***Protential's Last PG&C Thread***
05-30-2013
, 12:25 AM
06-01-2013
, 11:55 AM
First few days in vegas have been awesome. Was fortunate enough to have the first event I play be the first event I cash in (103rd for around 3k).
During day 2 of the event I was also lucky enough to be sat to the direct left of Michael Phelps!
Not too long after Phelps busted, Scott Seiver was moved to his seat, so had a really fun day speaking with him for a good amount of hours. So while I had another deep run/fail in an event, I was honestly very happy at the end of the day and couldn't have hoped for much better of a beginning to my summer.
During day 2 of the event I was also lucky enough to be sat to the direct left of Michael Phelps!
Not too long after Phelps busted, Scott Seiver was moved to his seat, so had a really fun day speaking with him for a good amount of hours. So while I had another deep run/fail in an event, I was honestly very happy at the end of the day and couldn't have hoped for much better of a beginning to my summer.
06-11-2013
, 12:26 PM
07-04-2013
, 02:44 PM
07-04-2013
, 05:43 PM
As I have the first section of the trip report done, I'm going to post it as a bit of a teaser in here, comments and thoughts on it are appreciated.
Bracelet Fever
By: Ryan Laplante
Edited By: Luke Haward
Part 1: First Week.
As my last WSOP trip reports on TwoPlusTwo were so well received, I decided for this year I would do another one. A friend of mine, and writer for QuadJacks, Luke Haward, has kindly agreed to edit and write up my trip reports which I will be frantically scribbling in-between some sessions on the felt. My updates will contain analysis of the major hands I get involved in, stories about the players I meet on and off the felt, as well as my thought processes and feelings as I pit my energies and poker skills against huge fields of players live in Vegas in an effort to achieve my first six figure score and that compelling WSOP Gold Bracelet.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ryan Laplante and I'm an MTT pro originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm better known in poker circles by my Pokerstars and TwoPlusTwo screenname - Protentialmn. I'm glad to have you with me on this journey as I try my best to achieve my dream of becoming more than just another MTT grinder. Maybe if I bring my A game and have a bit of luck, I'll achieve my first Gold Bracelet and be able to call myself a World Series of Poker Champion! Thank you for reading and best of luck at the tables.
May 30th (Day 1, Event 3a)
I doubled up in the second hand of my first tourney, day 1a of a $1k 3-day NL event, with my AA vs JJ. The hand folded to the CO who opened with a 4bb bet of 100 chips, I raise to 300 from the BB, and he calls. The flop comes 2 2 7 twotone, I continue for just over half the pot, he raises to 750, I jam my stack in the middle and he snap calls it off with JJ and doesn't make his 2-outer to survive.
My day 1a table draw was full of randoms and very soft, also a fairly quiet table. I was moved after a couple of hours, along with one of the chattier guys from my previous table, a really nice guy from D.C. There were two dudes at the new table who obviously knew each other and were a lot of fun. Whenever we had a good looking female dealer they made a lot of jokes and were hitting on her and getting badly denied, it was pretty amusing.
Melanie Weisner was then moved to our table, and she and I discussed hands a decent amount while the guys on either side of her hit on her and made jokes. I know her boyfriend Rupert fairly well, so we had a decent amount of real life stuff to talk about. We also played an interesting hand last year in the 5k where she ripped me off of top pair with a great triple barrel bluff.
After a while she ended up having her AA cracked to bust in a fairly sick spot. By the time Melanie busted I had been chipping down for some time and was sitting on about 10 big blinds at 150-300. When the final level hit, at 200-400 I was down to 2400 chips or 6 big blinds. I finally had a run of decent action at this point, winning a flip, busting an even shorter stack, and then winning another flip to get back up to 16,700 or 42 big blinds, and ended the night with that. Made day 2 with just above average stack and 30bbs to work with.
May 31st (Day 2, Event 3)
My starting table draw for Day 2 included none other than Michael Phelps! While I wasn't able to play with him long as he busted fairly quickly, I was once again reminded of one of my favourite things about poker in Vegas; The opportunity to play not only with legends of the game, but also celebreties and people from many walks of life is truly an astounding feature of these major live tournaments. WSOP really brings out the craziest variety of people you will ever play with, from John the carpenter, to Michael the greatest swimmer to ever live. You never know who you're going to meet, or what may happen.
Not long after Phelps busted, Scott Seiver was moved to our table. Scott is considered by many to be one of the greatest NLHE players in the world, and is also an incredible person, as I'll go on to explain. I was absolutely shocked to see him sitting in a 1k, having assumed he'd be crushing the big cash games running through the summer and only be playing the bigger buy-in events. It occurred to me that he might have some kind of bracelet bet running, but when I quizzed him on this he just told me he was in love with the very concept of the World Series, and just wanted to win another bracelet really badly, not really caring about the money. This commitment to playing for pure glory and for the game itself earns my respect far more than his ability alone. When you add the fact that he comes off as a genuinely good guy, you have the makings of highly entertaining table draw, provided you're not seated directly to his right!
The way that Scott got started in poker is less surprising once you've met him and realized what a mind he has. Scott told me a story about his college days at Brown University around 8 years ago, about an occassion when the then President Clinton came to Brown to give a speech. After the speech, one of Scott's friends recognized the legendary poker player Billy Gazes in the crowd and approached him, somewhat star struck at seeing such a prolific player at their school, he nonetheless plucked up the courage to start chatting with him. Not long after, Scott was also introduced and a group of them went out to dinner.
Over their dinner discussion, Billy realized right away how intelligent Scott was and how his mind would be great for the game of poker, and so on the spot Billy decided to stake Scott $20,000, who was at the time a broke college junior with less than $500 to his name. One of the first games Scott ever played on this stake was the Sunday Million on Party Poker, the first tourney with a $1 million guarantee to ever run on the site, and he managed to make his way to the final table for a score of around $35,000! The rest, as they say, is history.
I managed my best to stay afloat at the table that included Seiver. After we broke and I got moved to a new table I managed to build for a bit. I managed to peak at around 45k at 800-1600, and then got into a BvB confrontation with 88 vs KQs in a 100k pot. As my snowmen were unable to hold in the flip, I was turned into a short stack, and not long after busted in 103rd place (out of 3200 runners) for $2,900.
