Official World Poker Tour Magazine

Ok guys, have inspected the town (and the stunning Monte Carlo Bay resort) further and would like to share a nugget of wisdom with you: if you ever go to a city where nothing has a price on it, there’s probably a very good reason.

It’s incredible. Nothing in this town has a value on it for the simple reason that if you need to ask how much something is, you probably can’t afford it in the first place. From the Roll Royce dealer to Gucci via Lavius (I think that’s what it was called, to be honest I was intimidated by the ornate glassware and scarpered quick-sharp), there’s not a price tag to be seen.

Having said that, I did manage to have a meal for around £20. Bizarrely, the main course was only a couple of euros more than the hotel are asking for that oh so tempting bag of peanuts in the mini bar… Perhaps they have some kind of magical properties?

While looking around this evening I’ve noticed that while the outward appearance of the racing constructions and advertising hoardings certainly dominate the town, if you prick up your ears the place has actually gone poker crazy too. Walk into any bar, restaurant or cafe and over the din of staccato French dialect you’ll just about be able to detect one or two American twangs discussing the merits of four-betting light. Ah, just like home.

Anyway, inspired by the familiar hand analyses I figured it was high time to check out the Monte Carlo Bay resort and see what’s going on in the EPT. Any fears I had of being under dressed for the occassion were quickly allayed when I walked in jeans and a suit jacket only to stumble upon the comforting sight of 200+ grown adults in hoodies, baseball caps and ridiculous shades. God I love degenerates.

From my limited time in the casino thus far, I garnered on or two snippets from the various tournaments on the go:

The main event is completely inaccessible without press credentials, which I unfortunately do not yet possess. From what I could see, not many big names are still in.

The high roller event is going strong, with Vanessa Rousso amongthe chip leaders a couple of hours ago. Devilfish and Liv Boeree are both still flying the British flag and Thomas Wahlroos is sat next to Tony G. Funnily enough, he’s been plugged into his headphones all night… Can’t imagine why.

The 1,000 euro side event has just got going and a lot of big players have been seated together. Notably, Hevad Khan and Humberto Brenes have been reunited after their WSOP double-act a couple of years back and are sharing a table. From what I saw, Khan is yet to get on the Red Bull, which is probably just as well for his fellow players.

Right, off to get some shut-eye so I can bring you some more news tomorrow.

Monte Carlo. It’s a lot of things to a lot of people. For some, it’s a tax haven safe from the ravishes of mainland Europe. For others, it’s a monument to decadence and excess; an overblown physical salute to affluence and social elitism at its most indulgent. For other still, namely my geographically-challenged housemate Dave, it’s a small country in Northern Africa. But for me, Monte Carlo represents something else entirely…

For me, Monte Carlo is the absolute zenith of the high-roller’s life-style. The holy grail to which any two-bit gambler worth his salt ultimately aspires to. For me, being here and witnessing the EPT Grand Final first hand in all it’s glamorous extreme encapsulates what poker is all about and you can rest assured that I’ll do my utmost to relay everything I can from this fantastic tournament back to you good people at home.

However, having only been here a couple of hours, I must confess that as of yet I haven’t even set foot in the casino, but what I have done is taken a little stroll around town to soak up some of the general ambience – and what a place it is. The whole city looks and sounds like a race course; there are hardly any pavements and the architecture seems as though it was designed to deliberately amplify the roar of sports cars’ engines as they tear round ridiculously tight corners at 100mph.

This, of course, is accentuated further by the fact that the town is currently gripped with F1 fever ahead of the Monte Carlo GP. Huge seating areas have been erected down by the harbour, which overlook all manner of artificially constructed S-bends and chicanes. Indeed, I sit here writing this blog from the balcony of my hotel, which is situated on a rather treacherous looking hair-pin.

The other thing I have noted so far about Monte Carlo is that the wealth of its residents seems to be inversely proportional to the size of their dogs. So much so, in fact, that the very creme de la creme of Monaco high-society have hounds so small that they can comfortably be transported from place to place in the side pocket of Luis Vuitton hand-bag.

One black spot on my arrival in this millionaires’ playground, however, is the underwhelming quality of Monte Carlo WAGs. Julian promised me great things of Monaco’s ladies, yet those on display so far have been bronzed, bleached, bling’d but certainly not beautiful. Perhaps they only come out at night…