series of Poker that summer, and even while in Vegas I remember hitting the treadmill several times at the hotel where I was staying.

The frequency of the runs finally lessened, though, and like I say it had been several weeks since I’d run at all when I finally hit the pavement again after returning from France. People sometimes ask me about posting on the blog every day, and often I will bring up running as a kind of analogy -- that like a regular runner, I find myself in the habit of wanting to post each day just to keep exercising these writer “muscles.” But the comparison hadn’t really been applicable to me of late as I had found it much easier to skip running than not to write.

I say Katchalov was the main inspiration, but so, too, was PokerStars blogger Rick Dacey who began 2014 with a goal of running 365 miles during the calendar year. He’d only made it to nine miles by early February -- including an early morning seaside run in Deauville near the end of our week there -- and so I proposed to him that I’d join him in that 365-mile quest and we could push each other, a la Eugene and ElkY.

I’m only up to 7.5 miles now -- still about nine miles back of Rick -- but each time out is getting easier. Missing a month-plus of running means picking up the pace to get back that mile-a-day goal. But with Rick up ahead of me and Eugene and ElkY in mind I’m plenty motivated to keep at it.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 6: Two Years on the Bounce

The week is done. Both the Main Event and High Roller concluded relatively early on Sunday in Deauville, with fairly interesting storylines emanating from both tournaments’ results.

In the High Roller, the young PCA Main Event champion Dominik Panka from Poland topped the field of 115 entries to win the €272,000 first prize. Panka hadn’t had any live scores to speak up prior to winning $1.42 million in the Bahamas two-and-a-half weeks ago, but his strong play there coupled with last night’s win will ensure he’ll get a lot of attention moving forward on the EPT.

Meanwhile Eugene Katchalov came as close as he could get to winning the Main Event yesterday, finishing runner-up to Sotirios Koutoupas after slipping to short-stacked status with five left and then battling back. (That’s the trophy presentation happening at the left.)

Katchalov, of course, was going for poker’s “Triple Crown” (something I detailed a bit on the PokerStars blog during the afternoon), needing just the EPT win to go with a WPT title and WSOP bracelet. He’d come close before, finishing third at EPT8 Barcelona. When I talked to him after play ended yesterday he called the finish “bittersweet” but was in great spirits, clearly pleased with how well he managed to play the entire week.

Koutoupas was known on the EPT for having finished runner-up himself at EPT9 Prague, so it was a tough opponent Katchalov was facing heads-up. Koutoupas had a 3-to-1 chip lead to start heads-up play and never lost the advantage, thus securing the first ever EPT win for a Greek player.

Had a nice last dinner with Rick, Howard, and Neil, all terrific working alongside all week. Indeed, as I’ve said before, all of the band who travel throughout the EPT -- from the media to the staff, the EPT Live guys, and everyone else -- are not just good at what they do but helpful and kind, too, thus adding a lot to the experience of going on these journeys.

Being around the Englishmen all week I’ve once again picked up a few new phrases, including the one I’ve used in the title. When Rick mentioned earlier in the week that Zimnan Ziyard was second in chips to start Day 3 for the second year on the bounce at EPT Deauville, I knew what he meant from the context but had to admit it was a new one for me.

It was nice coming to Deauville two years on the bounce. It was a great experience, and while I’m greatly looking forward to getting back to life on the farm with Vera, I’ll look back fondly on another great week abroad watching and writing about people playing cards.

My flights on Sunday are due to carry me home just about an hour before the Super Bowl kicks off, so I’m hoping for some run good to get home in time. Wish me luck, and talk to you on the other side.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 5: Les Manoirs and Loosey Dacey

A quick note to report on what turned out to be an especially fast Day 5 -- something that has become routine when it comes to the penultimate days of EPT Main Events -- in which they played down to the final eight.

Eugene Katchalov is among those left, sitting with a big stack that puts him in second position behind Sotirios Koutoupas who is looking to become the first Greek EPT Main Event champion. Meanwhile the High Roller ends today as well, where Albert Daher leads the final eight with Martin Schleich, Davidi Kitai, and WSOP Europe Main Event champion Adrian Mateos Diaz among those still in the hunt.

I mentioned the interesting story of Bahram Choubineh yesterday. He busted first on Day 5, ending with a 16th-place finish, though was hardly disappointed when I spoke with him afterwards.

When all was done yesterday Rick, Howard, and I took a drive over to one of the more highly recommended places in Deauville, Les Manoirs de Tourgéville, where we had yet another tremendous dinner.

I started with some escargots en cocette lutée et champignons -- snails in a mushroom-based casserole with a kind of pastry on top -- which was absolutely delicious. Then came a main course of filet de bœuf au sautoir with potatoes, which was enough to encourage me to turn down another rich dessert.

Afterwards the three of us played cards for a few euros, with Rick riding an insane rush to beat us first in a sit-n-go, then also become the winner in a cash game.

In the SNG, Rick somehow knocked both myself and Howard out in preflop all-ins in which we flopped pairs to lead both times, then Rick drew out runner-runner Broadway straights. Then on the final hand of the cash game the two of them got it all in behind Howard’s pocket aces and Rick’s pocket kings, and a king fell on the river.

No time to lament further about “Loosey Dacey” (a.k.a. “Runner-Runner Rick”) as there’s much to do to ready for the day ahead. Again, check the PokerStars blog to follow the reporting.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 4: A Big Fold and a Great Call

Quick post today just to mention a couple of highlights from yesterday in Deauville, one from the tourney and one afterwards.