Most people would be upset to run fairly deep in a WSOP event and not have much to show for it, but I was actually very happy to have my first event of the summer go so well!
Maybe it was a sign for what the series had in store for me…
June 1st (Event 6)
I sat down for flight A of the $1.5k 'Millionaire Maker' with a tantalizing $1 million guaranteed for first place, and immediately noticed a line of four professionals to my left, and two to my right, including the fabulous Xuan Liu. While a fairly challenging table draw, it was a fun one, and I had the opportunity of hearing about the history of the games in L.A. and Vegas from a live pro who's played as high as the 100-200 nlhe/plo mix cash games.
I was busted in a totally standard spot, and re-bought expecting my next draw to be much softer than my first. I couldn't have been more wrong. My flight B draw had the following players on it; Darryll Fish (who has just taken 3rd place in the 5k 8max for 215k), OnCommand (who also final tabled the same tourney for around 70k), the world famous Yevgeniy Timoshenko (or JovialGent online), one of the best online MTT-ers as well as an extraordinary live player, Tony Cousineau, one of the top WSOP cashers of recent times, and Dan Suied, who goes by the nickname Miami Boss and is good friends with Darryl. There were in fact only two people at the table who I figured might not play full time, neither of whom played poorly.
As you can imagine, Darryl and OnCommand were happy about their 8max final table scores and were celebrating their success by drinking beers and doing shots. Miami Boss was joining in, as well as some others at the table, and on nearby tables as well as on the rail, which included Jason Mercier. Our table was wild, hilarious and probably the most fun I have ever had at a poker table. I was literally blinded by tears of laughter multiple times.
One of the funniest moments of the night was when we started playing the meta-game of 'show one card if you win a pot'. One of the main players in the hand was Miami, the entire night he acted like a "player", and he had the letters WSOP shaved into his head (though half covered by a cap) and kept repeating some sort of catchphrase or mantra about "popping models and bottles" through the night and showing people the “hot” girls he would party with.
The hand that occurred Miami Boss opened in middle position for just over a min raise, and finds himself facing a snap jam from a kid in the small blind. Both players have about 20bb in their stacks, and Miami when he sees the jam starts to tank and talk fast about how this kid who had jammed was the quietest player at the table and also had been the tightest by far.
After a few minutes of thinking and talking through it all aloud, he held his cards high up in the air and looks over at Darryl, saying something about having to fold. I'm pretty sure Darryll caught a glimpse of his cards, as he made a really funny face and then snap covered his face with his hands and started giggling like a little kid. They were both fairly drunk at this point. Miami finally does fold, showing his hand to Darryll once again as he does so.
Darryl jumps up laughing, saying to the guy who shoved "Show one! Show a ten! One time!" The kid, still very quiet, sends his cards closer to Darryl, who snatches one up and flips it over to reveal… The Ten of Hearts! At this the table bursts into laughter while Miami Boss puts his head in his hands and then bangs his head on the table while Darryl stood up and doubled over, laughing uncontrollably.
As you can imagine, it was a long and fun day at the tables. With such a difficult, but entertaining, draw I was happy to end the night with 8k in chips and was ready for what the rest of the tourney had in store for me.
End Part 1
****************
I'll release 2-3 more parts after the main, should be finished with-in a month. Hopefully I have a lot more stuff to add to it.
Bracelet Fever
By: Ryan Laplante
Edited By: Luke Haward
Part 1: First Week.
As my last WSOP trip reports on TwoPlusTwo were so well received, I decided for this year I would do another one. A friend of mine, and writer for QuadJacks, Luke Haward, has kindly agreed to edit and write up my trip reports which I will be frantically scribbling in-between some sessions on the felt. My updates will contain analysis of the major hands I get involved in, stories about the players I meet on and off the felt, as well as my thought processes and feelings as I pit my energies and poker skills against huge fields of players live in Vegas in an effort to achieve my first six figure score and that compelling WSOP Gold Bracelet.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ryan Laplante and I'm an MTT pro originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I'm better known in poker circles by my Pokerstars and TwoPlusTwo screenname - Protentialmn. I'm glad to have you with me on this journey as I try my best to achieve my dream of becoming more than just another MTT grinder. Maybe if I bring my A game and have a bit of luck, I'll achieve my first Gold Bracelet and be able to call myself a World Series of Poker Champion! Thank you for reading and best of luck at the tables.
May 30th (Day 1, Event 3a)
I doubled up in the second hand of my first tourney, day 1a of a $1k 3-day NL event, with my AA vs JJ. The hand folded to the CO who opened with a 4bb bet of 100 chips, I raise to 300 from the BB, and he calls. The flop comes 2 2 7 twotone, I continue for just over half the pot, he raises to 750, I jam my stack in the middle and he snap calls it off with JJ and doesn't make his 2-outer to survive.
My day 1a table draw was full of randoms and very soft, also a fairly quiet table. I was moved after a couple of hours, along with one of the chattier guys from my previous table, a really nice guy from D.C. There were two dudes at the new table who obviously knew each other and were a lot of fun. Whenever we had a good looking female dealer they made a lot of jokes and were hitting on her and getting badly denied, it was pretty amusing.
Melanie Weisner was then moved to our table, and she and I discussed hands a decent amount while the guys on either side of her hit on her and made jokes. I know her boyfriend Rupert fairly well, so we had a decent amount of real life stuff to talk about. We also played an interesting hand last year in the 5k where she ripped me off of top pair with a great triple barrel bluff.
After a while she ended up having her AA cracked to bust in a fairly sick spot. By the time Melanie busted I had been chipping down for some time and was sitting on about 10 big blinds at 150-300. When the final level hit, at 200-400 I was down to 2400 chips or 6 big blinds. I finally had a run of decent action at this point, winning a flip, busting an even shorter stack, and then winning another flip to get back up to 16,700 or 42 big blinds, and ended the night with that. Made day 2 with just above average stack and 30bbs to work with.
May 31st (Day 2, Event 3)
My starting table draw for Day 2 included none other than Michael Phelps! While I wasn't able to play with him long as he busted fairly quickly, I was once again reminded of one of my favourite things about poker in Vegas; The opportunity to play not only with legends of the game, but also celebreties and people from many walks of life is truly an astounding feature of these major live tournaments. WSOP really brings out the craziest variety of people you will ever play with, from John the carpenter, to Michael the greatest swimmer to ever live. You never know who you're going to meet, or what may happen.
