Out of Monte Carlo...

Pretty frustrating day after a good start. Here's the post I wrote but couldn't put up at dinner break:

So Nat and I arrived safely in Monte Carlo. We left Thursday at 10am and got to the hotel around 9am Friday. Neither of us were able to sleep at all on the plane rides, so we've basically just been sleeping a lot since we arrived. I'm playing today (on dinner break right now) so Nat was able to do a little bit of sightseeing. Anyways, I have 25000 at dinner from 15000 starting. They ended up getting about 850 people at 10,000 euros each, so the prizepool is pretty huge. A couple interesting hands before I go back to playing.

Hand 1: 25/50
Guy in middle position raises to 150, I call QQ in the CO, everyone else folds. Flop T82ss, he checks, I bet 250 he calls. Turn J, he checks, I bet 525, he calls. River T, flush missed, he checks. I consider checking behind but I think I have the best hand almost always and he'll hero call sometimes so I bet 1025. He calls quickly and mucks.

Hand 2: 75/150
Same guy as hand 1 limps the button, sb completes, I check Q3o. Flop QJ6, checked around. Turn 4 starting a flush draw. I bet 300, button makes it 900, I call. I think I'm almost always ahead here. River 5o. I check and he bets 1000. I was instacalling a bigger bet but this one makes me think I'm beat pretty often. I call anyways and he hows me 87o. Damn.

Hand 3: 100/200
I raise T9s to 550 in mp, guy 2 to my left cold calls. He's been pretty quiet, has limped a fair bit, including AA once he showed down. Overall pretty straightforward. Flop J62r, 1 club I have clubs. I bet 750 and he raises to 1875. I'd been opening a fair bit and cbetting a ton and this just really felt like air. I call, he has about 8k behind. Plan is to check/shove a fair bit and bet most rivers if turn goes check/check. Turn is the 2c, check, bet 2100, shove, fold. He later said he was pretty sure I had air but only had ace high and couldn't call.

Other than that I just played a ton of small pots. I've had very few huge hands but tons of marginal-good hands so I've been pretty active. My table's pretty quiet/straightforward though, only 1 person has busted through almost 4 levels of play.

Anyways, I'll try to post another update tonight after play ends for the day.

After that I basically just lost every pot for a long time. I was down to 5k, won a couple small pots and a flip to get to 15k, then lost a big flip to be crippled and a small one to bust. Not entirely sure what our plans for the rest of the trip are, but hopefully we'll find some stuff to do.

Steve