The Main Event played down to 16 players, which theoretically means a short day of play today. The Greek player Sotirios Koutoupas ended play with the chip lead, and he hopes to better a runner-up finish in the EPT9 Prague Main Event a year ago. Meanwhile the High Roller got started, attracting 111 entries all told which I believe is a high for that event. They’ll have a longer day today, I imagine, with both tourneys concluding on Saturday.

A player from Iran named Bahram Chobineh captured our attention a couple of days ago when we learned the story of his unlikely road to Deauville. He’d apparently lost a bet with his home game buddies that resulted in him making the trip and playing with the “big boys” (as he calls his opponents here). They’d had a sit-n-go and decided the first player out would have to play EPT Deauville, and he was the one.

He says he’s never played any big buy-in tourneys, although we’re suspecting he probably plays for decent-sized stakes with those buddies back home. In any case, he’s definitely a newbie on the EPT, and when he made the cash it was a something of a triumph.

Well, he’s still in the sucker with 16 left, albeit in dead last chip-wise. He survived yesterday in part by making a huge fold early on, laying down pocket queens to an opponent preflop, then after showing his hand getting the satisfaction of seeing his opponent table a pair of aces.

I talked to the amiable Chobineh at the first break yesterday, which provided one Day 4 highlight for me.

The other one came following another nice dinner with the fellows, this one over in nearby Trouville where I enjoyed an avocado salad, dish of mussels, and chocolate mousse (that’s a pic of Trouville at night at the left).

Back in the room before midnight, I took a chance with the hotel wi-fi (which is actually quite good) and made a Skype-to-phone call to my grandmother back in North Carolina who turned 89 yesterday.

I had a little bit of trepidation before making the call, worrying that a combination of a poor connection and/or confusion about where I was calling from would make the call frustrating on her end. But the connection was perfect and we were able to talk for a good while, and it was great to hear her voice. She’s doing well, and I hope to find a way to get her down to see the farm soon after I return.

A good day all around, then. Gonna sign off now and ready for Day 5. Check the PokerStars blog to see if J.P. Kelly and/or Eugene Katchalov make it through to tomorrow’s final table, and also who makes it to that High Roller final table, too.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 3: Winner, Winner… and Dinner

Have finally sorta kinda caught up with everything else and am writing this post late Wednesday night having returned to my room following the Global Poker Index European Poker Awards dinner that took place in one of the ballrooms of the Casino Barrière.

Looking back, the awards ended up kind of dominating the day, although there was some interesting poker during today’s five 90-minute levels. The 137 who started the day played down to just 41, with real estate agent Ekrem Sanioglu who’s from Turkey but considers France home leading the way. Eugene Katchalov (whom I spoke with back at the start of the tournament) has been building since Day 1 and is currently in second position.

Today got to talk with both Zimnan Ziyard and Julien Brécard during the course of the day, both friendly fellows and solid players. Ziyard had a challenging day, starting near the top of the counts and battling hard to survive the night, while Brécard managed to nurse his short stack into the money and then some before busting late in the day.

Like I say, though, the awards kind of eclipsed all. We were treated to a nice three-course meal starting with a pastry-style smoked salmon and squid ink dish with coconut milk, rack of lamb with garden veggies and potato cake, and a raspberry chocolate pastry. There was champagne and wine for those who partook, too.

The awards began to be handed out during dessert, with Joe Stapleton and Gaëlle Garcia Diaz hosting. The awards included categories like Rookie of the Year, Internet Player of the Year, Best European Event, and so on. (I missed the earlier presentations of all the GPI-related stuff.)

There was a grab-bag category for Poker Industry Person of the Year that kind of awkwardly shoehorned in a couple of media guys (and friends with whom I’ve worked over the years), Marc Convey and Lee Davy, another good guy Neil Johnson who is the EPT tourney director, and Edgar Stuchly who is President of the EPT. Johnson won that one, which I think might have made him the only American to take a trophy at the GPI EPA.

Probably the most meaningful awards given during the night were the Rob Gardner Memorial Award given to the Frenchman “Big” Roger Hairabedian and the Lifetime Achievement Award given to the much-loved Hendon mobster Barny Boatman (pictured at left).

I remember talking with Jesse May about the late Gardner and his important contributions to early televised poker (see Part 1 and Part 2 of the interview I did with May a while back).

There was a nice moment at the end when a “Jury Prize” was awarded to the EPT dealers who travel throughout the tour and really are especially good.

Although this is the 13th year for the EPAs, I think it was the first time they’ve managed to have the ceremony at an EPT stop, which made it kind of a special occasion. Was fun to be there and watch what is really a huge and varied community come together and enjoy recognizing the achievements of several.

Back at it at noon Thursday. There’s the High Roller starting up, too, which will earn some of our attention as well. Check over on the PokerStars blog for more today from “Dough-ville.”

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 2: A Bond Between a Book and a Poker Tournament

Little time to scribble this morning, I’m afraid. We had a less lengthy day and night yesterday for Day 2, but with no dinner break we ate afterwards -- another big steak-centered meal for your hungry scribbler -- and so ended up not getting to sleep until late. Then my morning was eaten up by a lot of pre-work work, living me little time even to reflect on the day, let alone write about it.

I did want to point folks to one post from yesterday, one focusing on Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale, the first of the Bond books and one poker fans well know about thanks to the poker-themed 2006 adaptation starring Daniel Craig. (Photo to the left by Neil Stoddart of the PokerStars blog, by the way.)

Why did I write about the novel? Well, Fleming had spent some time visiting the casino in Deauville a couple of decades before when younger, and his experiences gambling and watching others gamble inspired a lot of the plot and setting of Casino Royale. In fact he sets the story in northern France in a fictional seaside city named Royale-les-Eaux, which more or less combines elements of Deauville and nearby Trouville.