Not long after Phelps busted, Scott Seiver was moved to our table. Scott is considered by many to be one of the greatest NLHE players in the world, and is also an incredible person, as I'll go on to explain. I was absolutely shocked to see him sitting in a 1k, having assumed he'd be crushing the big cash games running through the summer and only be playing the bigger buy-in events. It occurred to me that he might have some kind of bracelet bet running, but when I quizzed him on this he just told me he was in love with the very concept of the World Series, and just wanted to win another bracelet really badly, not really caring about the money. This commitment to playing for pure glory and for the game itself earns my respect far more than his ability alone. When you add the fact that he comes off as a genuinely good guy, you have the makings of highly entertaining table draw, provided you're not seated directly to his right!
The way that Scott got started in poker is less surprising once you've met him and realized what a mind he has. Scott told me a story about his college days at Brown University around 8 years ago, about an occassion when the then President Clinton came to Brown to give a speech. After the speech, one of Scott's friends recognized the legendary poker player Billy Gazes in the crowd and approached him, somewhat star struck at seeing such a prolific player at their school, he nonetheless plucked up the courage to start chatting with him. Not long after, Scott was also introduced and a group of them went out to dinner.
Over their dinner discussion, Billy realized right away how intelligent Scott was and how his mind would be great for the game of poker, and so on the spot Billy decided to stake Scott $20,000, who was at the time a broke college junior with less than $500 to his name. One of the first games Scott ever played on this stake was the Sunday Million on Party Poker, the first tourney with a $1 million guarantee to ever run on the site, and he managed to make his way to the final table for a score of around $35,000! The rest, as they say, is history.
I managed my best to stay afloat at the table that included Seiver. After we broke and I got moved to a new table I managed to build for a bit. I managed to peak at around 45k at 800-1600, and then got into a BvB confrontation with 88 vs KQs in a 100k pot. As my snowmen were unable to hold in the flip, I was turned into a short stack, and not long after busted in 103rd place (out of 3200 runners) for $2,900.
Most people would be upset to run fairly deep in a WSOP event and not have much to show for it, but I was actually very happy to have my first event of the summer go so well!
Maybe it was a sign for what the series had in store for me…
June 1st (Event 6)
I sat down for flight A of the $1.5k 'Millionaire Maker' with a tantalizing $1 million guaranteed for first place, and immediately noticed a line of four professionals to my left, and two to my right, including the fabulous Xuan Liu. While a fairly challenging table draw, it was a fun one, and I had the opportunity of hearing about the history of the games in L.A. and Vegas from a live pro who's played as high as the 100-200 nlhe/plo mix cash games.
I was busted in a totally standard spot, and re-bought expecting my next draw to be much softer than my first. I couldn't have been more wrong. My flight B draw had the following players on it; Darryll Fish (who has just taken 3rd place in the 5k 8max for 215k), OnCommand (who also final tabled the same tourney for around 70k), the world famous Yevgeniy Timoshenko (or JovialGent online), one of the best online MTT-ers as well as an extraordinary live player, Tony Cousineau, one of the top WSOP cashers of recent times, and Dan Suied, who goes by the nickname Miami Boss and is good friends with Darryl. There were in fact only two people at the table who I figured might not play full time, neither of whom played poorly.
As you can imagine, Darryl and OnCommand were happy about their 8max final table scores and were celebrating their success by drinking beers and doing shots. Miami Boss was joining in, as well as some others at the table, and on nearby tables as well as on the rail, which included Jason Mercier. Our table was wild, hilarious and probably the most fun I have ever had at a poker table. I was literally blinded by tears of laughter multiple times.
One of the funniest moments of the night was when we started playing the meta-game of 'show one card if you win a pot'. One of the main players in the hand was Miami, the entire night he acted like a "player", and he had the letters WSOP shaved into his head (though half covered by a cap) and kept repeating some sort of catchphrase or mantra about "popping models and bottles" through the night and showing people the “hot” girls he would party with.
The hand that occurred Miami Boss opened in middle position for just over a min raise, and finds himself facing a snap jam from a kid in the small blind. Both players have about 20bb in their stacks, and Miami when he sees the jam starts to tank and talk fast about how this kid who had jammed was the quietest player at the table and also had been the tightest by far.
After a few minutes of thinking and talking through it all aloud, he held his cards high up in the air and looks over at Darryl, saying something about having to fold. I'm pretty sure Darryll caught a glimpse of his cards, as he made a really funny face and then snap covered his face with his hands and started giggling like a little kid. They were both fairly drunk at this point. Miami finally does fold, showing his hand to Darryll once again as he does so.
Darryl jumps up laughing, saying to the guy who shoved "Show one! Show a ten! One time!" The kid, still very quiet, sends his cards closer to Darryl, who snatches one up and flips it over to reveal… The Ten of Hearts! At this the table bursts into laughter while Miami Boss puts his head in his hands and then bangs his head on the table while Darryl stood up and doubled over, laughing uncontrollably.
As you can imagine, it was a long and fun day at the tables. With such a difficult, but entertaining, draw I was happy to end the night with 8k in chips and was ready for what the rest of the tourney had in store for me.
End Part 1
****************
I'll release 2-3 more parts after the main, should be finished with-in a month. Hopefully I have a lot more stuff to add to it.
Last edited by Protential; 07-04-2013 at 05:58 PM.
07-17-2013
, 06:55 PM
Finally got around to my EPT Grand Final TR, thought it'd be a good enough excuse to bump this.
For those of you who don't know me, I am a 23 year old professional who has been playing full time for a bit over 3 years. I have around 1.5million in tournament earnings, 30000+ tournaments played, and 2 WSOP final tables. I have written “Trip Reports” for some of my previous poker experiences and as they were very well received I decided to do another for this past summer at the series and the EPT Grand Final before that.
My last 3 months have been an absurdly busy blur of travel, sight seeing, live poker, moving, SCOOP grind, and more live poker. I wish I'd had more free time over the last few months to write up these earlier, or even if possible get them out while they occurred, but as I've been too busy to do so I'm finally getting to it now. While I wasn't wildly successful or anything like that, I do feel that what happened is worth sharing and hope you find it to be an entertaining read.
