Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Day 6 -- A Tale of Two Sevens

That’s a shot looking back at Monaco from the bay, one I'll admit I didn't take but rather grabbed off the EPT Live stream earlier today which I was locked in and watching all day.

Helped cover the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event today, which meant a day of sitting rather than running up and down stairs and back and forth across the Sporting Club. A nice change for sure, and the final table proved exciting enough with the Frenchman Stephane Dossetto outlasting the entertaining Niall Farrell of Scotland to win.

Interesting bit of uncanniness at the end of the event, as Dossetto won with a final hand of pocket sevens. His name -- as he made a point of telling us the night before -- means “two-seven,” at which time he made a reference to winning a hand with a seven on his way to the final table. So his winning with two sevens was curious, as was the fact that he made a set on the last hand (another word contained within his name).

When the night was done, Nick and I were out in time for me to check in on the Charlotte Hornets-Miami Heat score in their Game 7. Confirming the Hornets had already fallen behind by 30 in the third quarter, we scurried back over to the Mozza restaurant we’d visited and enjoyed a week before, both getting the kobe beef ravioli and that octopus salad I’d had the last time. C'était délicieux.

Probably the most fun of the whole day was walking with Nick through Monaco with only a semi-perfect memory of where the restaurant was, then between the two of us together managing to angle ourselves exactly toward our destination. Wasn’t the most difficult of challenges, mind you, but still felt like a welcome victory.

Got back to the room before midnight, and so am looking forward to a decent night’s worth of sleep after having come up short in the z’s department last night. In the hopes of achieving that goal, I’ll cut things off here.

If you’re curious about how that FPS Monaco final table went, check out the recap. Moving over to the Main Event today, which moves into Day 2 with what looks like a huge field, so check in over at PokerStars blog for that as well tomorrow.

Image: EPT Live.

Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Day 5 -- Cracked

“That should be some sort of art installation.”

So suggested Remko Rinkema, speaking of the cracked window there to the left. One of a few looking out the media room onto the Mediterranean Sea, it has been cracked in this way for as long as anyone can remember, and there are a lot of lengthy memories among those who have been covering EPTs over the last dozen years.

Was a little overcast today, making for a less stunning view through those cracks. More often the sky is a light shade of blue and the water a deeper one, with cruise ships typically passing to and fro to create an animated postcard constantly in motion behind us as we work.

The window takes on a symbolic significance with each passing day, too, as everyone tries to hold it together while the festival unrelentingly marches onward. In truth, aside from a few sore throats and a cough here and there, everyone seems to be managing just fine as we approach the halfway point of this year’s European Poker Tour Grand Final.

Five days are done, and six more are left. Today’s fifth day was a long one for your humble scribbler who again was helping cover the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event. Meanwhile the EPT Main got started, the €100K Super High Roller finished up (won by Ole Schemion with Mustapha Kanit part of the heads-up chop, natch), and a myriad of other side stuff was going on as well to make for another crowded time at the Sporting Club.

Our tournament started with 1,261 runners, 60 of whom returned for Day 3. From that bunch just six are left to play tomorrow, with France’s Stephane Dossetto the leader just ahead of the often entertaining British player Niall Farrell. They’ll be streaming “cards up” coverage of the final table on Sunday, so if you tune in over at EPT Live starting at 2 p.m. Monaco time (that’s 8 a.m. ET), you can watch this one play out to a conclusion.

None of the players seemed to crack up today, at least not in observable ways. A decision made near the end of the night to keep on playing down to six players (rather than stop at eight) was met with approval. It’ll make for a shorter day on Sunday, for certain, which I think also will make things a little easier for these final half-dozen if they wish to jump in the second Day 1 flight of the Main.

Check out yesterday’s coverage of all the big events over on the PokerStars blog, and tune in today for some FPS final table fun as well, as I’m sure James Hartigan, Joe Stapleton, and Matt Broughton of EPT Live will have viewers cracking up.

Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Days 3-4 -- If We’re Counting

Thought with yesterday’s anniversary post I’d combine a couple of days’ worth of base-touching regarding how things are going in Monaco this week -- days 3 and 4 here (out of 11, if we’re counting).