I read the book recently and so wanted this week to share both the Deauville connection and some of its insights about gambling. The game is baccarat in the novel (as well as the spoofy 1967 film), but there are still some decent points made by Fleming about the psychology of the gambler that apply pretty readily to poker. (Dostoevsky it ain’t, but it’s still thought provoking.) And he seems very interested in making a willingness to gamble an important part of Bond’s character as he introduces him, a trait that gets picked up in future stories and of course in the films.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend the novel as a great one, but there are some decent passages amid the page-turning action. Bond plays three different games in the novel, you might say -- baccarat versus Le Chiffre, intelligence-based warfare versus the Soviets and SMERSH (the counterintelligence agency), and the romance-based game versus Vesper Lynd.

There’s some heavy-handed talk of women in the book that reads a little weirdly today (and might understandably put off some). There’s also something kind of odd about the way the story resolves (I’m realizing in retrospect), with Bond not even really being responsible for doing anything more heroic than getting lucky at baccarat and defending himself against would be assassins (getting lucky there, too). In a way he mostly functions as the center of attention while others direct the more meaningful events of the plot.

Anyhow, I don’t mention much of those personal thoughts about the book in the post, but rather stick to sorting out the Deauville connection and also making the discussion relevant the ongoing tournament. Check it out and let me know what you think -- either about the post, or anything else to do with Bond, Casino Royale, and/or poker.

More today on the PokerStars blog. Click over to follow along.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 1b: One More Step

Yesterday I titled the post “Déjà Vu,” then went and helped report on the second Day 1 flight of the EPT10 Deauville Main Event for the PokerStars blog. And it goes without saying that multiple Day 1 flights always carry with them that inexorable sense of covering the same ground again, so there was a little bit more of that “haven’t we gone through these steps already?”

Speaking of, I managed to find a way in the blog to share a funny story from the last trip here, the one involving myself, my friend Yorkshire Pud, and some wet cement. Click here for the full account from a year ago, then you can read “Following in our footsteps” to read the sequel.

Another highlight yesterday was getting to chat with Jan Heitmann, the German pro, who besides being a great player is also another one of those great reps for poker (in my opinion). He hosts poker shows in Germany and does a great deal, I think, to help bring the game to larger audiences, something in which I’m becoming more and more interested.

The weather thus far has been essentially as it was a year ago, and the same, too, as what I experienced many years back when living in Lille -- cold, windy, gray, and wet. Might be a little warmer than last year, but still not the kind of stuff you want to be caught outside in for long.

Meanwhile, we’ve eaten especially well so far, including enjoying a fairly lavish meal of coquilles Saint Jacques meunière (scallops in fried butter) on Sunday, followed by steak last night. Enjoying a better-than-average breakfast buffet spread each morning, too, all of which is adding up to my starting to feel the need to find some légumes or just switch to salads here if I want to avoid any food-related comas before the week is out.

Am fairly written out and so will be keeping these posts brief this week. Follow the PokerStars blog for more on how the tourney is going and other features along the way from Deauville.

Travel Report: EPT10 Deauville Main Event, Day 1a: Déjà Vu

The first of two Day 1 flights is in the books at EPT10 Deauville, with a relatively small turnout of 234 players working their way down to 134 by night’s end. Expect many more to arrive tomorrow, though probably not enough to reach last year’s overall total of 782 entrants.

Been thinking back a lot to a year ago since arriving on Saturday morning. Kind of marveling at how fast the time goes -- it genuinely feels like I was just here -- while also thinking how the more of these trips a person does, the smaller the big, big world feels.

My flights which began on Friday were all relatively stress-free. Both were late by over an hour, but with a day to spare before work began on Sunday I hadn’t much reason to fret. Met up with Chris Hall and Sarah Grant for a nice dinner Saturday night, but otherwise took it easy, catching up on lost sleep from Friday night.

Was fun yesterday working alongside Rick Dacey and Howard Swains for the PokerStars blog where we’re doing various features and other interesting items to complement the PokerNews live reporting. A highlight today was talking to the very friendly Eugene Katchalov about his remarkable transformation via exercise and eating well into an incredibly fit and healthy person. Click and read (and marvel at the “before” and “after” pics, too).

Have a few more Deauville-related feature ideas in mind, the sort of pieces that work better during early stages of a tournament when the movement of chips is less vital to track than is the case later on.

Looking forward to those, but also have to admit I’m missing the farm after two weeks’ worth of helping care for the horses, Sammy and Maggie. Hate not being there, but glad to be helping here.

Check in over at the PokerStars blog to read what we’ve written thus far and ongoing reports from EPT10 Deauville all week.

From the Farm to France

About to hit the road again, returning to Deauville, France for a second straight year to help cover the EPT stop. I fly out tomorrow, and with one long layover and losing a bunch of hours it’ll be Saturday before I arrive -- in time, though, for the Sunday start of the Main Event.

Am looking forward to returning to Deauville after last year’s trip which was the first time I’d been back in France after having lived there for a year with Vera some time back. We were in Lille, which is also in the north and which bears a lot of affinities with Deauville, thus filling last year’s trip with a great deal of déjà vu for your humble scribbler.

The headlines these days out of Ukraine are making me think of the first time I ever traveled to report on an EPT event, the one in Kyiv that happened back in 2009. (We used the Ukrainian spelling then, and I continue to today.) That was kind of a one-off occurrence, with a stop that had been originally scheduled to happen in Moscow getting rebooked for Ukraine at the last minute (also a reason why I happened to be asked to step in to help with the reporting).

