It just doesn't get any better than this. Yesterday while playing on the Internet I learned that there was a good sized poker tournament going on in Monte Carlo. As you may know, Monte Carlo and St. Tropez are on complete opposite ends of the French Riviera and stand as bookends to some of the most beautiful coastline, anywhere.
I've done the drive many times, but it can take ten hours in the summer and is not very fun. But wait, we have our yacht for the week! With a couple phone calls, Captain David was able to secure mooring at the Monte Carlo port - so off we went for a three hour yacht journey from St. Tropez to Monte Carlo.
Imagine going via yacht to Monte Carlo for a poker tournament.
I have been at the marina many times watching the yachts and wondering who all the fancy people were on them. Now here we were mooring and the people dockside were wondering who we were.
Most poker tournaments have a structure where as players lose their chips they are out of the tournament and ultimately there is one winner. This one is different. The entry was 2,500 Euros (appx $4,250), and there are four first days. Each day the top 15% of the players move to the Sunday final. These top 15% are then "in the money." The unique twist is that if you go broke on the first day, you can buy in again on the second day. So some people may be paying 10,000 Euros hoping to get to the finals.
The tournament director is an old friend I met years ago at The Aviation Club Casino in Paris, Oriane Teysseire. She was so appreciative that we came that she arranged to get us a room for the evening at The Fairmont Hotel, the site of the tournament.
48 of us signed up which meant that seven of us would qualify for Sunday. At 3am we finished for the evening and I was the chip leader. I'll be back Sunday with more to report.
What a day!
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