In truth, the two days weren’t all that different from one another, as both once again saw me spending most of my waking hours over at the Sporting Club at the EPT Grand Final helping cover the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event.

On Thursday the tournament played out Day 1b, which was énorme with 912 players coming out for that flight alone. The 1,261-player total for the event well exceeds the 993 who played it last year, and marks the second-biggest field in the six-year history of the FPS.

They ended up seating folks all over the place in a few different locations, which meant a lot of steps for your humble scribbler (and scrambler). We added still more to our total when going for a jaunt over the border to Nice for dinner at the same Vietnamese restaurant we enjoyed going to a year ago.

I wrote a post here then titled “Monaco is a Maze” describing the walk to the restaurant and featuring a picture of the steep stairwell going up about five flights to get to that eating establishment. Well, this year that stairwell was blocked, which meant a long, winding trek and a lot of uphill to get there this time, then we found a slightly shorter path involving a couple of mysterious elevators that helped get us back. (Over 16,000 steps that day, if we’re counting)

That night ended with one of those silly moments only those who do a lot of this tournament reporting thing find fun. Having literally eyeballed a player’s stack for no more than one-third of a second before the chips got dumped into a bag, I ventured a guess to my blogging partner-in-crime Nick they totaled 263,000 and turned out to have guessed the amount exactly. This story I then repeated at least a half-dozen times before leaving as joking self-promotion of extraordinary powers of perception.

Friday saw the bubble burst, as pictured above -- can you spot me in the crowd? (click to embiggen) -- after which the big field got carved all of the way down to 60 players. Again, it was mostly business as usual, reporting-wise, with Nick and I surviving the day in good shape and enjoying a surprisingly early finish as staff decided to cut things short by a level.

Poker-wise, it was interesting to see the Brazilian Leonardo Pires enter the day as the chip leader, more than double his stack during the first two hours to sit with over 700,000 when no one else had half that, then in a little over two hours more get knocked out with a min-cash. Pires was the same fella who led several days in a row at the PCA this year before going out in 13th.

I’ve actually already slept a couple of hours tonight (and yes, I’m counting), and so am gonna try not to distract myself looking at score updates from Game 6 of Hornets-Heat and go back to sleep right now. I mean all these mouton aren’t going to count themselves.

Photo: courtesy Neil Stoddart/PokerStars blog.

Travel Report: EPT12 Grand Final, Day 2 -- Step by Step

Was a long one at the Sporting Club in Monte Carlo today helping over the first Day 1 flight of the France Poker Series Main Event. Basically a noon-to-midnight workday this time, as it will similarly be for the next few days for your humble scribbler.

The poker went about as expected, with a big turnout of 349 entries -- well over the number who played Day 1a of this same event a year ago, which suggests tomorrow’s second and last Day 1 flight will be fairly massive. They managed to play down to just 91 tonight, although I expect tomorrow we’ll see the Day 1b field end with more than twice that still with chips.

Lots of steps today registered on the FitBit -- something like 14,000, I think, just about all taken going back and forth between the media room and the main tournament area. Started to flag near the end after having had only four or so hours’ sleep last night, but made it through more or less in one piece.

At least I didn’t start out the day playing a set of tennis as did my blogging colleagues, Stephen and Howard. They bought a pass to play over at the nearby Monte Carlo Country Club, something I believe they’ve done before in past years, and after playing happened to see none other than Novak Djokovic, currently the top-ranked men’s tennis player in the world (by a lot), working out on a nearby court. No shinola!

Not too much to report otherwise so I’m gonna cut it short and try to get some more rest tonight. Am a little tempted to stay up late for the Hornets-Heat Game 5 (which starts at 2 a.m. here, but I imagine I wouldn’t last very long even if I stayed up late enough for the tip.

Better to rest up for another day full of steps tomorrow. Meanwhile, check the PokerStars blog for all the scoop on what happened today both in the FPS Monaco and the second day of the 10K Single Re-Entry High Roller.

Photo: courtesy Jules Pochy/PokerStars blog.