That was a memorable trip for me for a number of reasons. At the time it was the longest distance I’d ever journeyed (by a long shot) to cover a poker tourney. And while Vera has had a chance to travel in Russia and surrounding countries, I’d never done so and thus it was kind of fascinating to spend even a short while in that part of the world.

That trip stands out for one more reason in my memory, too, as I happened to win the Media Event in a tourney that took five or six hours to complete. Indeed, I used to joke for a long time about how I was undefeated in tourneys outside the U.S. (no longer the case today). I wrote trip reports from Ukraine here, if you’re curious.

Of course, now I am seeing the frightening footage and am reading the reports of the massive protests happening in Kyiv currently (and spreading elsewhere). They’ve been going on since December, although turned violent this week with some protester deaths amid an escalation of the conflict with the Ukrainian government. Seeing the reports, I’ve attempted in vain to recall the streets I walked when I was there over four years ago, trying unsuccessfully to match my dim memory with the chaotic-seeming images from the past few days.

Am certainly hoping the tide turns in a more peaceful direction there soon. Meanwhile, I’m glad to be traveling and meeting up with friends and others who’ll be converging on Deauville over the next week. Am torn somewhat as I really don’t want to leave Vera and the horses. The farm is so calm and quiet, making it that much harder to leave it -- even just to go to the grocery store, never mind travel over the ocean.

But it’s good to see the world some, too. More to come.

Looking Back (Deauville Footprints)

Had some decent travel run good on Sunday with my shuttle to Paris and both flights sticking to schedule. Was great reuniting with Vera at the airport and getting home for a full night’s sleep. Slept a little late, in fact, and after taking care of various post-trip business I’ve now let most of the day get away from me. But I did want to share one last thought about the end of the EPT Deauville Main Event and the experience of spending the week in France.

Now that I’m home, I’m catching up a little with the commentary regarding Super Bowl XLVII. I mentioned last week I was able to watch most of the game in my hotel room, but I didn’t really have time in the following days to see what people were saying about the game.

Been thinking further about the whole crazy shift in momentum that happened pre- and post-blackout in the game. Remember how Baltimore was up 28-6 early in the third quarter when the power went out, then from that point forward the 49ers outscored the Ravens 25-6 to make the final score 34-31 with the Ravens prevailing.

Indeed, if not for some clock mismanagement and weird play calls at the end of that late-game drive by San Francisco, the Niners really should have won the game, which would have led to years and years of talk about the power outage having unfairly stemmed the Ravens’ momentum and thus affected the outcome. But Baltimore won, so that angle will not be pursued.

I was thinking today how the final table went in the PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event and how the end of the tournament kind of resembled the Super Bowl in some respects.

During the next-to-last day of play, the Frenchman Remi Castaignon built an enormous lead by knocking out several players on the way to the final table. He began the last day with 9.9 million chips when the next-closest player (Walid Bou Habib of Lebanon) had but 3.835 million. Thus did play begin on Saturday with an assumption that Castaignon would very likely at least remain ahead for most of the day, and perhaps might just gobble up all the short stacks and cruise to the win.

It was a little like the feeling after the Ravens returned the second-half kickoff to go ahead 28-6 insofar as the imbalance was now so great that it would take something very, very strange for the leader (i.e., Baltimore or Castaignon) not to remain in an advantageous position for much if not all of the remainder of the contest.

In the Super Bowl, the lights went out, interrupting the game for 34 minutes, and when play resumed it was as though the Ravens and 49ers had switched uniforms. For anyone looking for proof that momentum matters in team sports, that game has provided some hard-to-refute evidence.

The lights didn’t go out Deauville, but something strange did happen at the start of that final table. During the first orbit, Castaignon showed he wanted to get involved right away and use his big stack to pressure others, but got himself into a big mess early in a hand versus the young German, Enrico Rudelitz. Heck he probably felt like someone had pulled the plug on him, the way that hand went.

After calling a raise from late position, Castaignon watched Rudelitz reraise from the blinds and called again. Then he called c-bets by Rudelitz on the flop and turn before the German pushed all in on the river with the board showing .

The pot had bloated to 6 million chips by then, and after tanking for more than five minutes Castaignon called and saw his opponent flip over Q-Q for top set. We were all then fairly amazed to see Castaignon’s hand -- 5-5. He’d made a “hero call” (as they say), and while one could kinda-sorta see how he’d talked himself into it (after the fact, anyway), it still seemed like a major, momentum-shifting misstep.

Suddenly Castaignon was no longer in the lead, but like Baltimore he’d recover and ultimately played a solid endgame to win anyway. Thus, as with the Super Bowl, the story of the 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event won’t really linger over one surprising moment, in this case a first-orbit hand at the final table in which Castaignon surprisingly lost nearly half of his dominating stack.

As I was saying in those brief bursts throughout the week, it was a great experience going back to France and getting to experience a little bit of the culture again, plus a lot of fun, rewarding collaboration with all of the other media folks who were there. As has been the case at the WSOP and these other tournies over the years, I’m grateful to have been part of the effort to share with the poker world what happened at Deauville over the last week, and to have contributed to the chronicling of it all.

Speaking of leaving one’s mark, I’ll share one last funny nouvelle from the week.

I mentioned how a highlight was finally getting to meet in person my longtime friend and colleague Matthew Pitt, a.k.a. “@YorkyPuds” or “Yorkshire Pud.” One morning the Pudster and I were making the short walk from the hotel to the casino, engaged and distracted by whatever conversation we were having.