Note:The following TR is written to the best of my ability to remember things as they happened, although, as many of the things that occurred happened anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months ago I may have forgotten exactly how everything happened. Please bear with me if I make any mistakes, they are not intentional, and I will try not to write this in a manner that makes me look any better or worse than who I am and how I perceived things happen.
Thanks for reading!
They say that in poker anything is possible. They also say that at some point in your life you will run better than you ever thought possible, and worse than you ever thought possible. I, like many of you, generally felt as though I was stuck mostly in the latter category and was sentenced to endure to a weary existence as a lowly backed mid-stakes grinder. It's not something I'm upset with however, and am very thankful to the success I've had from the game up to this point in my career.
The best place to begin this story is actually a few months before I ran better than I ever thought possible, and right after I ran worse than what I thought was possible. It was mid December, my boyfriend (Chris) and I had been living in the USA once again for a month or so, after having just spent 3 months in Cabo San Lucas for WCOOP and other grinding. My WCOOP was a complete train wreck, while I had multiple deep runs, I played pretty high through the end of 2012 and was brutalized to the tune of -70k. As I accumulated such a huge degree of make-up, my backer and I decided that it would be best for us to part ways and did so right before Christmas. Luckily I had a new backing deal in place already and had plans to move back up to Toronto for a few months starting in January.
The first few months of the grind in Toronto went fairly well, I managed to pay off my debt to previous backer, paid for my time in Toronto, and saved up enough for a vacation to Jamaica with my family in February.
In Jamaica
From mid February through March my online grind was a typical variance ridden breakeven stretch, while I was happy with my year so far up to that point, I was really trying my best to save up some funds so Chris and I could have a nice time at the series this year, and if everything went well enough have enough to go on my own by end of summer. (I was also coaching people throughout this time period, nearly all my students saw great success, which helped us a decent amount financially)
Early April arrived and we were only a few weeks away from having to leave Toronto, I was frantically attempting to grind as much as possible, and was pushing myself to my limits as far as volume and hours played. I was getting to the point of searching through the PS satellite lobby as well each day for good value games to add in to what I was already playing and randomly checking Event Tabs as well so I didn't miss anything that might eek up my hourly.
On April 5th I saw a 500fpp (8$ essentially) Super Satty that had 20 seats guaranteed to a 5k FPP super satellite later that day. While it was in late registration by around 20-30 min, it looked as though it would overlay (it didn't). While FPP's were mine to do as I wished I generally just converted them to funds and cashed them out, however I would occasionally shot take with them. So I decided to see if I could turn the 500 FPP's into a fun sweat, and a few hours later I had won my way into the 5k, and from there won my way into the final satellite that was a 40,000 FPP buy-in and had 4 EPT Grand Final packages guaranteed (worth around $18,000).
The 40k satellite was the next day, I didn't sell any action for it, and thus was the highest buy-in tournament I've ever played on my own dime without selling for. About 30 min in I flopped top set with KK, and after the hand was left with about 500 chips at 25-50, somehow, miraculously, 6 hours later I had one of my largest scores online and a package to the EPT Grand Final that was taking place a month later in Monaco!
To say this win was huge for me really wouldn't do it justice. I had never been to Europe before, I had also always dreamed of doing so and of playing in an EPT. With this win, not only was I able to pocket what was a decent amount of money to me, but I was also able to achieve multiple dreams at once!
After the win I posted a package for the main, sold a huge portion of my action (at face value or a slight mark-down), and finished off my grind in Toronto in high spirits. May finally arrived and with it the beginning of an unforgettable 8 days.
Monaco is a tiny country on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (2 Sq. Km), it is encircled by the south of France, and due to it's good weather and lenient tax and banking laws it is a tourist haven and the playground of the Super Rich (there are more millionaires per-capita Monaco than any place on earth and it has the highest per-capita wealth). All of this is very apparent when you arrive in the country after the 30min+ taxi cab from the Nice airport. Monaco is built into the side of a steep hillside/mountain, and from the moment you enter the country's limits to the moment you leave you are surrounded by wealth, extravagance, and beautiful scenery (my average day walking around I saw more $100,000+ cars in a day than I had seen over the rest of my life).
Picture of the City
Knowing all of this about the country before hand, and experiencing it as we entered the country gave us really high expectations for the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel. We were staying there as part of the tournament package I won. It was supposed to be one of the nicest hotels in the country, we were also being “charged” equivalent to $500/night (which was a lot cheaper than the normal rate). When we arrived at the hotel we were absolutely shocked, not because of how nice everything was, but because of how disappointing it all was compared to how much we were being charged. It was like paying for a 5 star meal and getting a ham sandwich in return. (A good tasting one at least)
The Hotel (the far right building)
The hotel lobby and the outside of the hotel are really nice (live up to the price), however the hotel room itself was a big let down compared to what 500$ a night in the USA (in any major city) can get you. While most of it was fairly nice, it was absolutely tiny (about what you can get for $60 a night in the USA, which I know is normal for Europe, but it was a shock to us) and the bed was 2 twins pushed together and not comfortable at all. While the hotel itself was a bit disappointing, the playing venue for the tournament and cash games held there was amazing, and Pokerstars really knows how to run a live series (Pokerstars also gave the players a nice sized and free breakfast buffet every morning).
The Venue, Rooftop Open
Note: The area we were playing in had a mechanical rooftop that could open and close, it was awesome to play with it open!
As I had been fortunate enough to win my way to the EPT GF from only 500 fpp's I had the opportunity to do an interview with Lee Jones for Pokerstars the day after our arrival. It was a nice a laid back 10 minute interview and then we went out to lunch and had a really nice conversation about the poker community, his family (he has a gay son apparently), how nice it was to be there, and also how good it would be for me to make a deep run from only FPP's. Lee seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and was very well liked by everyone there. If you ever get the opportunity to meet him you should definitely do so.
