On being a live pro

So yesterday kicked off the first day of being a "live pro." After a really sketchy encounter with some of the "higher ups" at Casino San Remo including the Casino Director (if that's even a position), I got a bunch of USD converted into casino chips without paying any premium exchange rate or anything. That took about an hour of running around the casino finding certain people that a) spoke at LEAST broken english and b) could actually help me. This was at around 11am which is already earlier than I'm used to waking up so it certainly wasn't an easy morning. I ended up having to follow these two guys into some back office room where they told me the exchange rate (which I checked out on xe.com) and then proceeded to light up their cigars while counting the money on the old wooden desk with me sitting there watching. Remember that scene in Scarface where they're in the tiny room with piles of cash on the table and an old school calculator thing with old guys counting the money and the spy-hole in the clock on the wall? Then the cops bust in the room and arrest Tony for money laundering. At least I didn't get arrested!



So I finally set up my account with the casino and late registered in a $550 euro satellite to the $5300 main event on the 15th which I already have a seat to so I would just get the $5300 cash. Since live poker is my new jam, I spent the day trying to pick up as much info as I could on players and also look for future spots to do so in other tournaments. Previous to this trip I had played live poker kind of like a joke and it definitely showed in my results or lack of. The tournament ended up lasting WAY too long as 88 beat QQ twice on the bubble prolonging the tourney for an extra hour. I ended up winning the seat after about 8 hours of play, 5300 euros so roughly 7k USD? Pretty good first day I'd say.

It's a very strange experience playing poker or even being in Italy. Interactions between me and the other players at the table go something like this:

Italian player: Che cosa avete Oh hanno quella mano? Avete Ace high beat? Buona scommessa. Poker. Bluff. All in.

Me: Yeah...

It always ends up with me agreeing with them after hearing like three poker terms mixed into the sentence. Also, late in the satellite I found myself trying to make a lot of small talk with the players at my table only because we all basically won the seat. It's a pretty hilarious situation to be in where you are the ONLY person in a room of about 400 people that can have a conversation in english. Many of the players know a few words but cannot formulate sentences. I think I need to be learning a few key phrases in some of my downtime here so that I'm not in the dark as much at the tables, and also so I don't lose my MIND sitting there for 8 hours basically listening to jibberish (my headphone batteries where dead FML).

That reminds me I need to stop at an electronics store to get some converters and triple A's. I doubt I'll be playing much poker today, the cash games sucked last night with 8/10 players at a table rat holing and them raking 5% up to $50. Pretty sweet scam they got goin.

Trip totals:
Live: +7000 USD (won some $ at chinese)
Online: 0