Suddenly we both looked up and realized the last couple of steps on the sidewalk had been qualitatively different from the previous ones. “Seemed kind of soft,” said Matt, and we looked back to see one newly paved square of sidewalk interrupting the usual pattern. There had been no signs or cones or anything warning pedestrians to avoid treading through, and so we’d plodded right over it, our prints amusingly gleaming there in the still-drying pavement to show what we’d done.

We looked back, looked at each other, and then instinctively (and hilariously) put our heads down and kept walking, perhaps a tiny bit faster than before.

As we walked the same path again and again the remainder of the week, we had to laugh each time to see our handiwork still there. Or footwork, I guess you’d say.

“Look... I was here once,” they say. Kind of like these travel reports....

2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 1a
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 1b
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 2
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 3
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 4
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 5
2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 6

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 6

Having to keep this post short and sweet, as I have a full travel day ahead of me and not much time for scribblin’. There to the left is the front of what has been my home-away-from-home this week, by the way, La Closerie on Avenue de la République here in Deauville. Has been a comfortable, accommodating spot to land each night.

Speaking of short and sweet, such was the final day of play at the PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event, which finished in a blindingly fast five hours. The other EPT media vets were remarking on it being one of the quickest final tables they can remember, and indeed, as I was suggesting yesterday, it was somewhat expected given the chip imbalance and preponderance of shallow stacks to start the last day.

The big leader to start the day, Remi Castaignon of France, actually lost his lead in dramatic fashion within the first orbit of the day after making a somewhat head-scratching hero call in a big-pot hand versus the German Enrico Rudelitz. But he recovered well enough, regained the top spot, and ultimately took care of business at the end to take the trophy and €770,000 first prize.

I did manage to do a quick walking tour of the Deauville city center yesterday morning to see a few more sights and pick up a couple of gifts. Was another windy, gray day, with rain again necessitating my wearing a hat and breaking out the umbrella. Very reminiscent of that year in Lille again, during which it seemed like it was always overcast.

I’ll probably do some more reflecting tomorrow once I’m back home, but did want to mention this morning how great it was to have this chance to return to France and even see a little of it while not working. And also to say how great the working part was, too. Was great fun all week working once again with Homer and “The Conv,” as well as finally to meet and work in person with YorkyPud. And Neil, Mantys, Adam, Sarah, Kristy, Stephen, Howard, Rick, Mad, Benjo, Frank, and all of the other smart, funny, and super supportive EPT folks who make working in such an environment so rewarding.

Time to pack up and look a little further into all of this blizzard stuff I’ve been hearing about happening back home. Hopefully it won’t delay my return, but I won’t fret too much if it does. Travel variance. Part of the game.

Talk to you soon. Au revoir!

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 5

After the très rapide day on Thursday, yesterday’s Day 5 was a fairly long one again as it took more than 12 hours (including breaks) for the final 23 players to play down to the eight-handed final table.

Remi Castaignon of France ran red-hot yesterday, knocking out eight of the 15 players who were eliminated including the last three to finish with almost 10 million chips. That’s nearly three times what second-position Walid Bou-Habib currently has, and about 42% of the total chips in play. And with many of the others starting play today at least short-stacked (if not in the danger zone), we could well have a relatively short final day of play today, especially if Castaignon continues to run well.

Thursday’s long work day went well, though a highlight of the day came before when I had the chance to take a quick tour by car around Deauville and nearby Trouville with Howard Swains and Stephen Bartley of the PokerStars blog. They’d mentioned to me how they’d seen a few sites nearby that had been designated with the “Proust was here” markers, and so we went out to take a look at those and a few other things before play began at noon.

Over in Trouville we saw Les Frémonts, a place where Marcel Proust spent a couple of summers in the 1890s and which served as a model for La Raspelière in À la recherche du temps perdu. While not that different from other, similarly attractive edifices surrounding the hillside, the view out over the coast was quite stunning, and one could imagine how looking upon it might help provide some literary inspiration.

We saw another house, the Villa Strassburger, that had been inherited by Gustave Flaubert. We also saw one of the old pillboxes dug into a hill and pointed out toward the water, a small, squarish, concrete structure with small openings from which weapons could be fired. Stephen explained what the pillbox was to Howard and me and how they were used in WWII.

Finally we drove around to the Hippodrome de Deauville to see the track and even some horses being ridden on the cool, brisk morning, yet another picturesque scene to take in as we imagined a summer’s day with stands full of people and races going off one after another.

Am going to cut things short for now. Going to see if I can’t get back out before play begins today and perhaps explore the center of Deauville a little more as the opportunities for doing so are disappearing quickly. Meanwhile, check over at PokerNews today to see how the Main Event plays out. Also look in on the reports from the High Roller at PokerNews, as well as Howard and Stephen’s musings about it all on the PokerStars blog. There’s live streaming from Deauville happening, too, if you click over to PokerStars.tv.

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 4

Is it Friday already? The week is flying by here in Deauville, and now we’re suddenly down to two more days of reporting followed by the long journey back home on Sunday.

It only took three 90-minute levels plus about a half-hour of a fourth for the Main Event to play down from 51 to 23 players. The top five spots in the counts are occupied by Frenchmen currently, with the last American (Jason Koon) having gone out in 39th.

Meanwhile the High Roller (a €10,300 buy-in event, with one rebuy available) got underway yesterday as well, and by the time I left it had attracted more than 80 entries (better than last year’s 72). Chris (Homer) and I covered the Main Event yesterday, then stuck around a bit more to help Marc (MarcC) and Matt (YorkshirePud) with the HR before leaving by around 11.