The only other real downside to Monaco is how expensive everything is, especially food, also how poorly the locals treat people who don't speak French (very poorly, waiters, for instance, are downright rude to you). Our average meal was easily 75$+, and the only time we had good service and were treated well was when we celebrated our birthdays and the trip by having our last dinner be at a fairly nice restaurant and ended up spending 200$ or so (was a great exp. though, having 5 waiters makes dinner pretty interesting). If you don't mind the really high cost of living and you speak French fluently, I'm sure it is a nice place to live. Monaco is filled with super high end restaurants (apparently a super foodie's dream with some of the highest rated places in the world there), beautiful beaches, buildings, and scenery, as well as cool things to see and do pretty much every day. If you are a car lover you will be in bliss every single day and always have something awesome to stare at. Also, while we were there the city was getting prepared for the Monaco Grand Prix which was to take place a week after we left, the race weaves up and down through the whole country nearly, so everywhere you walked you could see them setting up things for the race (really cool to see).
Grand Prix Banner
I suppose I've spoken enough about non poker things, but really don't have much to say about the poker I played there. I busted really really early from the Grand Final (was out before antes started). The main hand that occurred (I don't remember the details exactly) but I tried to go for 3 streets of value with top 2 pair in a large 3-bet pot, and had to fold to a river jam (was probably a 200bb+ pot on level 2). This left me with like 1/3rd of starting stack, and before end of level 3 I was out on a flip. The other poker I played during the trip was a 2,000 Euro side event that I busted like 5 levels in on JJ into KK in a pretty standard spot in a massive pot, and also tried Pokerstars Mobile on a sunday and made a few K.
Grand Final FT
Note: One of the few "cool" poker experiences I had while there was eating dinner in the hotel one night while the huge cash game was on break. Saw Guy in the hotel lobby, and after awhile Ike Haxton and his girlfriend(?) sat down at the table next to us. Twitter was blowing up about how Ike had just won a 1mil + pot off of Guy in the cash game.
Well now that we got the poker stuff out of the way, time for more Monaco stuff!
(Wish I had more poker stuff 
)
After busting the main so fast, we ended up having around 5 days free to do what we desired. Most of our free time was spent lying around or walking the city, trying to spend as little money as possible, however, we also did a bit of sight seeing. One of the days, we walked up to the castle and went inside doing a tour (it was pretty nice to see for me as it was my first castle, but was fairly small, also it was interesting that the Prince and his family still lived there and allowed the tours). Around the castle was a pretty large market that wove in and out of a handful of small buildings, it was a cute little area to walk around and do some shopping, and had some of the best value food we saw in the city. (lots of little cafe's of different kinds of cuisine and reasonably priced mostly)
The other sightseeing we did mostly involved checking out the little Japanese garden near our hotel, and also walking the long ways from our hotel to the Exotic Garden and seeing that. The walk to the Exotic Gardens took us nearly an hour each way, was on the opposite side of the country and up near the top of the hill on that side. It was a really interesting walk through the city, and the gardens themselves offered amazing views of the area, had a lot of neat little scultpures and plants as well as a really cool cave that you could walk through.
Overall it was a wonderful trip, between the sight seeing we did and everything we got to experience it was definitely a unique and awesome adventure. If you have the opportunity to do so I feel that it is a place worth visiting at least once.
Note: Below is a video of some of the better pictures from our trip, with some music as well. Only about 10min in length and I feel it gives a pretty good idea of much of that we were able to see. Check it out!
(Will Edit this post and put it here once it is finished being produced and uploaded to Youtube)
EPT Grand Final + WSOP Trip Reports
By:Ryan Laplante
"3 Crazy Months"
By:Ryan Laplante
"3 Crazy Months"
For those of you who don't know me, I am a 23 year old professional who has been playing full time for a bit over 3 years. I have around 1.5million in tournament earnings, 30000+ tournaments played, and 2 WSOP final tables. I have written “Trip Reports” for some of my previous poker experiences and as they were very well received I decided to do another for this past summer at the series and the EPT Grand Final before that.
My last 3 months have been an absurdly busy blur of travel, sight seeing, live poker, moving, SCOOP grind, and more live poker. I wish I'd had more free time over the last few months to write up these earlier, or even if possible get them out while they occurred, but as I've been too busy to do so I'm finally getting to it now. While I wasn't wildly successful or anything like that, I do feel that what happened is worth sharing and hope you find it to be an entertaining read.
Note:The following TR is written to the best of my ability to remember things as they happened, although, as many of the things that occurred happened anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months ago I may have forgotten exactly how everything happened. Please bear with me if I make any mistakes, they are not intentional, and I will try not to write this in a manner that makes me look any better or worse than who I am and how I perceived things happen.
Thanks for reading!
Part 1: “From FPP's To A Dream Come True”
They say that in poker anything is possible. They also say that at some point in your life you will run better than you ever thought possible, and worse than you ever thought possible. I, like many of you, generally felt as though I was stuck mostly in the latter category and was sentenced to endure to a weary existence as a lowly backed mid-stakes grinder. It's not something I'm upset with however, and am very thankful to the success I've had from the game up to this point in my career.
The best place to begin this story is actually a few months before I ran better than I ever thought possible, and right after I ran worse than what I thought was possible. It was mid December, my boyfriend (Chris) and I had been living in the USA once again for a month or so, after having just spent 3 months in Cabo San Lucas for WCOOP and other grinding. My WCOOP was a complete train wreck, while I had multiple deep runs, I played pretty high through the end of 2012 and was brutalized to the tune of -70k. As I accumulated such a huge degree of make-up, my backer and I decided that it would be best for us to part ways and did so right before Christmas. Luckily I had a new backing deal in place already and had plans to move back up to Toronto for a few months starting in January.
The first few months of the grind in Toronto went fairly well, I managed to pay off my debt to previous backer, paid for my time in Toronto, and saved up enough for a vacation to Jamaica with my family in February.
In Jamaica
From mid February through March my online grind was a typical variance ridden breakeven stretch, while I was happy with my year so far up to that point, I was really trying my best to save up some funds so Chris and I could have a nice time at the series this year, and if everything went well enough have enough to go on my own by end of summer. (I was also coaching people throughout this time period, nearly all my students saw great success, which helped us a decent amount financially)
Early April arrived and we were only a few weeks away from having to leave Toronto, I was frantically attempting to grind as much as possible, and was pushing myself to my limits as far as volume and hours played. I was getting to the point of searching through the PS satellite lobby as well each day for good value games to add in to what I was already playing and randomly checking Event Tabs as well so I didn't miss anything that might eek up my hourly.
