#184: “Adventures in Doughville – Part III: One More Pair of Django Freemans”

The really nice feature of the EPTs is that, with the exception of Day 1, all the days are short.  Dara and I both took our better halves with us to Deauville so it was brilliant to be able to spend a decent amount of time with them. Starting at midday meant that you could wake up at 10, have a sauna or steam, eat breakfast and then leisurely make your way to the casino. Finishing at 8pm meant that you could go for a nice meal, enjoy some after-dinner drinks and still have time to part-take in some Chinese poker degeneracy with Messieurs (‘messers’) Tompkins, Nealon and Graydon.

The whole experience was different to the other poker festivals I have attended. It was more civilised, more paced; I felt like a person with a real job and not a poker player who was expected to play long hours, see no sunshine and survive on rancid panini and red bull.

Having busted the Main, I jumped right back on the horse and entered the €440 Turbo Side. I induced a bad call early, won a flip, did some shoving and found myself in the money and with an average stack on the final table. I was joined by Feargal ‘midnitekowby’ Nealon, with whom I swapped action but we would unfortunately bust in 10th and 9th respectively for identical payouts. Still, two EPT cashes in my first two EPT events!

The next day, I entered the €880 Deepstack Side. I don’t recall winning a single hand in 3 hours of play and had a particularly frustrating day with a clownishly aggressive Frenchman to my immediate left black and blue thanks to a repeated facial battering by the deck. I swapped action in this one with Jason Tompkins who locked up a min-cash. Three from three (sort of)!

On the last day, I played the €330 Deepstack Turbo. I chipped up early, lost a big one and was in shove/fold mode from then on. Picking my spots well, I got back to an average stack with a third of the field remaining but by then the stacks had gotten hopelessly shallow. Crapshoot time! A player shoved for 5bbs UTG and was called by the SB. I looked down at… two black Cowboys.

I started laughing out loud. I only had 11bbs so I know the SB was committed. I shoved and he inexplicably tanked. Eventually he called, showing A9. The original shover had 76o. Visualising the ceiling of my hotel room, I could almost taste the gelato. I stood up. Ace in the window. The board bricked out and I departed the poker room for the last time, punch-drunk and bemused, pledging to popularise the term ‘a pair of Django Freemans’ to pay appropriate respect to the ability of the black cowboys to wreak utter havoc and destruction.

The next day, we drove back to Beauvais with Dara’s gorgeous and gorgeously eccentric wife Mireille behind the wheel. It was snowing and Mireille likes to keep car journeys interesting with exasperated exclamations punctuated by the most vivid violent imagery. Still, swearing at French drivers, French roundabouts and French road-signs is a lot more endearing in a French accent.