Sounds like that High Roller is going to last through Saturday as well, and so while I’ll be mostly sticking with the Main Event coverage, I may continue to hope over to help the fellows with the HR stuff, depending on how things play out.

Has been a fun week for various reasons, not least of which getting to work with my English mates. Has also been fun chatting here and there with several pros this week, among them Zimnan Ziyard, Lex Veldhuis, Matthias de Meulder, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and Max Heinzelmann.

Heinzelmann is a two-time Main Event runner-up on the European Poker Tour, doing so back-to-back at EPT San Remo and Berlin back in April 2011 when just a 20-year-old. He’s perhaps best known by some, however, for that wild six-bet shove with A-6 versus Shaun Deeb’s A-A from the 2011 WSOP Main Event, a hand which Heinzelmann eventually won when two sixes landed among the community cards.

I mentioned to him how I’d written up that one as a “Hand of the Day” over on Betfair poker, and he laughed saying how it certainly was that. He also noted how Deeb himself was perfectly capable of a similar play (and in fact had done something a lot like it at the WSOP before). (Incidentally, for those remembering “Max Rolfs” character from The Micros, he debuted just a bit before Heinzelmann came on the scene, I believe.)

Anyhow, the wi-fi having failed in the hotel overnight, I’m having to cut things short today as play is about to resume. As always, you can check in over at PokerNews for our reports today.

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 3

Yesterday’s Day 3 of the PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event played down to just 51 players, with the bubble bursting along the way. There to the left is another Neil Stoddart shot of a tense moment from the bubble with a player contemplating a big call to put his tournament life at risk.

Sounds like they may actually work their way down to 16 today (instead of 24). In any case, while Homer (Chris) and I continue with the Main Event these next two days, we’ll likely be experiencing a short day either today or tomorrow. Meanwhile, Marc (MarcC) and Matt (YorkshirePud) will step over to report on the two-day High Roller starting today.

The European Poker Tour has reached the middle of its ninth season. I’ve only really gotten to visit one previous EPT stop, and that was an unusual one for the tour, the one-off visit to Kyiv, Ukraine back in Season 6. But even after just a few days here in Deauville it’s easy to see how well-oiled the EPT machine has become, with the staff, media, and players all working together especially well to create an inviting environment for poker.

There are several small things the EPT does that improves the tournament’s coverage, one of which includes giving players small laminated tracking numbers at the start of each day of play that they then carry with them throughout. The system is quite simple. If you’re at Table 4, seat 1, the number is 41. At Table 21, seat 8, the number is 218. The players are used to the practice and thus are used to carrying the numbers with them when moved during the day, and it does wonders for being able to identify them when reporting.

PokerNews has implemented a similar system in the past at the WSOP, especially for the Main Event. But it’s only used occasionally and thus isn’t necessarily something players come to expect. Thus while it is useful there the system isn’t quite as reliable, mainly because it still hasn’t become an expected part of how events are run.

There are several other small things done on the EPT that further improve the coverage. Another is how when the field gets down to a certain size, chip counts of everyone are performed at each break, with EPT Media Co-ordinator Mad Harper then sending that out to everyone for reporting. That, too, helps immensely.

There are lots of media to coordinate, too, with reporters and photographers from several countries all here from start to finish. I kind of chuckled at one point yesterday when I noticed a German crew actually conducting a quick interview with one player while a hand was taking place involving a couple of others across the table. It might have seemed like an intrusion, but it was done somewhat discreetly and all seemed amenable.

Like I say, I think it all runs well mainly because by now everyone -- players included -- are accustomed to the fact that the tournament is also an event designed to be promoted in various ways via live reporting, streaming of feature tables online, interviews throughout, and so on. I’d suggest the WSOP could probably still incorporate some of these ideas to help standardize (and improve) coverage of its events, especially the preliminary ones, although to be honest there’s much less media attention of WSOP prelims than these EPT Mains.

The day went relatively quickly -- just five 90-minute levels with breaks in between each -- and we were out of the casino by about 10 o’clock. From there we made our way through the cold windy night to the small city center to enjoy a late dinner at Il Parasole, a nice Italian place where I enjoyed a three-course meal of fritto misto (calamari), penne pasta, and a delicious dessert of dôme glacé au chocolat.

Got back by midnight or so and had a quick Skype chat with Vera while she was driving in a car in North Carolina. As someone who grew up in an age without cell phones or the internet, I remain in awe of how such things work.

Back to it. Follow along both the Main Event and High Roller over at PokerNews.

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 2

Was another gray, windy day in Deauville yesterday. A few drops of rain caused me to stick my umbrella in my bag for the short walk over to the Casino Barrière de Deauville yesterday morning, and it was still cool and brisk for the walk back around late last night.

We had a somewhat shorter day of it yesterday at the PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event, as they played two fewer levels and skipped the dinner break. After we finished, Matt, Chris, and I again ate at the Le Plaza Café in the casino, where I enjoyed a tasty dish of cuisse de canard (duck leg) with potatoes and a salad. Have really only been able to have one meal each day, getting coffee in the mornings at the hotel’s buffet and snacking on sandwiches and such otherwise. But I have eaten relatively well here thus far.

From 782 starters they are down to 154 already, which means the money bubble will burst sometime today (at 120). Also means we’ll probably have a relatively short day either today or tomorrow, as they’ll aim to play down to 24 by the end of Thursday, then down to eight on Friday to ready for Saturday’s final table.