On April 5th I saw a 500fpp (8$ essentially) Super Satty that had 20 seats guaranteed to a 5k FPP super satellite later that day. While it was in late registration by around 20-30 min, it looked as though it would overlay (it didn't). While FPP's were mine to do as I wished I generally just converted them to funds and cashed them out, however I would occasionally shot take with them. So I decided to see if I could turn the 500 FPP's into a fun sweat, and a few hours later I had won my way into the 5k, and from there won my way into the final satellite that was a 40,000 FPP buy-in and had 4 EPT Grand Final packages guaranteed (worth around $18,000).
The 40k satellite was the next day, I didn't sell any action for it, and thus was the highest buy-in tournament I've ever played on my own dime without selling for. About 30 min in I flopped top set with KK, and after the hand was left with about 500 chips at 25-50, somehow, miraculously, 6 hours later I had one of my largest scores online and a package to the EPT Grand Final that was taking place a month later in Monaco!
To say this win was huge for me really wouldn't do it justice. I had never been to Europe before, I had also always dreamed of doing so and of playing in an EPT. With this win, not only was I able to pocket what was a decent amount of money to me, but I was also able to achieve multiple dreams at once!
After the win I posted a package for the main, sold a huge portion of my action (at face value or a slight mark-down), and finished off my grind in Toronto in high spirits. May finally arrived and with it the beginning of an unforgettable 8 days.
Part 2: “Holy ****! That's Expensive!” and “A Fast Exit”
Monaco is a tiny country on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (2 Sq. Km), it is encircled by the south of France, and due to it's good weather and lenient tax and banking laws it is a tourist haven and the playground of the Super Rich (there are more millionaires per-capita Monaco than any place on earth and it has the highest per-capita wealth). All of this is very apparent when you arrive in the country after the 30min+ taxi cab from the Nice airport. Monaco is built into the side of a steep hillside/mountain, and from the moment you enter the country's limits to the moment you leave you are surrounded by wealth, extravagance, and beautiful scenery (my average day walking around I saw more $100,000+ cars in a day than I had seen over the rest of my life).
Picture of the City
Knowing all of this about the country before hand, and experiencing it as we entered the country gave us really high expectations for the Monte Carlo Bay Hotel. We were staying there as part of the tournament package I won. It was supposed to be one of the nicest hotels in the country, we were also being “charged” equivalent to $500/night (which was a lot cheaper than the normal rate). When we arrived at the hotel we were absolutely shocked, not because of how nice everything was, but because of how disappointing it all was compared to how much we were being charged. It was like paying for a 5 star meal and getting a ham sandwich in return. (A good tasting one at least)
The Hotel (the far right building)
The hotel lobby and the outside of the hotel are really nice (live up to the price), however the hotel room itself was a big let down compared to what 500$ a night in the USA (in any major city) can get you. While most of it was fairly nice, it was absolutely tiny (about what you can get for $60 a night in the USA, which I know is normal for Europe, but it was a shock to us) and the bed was 2 twins pushed together and not comfortable at all. While the hotel itself was a bit disappointing, the playing venue for the tournament and cash games held there was amazing, and Pokerstars really knows how to run a live series (Pokerstars also gave the players a nice sized and free breakfast buffet every morning).
The Venue, Rooftop Open
Note: The area we were playing in had a mechanical rooftop that could open and close, it was awesome to play with it open!
As I had been fortunate enough to win my way to the EPT GF from only 500 fpp's I had the opportunity to do an interview with Lee Jones for Pokerstars the day after our arrival. It was a nice a laid back 10 minute interview and then we went out to lunch and had a really nice conversation about the poker community, his family (he has a gay son apparently), how nice it was to be there, and also how good it would be for me to make a deep run from only FPP's. Lee seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and was very well liked by everyone there. If you ever get the opportunity to meet him you should definitely do so.
The only other real downside to Monaco is how expensive everything is, especially food, also how poorly the locals treat people who don't speak French (very poorly, waiters, for instance, are downright rude to you). Our average meal was easily 75$+, and the only time we had good service and were treated well was when we celebrated our birthdays and the trip by having our last dinner be at a fairly nice restaurant and ended up spending 200$ or so (was a great exp. though, having 5 waiters makes dinner pretty interesting). If you don't mind the really high cost of living and you speak French fluently, I'm sure it is a nice place to live. Monaco is filled with super high end restaurants (apparently a super foodie's dream with some of the highest rated places in the world there), beautiful beaches, buildings, and scenery, as well as cool things to see and do pretty much every day. If you are a car lover you will be in bliss every single day and always have something awesome to stare at. Also, while we were there the city was getting prepared for the Monaco Grand Prix which was to take place a week after we left, the race weaves up and down through the whole country nearly, so everywhere you walked you could see them setting up things for the race (really cool to see).
Grand Prix Banner
I suppose I've spoken enough about non poker things, but really don't have much to say about the poker I played there. I busted really really early from the Grand Final (was out before antes started). The main hand that occurred (I don't remember the details exactly) but I tried to go for 3 streets of value with top 2 pair in a large 3-bet pot, and had to fold to a river jam (was probably a 200bb+ pot on level 2). This left me with like 1/3rd of starting stack, and before end of level 3 I was out on a flip. The other poker I played during the trip was a 2,000 Euro side event that I busted like 5 levels in on JJ into KK in a pretty standard spot in a massive pot, and also tried Pokerstars Mobile on a sunday and made a few K.
Grand Final FT
Note: One of the few "cool" poker experiences I had while there was eating dinner in the hotel one night while the huge cash game was on break. Saw Guy in the hotel lobby, and after awhile Ike Haxton and his girlfriend(?) sat down at the table next to us. Twitter was blowing up about how Ike had just won a 1mil + pot off of Guy in the cash game.
Well now that we got the poker stuff out of the way, time for more Monaco stuff!