Nearly half of the entrants were French (385), with no other country even coming close to that percentage. The next closest is Russia (43), Germany (40), and the U.K. (36), while the U.S. only sent 10 players. Here’s a nifty pie chart from EPT Media Co-ordinator Mad Harper reflecting the nationalities of the players:

Andrei Stoenescu of Romania leads currently. He made an EPT Main Event final table last year in Madrid, finishing third. And Zimnan “Zimmie” Ziyard, winner of EPT Loutraki in 2011, is in second position. Others with big stacks going into Day 3 include James Mitchell, Sam Grafton, Gordon Huntly, Jason Koon, and Pascal LeFrancois.

Tons of Team PokerStars Pros here, as expected, though just three are still alive through Day 2: Matthias de Meulder, Sandra Naujoks, Vanessa Rousso. Both Gaelle Baumann and Elisabeth Hille played in this event, too, although both went out during play yesterday.

A couple of our fearsome foursome of bloggers will be splitting off on Thursday and Friday to cover the High Roller event. That one has a €10,000 + €300 buy-in with a single rebuy, and will be played eight-handed. Last year saw 72 entries in the High Roller, with the Frenchman Eric Sfez coming out on top.

Am hoping to get out here at some point to explore some of the shops and places we have been seeing on our walks to and from the casino. Also expect with an early night in here somewhere to get out to one of the several restaurants being recommended to me by the guys who have been here before.

Back to the poker today, though. As always, you can follow along over at PokerNews and on the PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 1b

Have quickly slipped back into the familiar work routine here in Deauville, where this year’s PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event is now in full swing.

Yesterday’s second and last Day 1 flight saw 475 players come out after 307 participated on Sunday. That total of 782 is down a bit from the 889 who played in the event last year. I think coming right on the heels of both the PCA and Aussie Millions likely keeps a few folks from trekking over to Europe who might play otherwise, but it’s still a healthy number with a big €770,000 first prize awaiting the winner.

These first two days added up to about 14-hour workdays, all told, although it’s likely we’ll have a few shorter days during the week as the tourney is scheduled to continue all of the way through Saturday. Am hopeful that means there will be some chances to get out a bit for some dining and perhaps even a promenade or two to do some sight-seeing before it’s all over.

I’ve mentioned before how this marks a kind of return trip for me as I lived in the north of France before many years ago (in Lille). Was kind of transported the day of my arrival when I spent a little bit of time walking up and down the street on which the hotel is located, including visiting the Carrefour to stock up on a few supplies for the week.

As I did I remembered vividly that year in Lille and the many trips to the supermarket, including the much bigger Carrefour down near the city center -- kind of a Walmart-like place where you could buy groceries as well as clothes, household items, and so on. I remembered to bring my own bag and bag my items. I also remembered the intermingling smells of freshly baked bread, fish sitting out in the open, and the various cheeses of the French supermarkets.

Speaking of being possessed by memories, I’m realizing now that I’m here how Deauville (along with couple of other coastal cities, Cabourg and Trouville), provided inspiration to Marcel Proust in his seven-volume À la recherche du temps perdu, specifically as the basis for the fictional seaside town of Balbec. I only made it through Swann’s Way in college, and so now am once again having those one-day-I’ll-really-read-Proust thoughts, thinking perhaps I’ll have to return to those volumes in earnest sooner than later.

And with regard to literature of a different sort, reading online I’m seeing references to Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel Casino Royale and how the casino in that book was likely patterned after one in Deauville where the writer had played baccarat and other games. That’s another book I’ve never read and so am now intrigued to do so.

But there’ll be time for reading later as there’s a bit more writing to get done this week. And gathering of new memories, I imagine.

For reports from the floor and tourney tracking, hop over to our PokerNews live blog for continued Main Event coverage, with reports from the High Roller coming as well later in the week. Also be sure to click over to the PokerStars blog where Howard Swains, Stephen Bartley, and Rick Dacey are finding various stories to tell in feature pieces along the way. And also enjoy perusing Neil Stoddart’s photos on both blogs (a sample of which appears up above).

Finally, for those in a hurry, Kristy Arnett and the PokerNews video team put together a quick tour. There’s a très rapide Shamus cameo at 0:34. Oh, and pardon the French...

Travel Report: 2013 EPT Deauville Main Event, Day 1a

Bonjour, mes amis. Since we’ve last talked I’ve been on a couple of planes, traveling to about 500 miles over to Detroit, then nearly 4,000 more to Paris. Then it was another 120 miles or so by van up to the northwestern edge of France and Deauville.

Again I find myself in a coastal resort city during the offseason, much like the couple of trips down to Uruguay I’ve made during summer months. Was feeling plenty of flashbacks to my time living in Lille years ago as well when reunited with the gray skies and cold temps here in Deauville upon my initial arrival.

I landed at Charles de Gaulle airport late morning on Saturday, then after an hour-and-a-half or so of uncertainty finally was able to get in touch with my scheduled ride to Deauville. It was just above freezing, and when I first climbed into the van that would be taking me to Deauville a brief hail storm erupted, peppering the vehicle with small white spheres. That turned to a light rain during the first hour of the ride, then came blue skies and sunshine for the latter part of the journey.

Got checked in by around four in the afternoon, and eventually hooked up with my PokerNews blogging mates for the week The Conv (Marc), Homer (Chris), and Yorkshire Pud (Matt). Was great reuniting with Marc and Chris, both of whom I have worked with before several times, and finally meeting Matt with whom I’ve collaborated for quite a while now over on the Betfair poker blog.

In fact, me and Yorkie Pud go way, way back. If you look back at the earliest posts here (from 2006), you’ll see him having come around to comment a few times, much as I did at the blog he kept long ago. Looked it up and saw his first comment here coming on a post I wrote in September 2006. Pre-UIGEA, even!

Needless to say, after having communicated online in various ways for so many years, it was like I was reuniting with Matt, too, when we first discovered we’d been positioned just a few doors away from one another on the same floor of a quaint hotel here in Deauville. Kind of like meeting a pen pal, I guess, but more than that, really, given our shared experiences going from recreational players/bloggers to full-time poker writers.

Saturday night saw me, Chris, and Matt walking a few hundred meters up the road to dine at a pizza place recommended to us by Benjo (Santa Lucia), then meeting up with Marc, Sarah, Kristy, Mantys, and Adam later for the Stars welcome party. Made a relatively early night of it, slept reasonably well, then got up and walked just a few blocks north to the Casino Barrière de Deauville to start covering the PokerStars.fr EPT Deauville Main Event.

Yesterday saw the first of two Day 1a flights play out, with just over 300 players taking part. Will most certainly be a bigger group for today’s second (and final) Day 1 flight, although it’s appearing the overall turnout will probably be down from the 889 who played last year.

The tourney went well, with the always efficient running of the show by PokerStars on display. Had to get a casino card, a press pass, and a bracelet to go where I needed, and even then found myself at the end of the day suddenly refused entry back into the tourney area when a guard decided he wasn’t letting me pass after all of his colleagues had for the previous 11 hours.

That reminded me a little of living in Lille, too, I have to admit, and encountering what sometimes seemed whimisical displays of authority. All worked out, though, and to be honest I wasn’t even bothered by it, perhaps having been conditioned to expect something similar from living here before.

I’m sure I’ll write more about the actual tourney and experience of covering throughout the week, but this morning my thoughts are mostly occupied by that crazy Super Bowl XLVII which I was up until five a.m. watching.

Caught a bit of it on a stream at the casino once Day 1a ended, then decided against joining Chris at a nearby bar to watch the game and came back to the hotel instead. Much to my surprise the game was on one of the channels in my room (I’d been told it would only be available on a pay-per-view basis), and so I settled in and watched the second quarter, Beyoncé’s halftime show, the start of the third quarter, the power outage (and a Beyoncé replay), then the rest of the game.

Was a nutty game, and kind of a treat to watch it while following all my friends and others having that cacophonous conversation on Twitter throughout. During the power outage I made a tweet referring to an old Airplane! gag that was retweeted a couple dozen times and rapidly appeared on one of those tweet-collecting reports you sometimes see, “The Super Bowl Power outage in Social Media.”

Was amazed like most at the Ravens’ dominance and 49ers’ lack of readiness early on, although I did think the teams were evenly matched and wasn’t expecting an S.F. blowout. Incredible, though, to see it play out as it did -- yet another stirring playoff game this year, and another crazy, nail-biter finish to an NFL season.

Gonna sign off here as it’s already late morning and I need to get cleaned up and back over to the casino in just a few. Salut à bientôt!

Playing in Different Languages

Looking at spending some more time in airports and traveling around here in the near future.

First up this week is a short trip back up to the New England area with Vera for a couple of days, during which stretch we may make a quick visit to NYC for the first time in a while. Then later this week I’ll be tripping over the Atlantic to join the crew helping cover the EPT Deauville event in France.

I’ve mentioned here a few times before how Vera and I spent a year living in France some time back. We lived in Lille (in the north, near Belgium), which isn’t that far from Deauville (still the north, but on the west side).

French is actually the only foreign language I’ve ever seriously studied, other than Latin (which doesn’t really come up so often). I can muddle through an article written in French or kinda sorta follow a television program or movie. During our year there I could sometimes even follow a conversation if the speakers weren’t talking too fast. Thus was I able at least to get what I needed at the tabac or pâtisserie, although I remember usually having to repeat myself a few times.

I can’t really claim to have learned the language, and a lot of the time my trying to speak or follow others felt a little like playing a game. Thankfully Vera is fluent, and so more often than not that year she would be speaking for me.

It was a fun year we had in France. We were in graduate school at the time, and I was pretending to work on a dissertation but in fact spent the time writing most of what became the first draft of Same Difference. Meanwhile Vera taught at the university and I was essentially a house husband, a job which I recommend highly.

Whenever I’ve traveled on any of these other poker-related trips and find myself in non-English speaking countries, my first instinct is to think of French words and phrases even though the language spoken in these places hasn’t been French (except in Morocco, here and there). I suppose that’s a fairly common experience -- that is, when in a foreign land, involuntarily thinking of the only foreign language one knows even though doing so is of no particular use.

Such an instinct might apply when being exposed to new poker games. You have a “native” game (say, no-limit hold’em). Then you try to play a new game (say, pot-limit Omaha or fixed limit HE) and your first instinct there might be to “speak” or pursue strategies learned in your native game. Eventually you discover those strategies don’t work so well and you begin to learn that second game.

Anyhow, the phenomenon I’m describing would surface when you move on to try still more games. Say you started with NLHE, then learned limit hold’em. Then you moved on to try stud, and initially find yourself “speaking” LHE until you start figuring out the significant differences between those two games.

Perhaps the games have something in common (e.g., stud and LHE both featuring fixed limit betting) that help you a little, just as I might hear some Spanish words when I’m in Lima that resemble French enough to seem familiar. But eventually if you really want to “communicate” in that game you have to learn its special “language.”

Anyhow, like I say I’m most looking forward to my upcoming voyage back to France. It will be fun going back and being reminded of things I experienced before.

Indeed, I’m sure to experience a lot of déjà vu.