(Wish I had more poker stuff ) After busting the main so fast, we ended up having around 5 days free to do what we desired. Most of our free time was spent lying around or walking the city, trying to spend as little money as possible, however, we also did a bit of sight seeing. One of the days, we walked up to the castle and went inside doing a tour (it was pretty nice to see for me as it was my first castle, but was fairly small, also it was interesting that the Prince and his family still lived there and allowed the tours). Around the castle was a pretty large market that wove in and out of a handful of small buildings, it was a cute little area to walk around and do some shopping, and had some of the best value food we saw in the city. (lots of little cafe's of different kinds of cuisine and reasonably priced mostly)
The other sightseeing we did mostly involved checking out the little Japanese garden near our hotel, and also walking the long ways from our hotel to the Exotic Garden and seeing that. The walk to the Exotic Gardens took us nearly an hour each way, was on the opposite side of the country and up near the top of the hill on that side. It was a really interesting walk through the city, and the gardens themselves offered amazing views of the area, had a lot of neat little scultpures and plants as well as a really cool cave that you could walk through.
Overall it was a wonderful trip, between the sight seeing we did and everything we got to experience it was definitely a unique and awesome adventure. If you have the opportunity to do so I feel that it is a place worth visiting at least once.
Note: Below is a video of some of the better pictures from our trip, with some music as well. Only about 10min in length and I feel it gives a pretty good idea of much of that we were able to see. Check it out!
(Will Edit this post and put it here once it is finished being produced and uploaded to Youtube)
07-20-2013
, 06:32 PM
07-20-2013
, 08:00 PM
07-29-2013
, 11:14 PM
USA Update
Since busting the main I've just been relaxing in Milwaukee again. While here my BF and I are doing family stuff (like have a wedding to go to and some other things) and as we don't have very high expenses here we are also trying to save up enough money so we can get our own place in Vegas and furnish it nicely (planning on moving there semi-permanently, done with hopping around for PS). We are likely moving to vegas by october or so either way though.
To make money I've been getting in loads of coaching hours and am grinding the us facing sites for ImaWhale Staking. The online grind is off to a rocky start so far for me (down about 4k on there) but I'm finding the sites to be incredibly soft yet. I didn't really expect to find myself grinding in the usa so soon, and online for that matter, but as the deal I'm given allows me to run a decent ABI and gives me access to quick cashouts (access money as quick as a week), so it seemed like a good decision to make.
Eric and Shane (the owners) are good guys and incredibly easy to work with. The deal they offer is very low variance (300 game sets with disappearing make-up), so if you are in the USA and would like a low variance, risk free deal, with fast cashouts, check out their site and apply. (make sure you put me down as the reference
)
I've also been doing coaching for them, so you could even snag some coaching with me if you are lucky. ^.^
The site's I've been playing on for them are: Merge (skin on there called PokerHost), Revolution (skin on there called Intertops) and Winning Poker Netowrk (Skin on there called True Poker).
Merge by far seems to have the best software, most volume, and biggest games, but is also the most reg filled. WPN has the worst software and least volume, but they have some great value games daily and Sunday, and the site is the softest. Rev has pretty bad software, their volume and guarantees keep getting worse, but the site is softer than Merge.
Honestly I personally wouldn't trust my own funds on any of these sites, so if you were considering joining one for fast cash-outs, definitely only have money you are 100% fine with losing or get a backing deal like myself.
Overall I'm very happy with how things have been going, glad to see the sites are soft and having have fast cash-outs yet is very nice. I am also really excited for some things I have coming up in the future possibly (will discuss them when able to). The coaching I'm doing is paying for all my bills and expenses, so not having to worry about finances has been really nice, hopefully now I can hold on some 200$ FT's (have made 2 so far!) and make some real money!
I also just released my first coaching video in awhile on www.FloatTheTurn.com, where I reviewed my recent play in the SCOOP Main event. It was part 1 of a multi-part series, worth checking out if you are a member (worth joining for if you aren't one)! I'll be releasing the next few parts over the next month or so. I'll be stepping up my coaching game a lot while I'm here, and also get to more blog posting and other writing as I get more settled down here (things will likely be fairly hectic for me until after moving to vegas).
Will definitely start updating this a lot more often now that I have a bit more free time on my hands. ^.^
Thank you all for reading and best of luck at the tables!
USA POKER STATS
(as SS sees it, off by a bit, numbers rounded)
Games Played: 297
Avg Buy-in: $36
Avg Profit: -$12
Return On Investment: -33%
Profit: -$3,600
Since busting the main I've just been relaxing in Milwaukee again. While here my BF and I are doing family stuff (like have a wedding to go to and some other things) and as we don't have very high expenses here we are also trying to save up enough money so we can get our own place in Vegas and furnish it nicely (planning on moving there semi-permanently, done with hopping around for PS). We are likely moving to vegas by october or so either way though.
To make money I've been getting in loads of coaching hours and am grinding the us facing sites for ImaWhale Staking. The online grind is off to a rocky start so far for me (down about 4k on there) but I'm finding the sites to be incredibly soft yet. I didn't really expect to find myself grinding in the usa so soon, and online for that matter, but as the deal I'm given allows me to run a decent ABI and gives me access to quick cashouts (access money as quick as a week), so it seemed like a good decision to make.
Eric and Shane (the owners) are good guys and incredibly easy to work with. The deal they offer is very low variance (300 game sets with disappearing make-up), so if you are in the USA and would like a low variance, risk free deal, with fast cashouts, check out their site and apply. (make sure you put me down as the reference
)I've also been doing coaching for them, so you could even snag some coaching with me if you are lucky. ^.^
The site's I've been playing on for them are: Merge (skin on there called PokerHost), Revolution (skin on there called Intertops) and Winning Poker Netowrk (Skin on there called True Poker).
Merge by far seems to have the best software, most volume, and biggest games, but is also the most reg filled. WPN has the worst software and least volume, but they have some great value games daily and Sunday, and the site is the softest. Rev has pretty bad software, their volume and guarantees keep getting worse, but the site is softer than Merge.
Honestly I personally wouldn't trust my own funds on any of these sites, so if you were considering joining one for fast cash-outs, definitely only have money you are 100% fine with losing or get a backing deal like myself.
Overall I'm very happy with how things have been going, glad to see the sites are soft and having have fast cash-outs yet is very nice. I am also really excited for some things I have coming up in the future possibly (will discuss them when able to). The coaching I'm doing is paying for all my bills and expenses, so not having to worry about finances has been really nice, hopefully now I can hold on some 200$ FT's (have made 2 so far!) and make some real money!
I also just released my first coaching video in awhile on www.FloatTheTurn.com, where I reviewed my recent play in the SCOOP Main event. It was part 1 of a multi-part series, worth checking out if you are a member (worth joining for if you aren't one)! I'll be releasing the next few parts over the next month or so. I'll be stepping up my coaching game a lot while I'm here, and also get to more blog posting and other writing as I get more settled down here (things will likely be fairly hectic for me until after moving to vegas).
Will definitely start updating this a lot more often now that I have a bit more free time on my hands. ^.^
Thank you all for reading and best of luck at the tables!
USA POKER STATS
(as SS sees it, off by a bit, numbers rounded)
Games Played: 297
Avg Buy-in: $36
Avg Profit: -$12
Return On Investment: -33%
Profit: -$3,600
08-03-2013
, 10:44 PM
08-04-2013
, 11:33 AM
08-06-2013
, 10:45 PM
Found out earlier today that I'll be making content for CardRunners!
We finalized an agreement today for me to be on a trial basis with them, and if my first few videos go well could be on for a longer deal!
Really excited to be working with the great people there, many of whom's videos I have spent many hours watching over the course of my career and have helped me out greatly. Should be an amazing opportunity for me!
We finalized an agreement today for me to be on a trial basis with them, and if my first few videos go well could be on for a longer deal!
Really excited to be working with the great people there, many of whom's videos I have spent many hours watching over the course of my career and have helped me out greatly. Should be an amazing opportunity for me!
08-06-2013
, 11:01 PM
08-30-2013
, 02:11 PM
August Update
August has been a very busy month for me away from the tables. Not only was it filled by tons of friends and family events/obligations, but it was also jam packed with my fulfilling training site duties for CardRunners and for FloatTheTurn, as well as doing 2 group coaching sessions a week and multiple 1 on 1's.
Good news is that my first training videos were accepted by CardRunners, and the first one was uploaded earlier this week. I have received only great reviews on it, and it seems to be well received overall as well (In depth look at the math and theory basics behind turbo mtt's).
Coaching stuff has been going great as well, I've been able to stay as busy as I like with coaching, and the students I have at this time have all been showing strong improvements and all of them have given me very positive feedback on my coaching as well (some have been putting up awesome results as well!).
With how busy my coaching/training/life stuff has made me, I had only very little time for grinding purposes. The grinding I did do this month seemed to be much more consistent than my previous results on the U.S.A. sites, as I'm finally getting used to the play differences and the software adjustments as well.
September I will be playing loads on Merge (PokerHost skin that has fast cash outs yet) as they are nearly doubling their normal play schedule as well as running "Poker Maximus", which is a series with over 80 events (buy-ins ranging from 1r-500). Since joining the stable and grinding online I have only played about 500 games, but in September I'm planning on playing 600-1000 mtt's. Which should make up for my low volume up to this point, and give me a legitimate chance at making enough to move to Vegas by mid October hopefully ($ goal at this point is 9k).
USA Stats So Far
Games: 486
Profits: -$3,400
Avg BI: 37.50
ROI: -18.6%
August has been a very busy month for me away from the tables. Not only was it filled by tons of friends and family events/obligations, but it was also jam packed with my fulfilling training site duties for CardRunners and for FloatTheTurn, as well as doing 2 group coaching sessions a week and multiple 1 on 1's.
Good news is that my first training videos were accepted by CardRunners, and the first one was uploaded earlier this week. I have received only great reviews on it, and it seems to be well received overall as well (In depth look at the math and theory basics behind turbo mtt's).
Coaching stuff has been going great as well, I've been able to stay as busy as I like with coaching, and the students I have at this time have all been showing strong improvements and all of them have given me very positive feedback on my coaching as well (some have been putting up awesome results as well!).
With how busy my coaching/training/life stuff has made me, I had only very little time for grinding purposes. The grinding I did do this month seemed to be much more consistent than my previous results on the U.S.A. sites, as I'm finally getting used to the play differences and the software adjustments as well.
September I will be playing loads on Merge (PokerHost skin that has fast cash outs yet) as they are nearly doubling their normal play schedule as well as running "Poker Maximus", which is a series with over 80 events (buy-ins ranging from 1r-500). Since joining the stable and grinding online I have only played about 500 games, but in September I'm planning on playing 600-1000 mtt's. Which should make up for my low volume up to this point, and give me a legitimate chance at making enough to move to Vegas by mid October hopefully ($ goal at this point is 9k).
USA Stats So Far
Games: 486
Profits: -$3,400
Avg BI: 37.50
ROI: -18.6%
08-30-2013
, 06:40 PM
The cost of moving constantly is really high, especially as I have my boyfriend, who can't work when we travel so much. Staying in the USA, with settling in Vegas, allows our cost of living to drop by a lot and let's my boyfriend get a job and go to school.
Also while traveling for poker is fun and interesting at first, gets pretty draining after moving around so much for 2 years. Settling down can be a great thing.
09-06-2013
, 07:37 PM
The latest legally available poker site in the U.S.A that I've been playing on a bit occasionally decided to make me a custom avatar for playing there (I usually tweet about it while I do so, they noticed that and appreciated it).
I think it looks pretty good:
It is a fun little site to play on, if you want a risk free way to play micro-stakes cash games with an easy way to make money. Worth checking out.
http://www.liveace.com/refer/YX84602/
I think it looks pretty good:
It is a fun little site to play on, if you want a risk free way to play micro-stakes cash games with an easy way to make money. Worth checking out.
http://www.liveace.com/refer/YX84602/
09-06-2013
, 07:53 PM
Quote:
The cost of moving constantly is really high, especially as I have my boyfriend, who can't work when we travel so much. Staying in the USA, with settling in Vegas, allows our cost of living to drop by a lot and let's my boyfriend get a job and go to school.
Also while traveling for poker is fun and interesting at first, gets pretty draining after moving around so much for 2 years. Settling down can be a great thing.
Also while traveling for poker is fun and interesting at first, gets pretty draining after moving around so much for 2 years. Settling down can be a great thing.
09-06-2013
, 08:18 PM
09-06-2013
, 08:29 PM