Horizon abounded. I was in the Pampas all right, the flat, fertile lowlands that cover Uruguay and spread across eastern Argentina. A wiry cat slunk under the ranch's fence, a day of sleep ahead of it. I declined Monica's offer of the potent, ubiquitous mate, to which just about everyone I crossed was addicted. Her husband Miguel took me to where the horses roamed. He saddled me up before mounting, bareback, the ranch's young stallion.

I was wearing a goofy helmet and bouncing up and down despite a slow pace. He was lithe and relaxed, casually touring me around the property, offering instruction. The ranch dogs ran alongside us and took turns tackling one another. The horses' family tree and the grazing-fallow cycle were topics of sparse conversation. Whoever Miguel had been before (he wore the German flag on his green jacket's shoulder), he was a gaucho now - a South American cowboy.

"Where are you going after this?"

"I was thinking Punta del Este."

"Punta del Este? That's where all the rich people go to show off their money. There are
much better beaches than that."

I had taken the ferry across the Rio de Plata from Buenos Aires to Colonial del Sacramento, the furthest point south west in Uruguay. The only thing I had known about Uruguay before landfall was that it rhymed with Paraguay. And the only bed I could find online the night before was at a horse farm in the countryside. That morning, I only almost fell off once.

"Where you want to go is Punta del Diablo."

Tranquilo -that perfect Spanish word - that was Punta del Diablo's reputation. Halfway to the border of Brazil, Diablo was known for surfing, counterculture, and old fishermen. Monica and Miguel used to operate a hippie hostel there. They retired rustic, tending to a dozen horses and taking in travelers. Despite the flies with whom I shared breakfast, their place was idyllic.

Miguel's disparagement was precisely the endorsement I needed. I wasn't heading east looking for tranquility. I was looking for a card game.

Booking a bed in advance can be quite cumbersome. You have to go find it. I got off the bus in the midst of beachside high rises, having crossed the length of the country in five hours. My hostel, it turned out, was ten kilometers away, in the next town. So I walked in the hot sun.

I passed people sporting ill-fitting and delusively skimpy swimwear. The beach wrapped uninterrupted around each bend of the shoreline. A couple miles on, high rises turned to kempt lawns and aristocratic shrubbery. An elderly man in a restored sixties-era sports car asked me, the sweaty gringo with the backpack, for directions. I stopped for fish at a restaurant and everything there, the dozens of umbrellas particularly, was emblazoned with the MasterCard logo. If I could find a game, it was going to be good.

When I reached the town of La Barra the sun was setting and my direction, a street name hastily punched into my iPod, wasn't comprehensive. But I found the street in question and followed it into the woods. At some point on that winding, unpaved road, past barking dogs chained to properties disguised as scrap heaps, I was reminded of the value of getting off a bus and staying at the first place available. Thankfully, as the light drained from overhead, I found a series of wooden planks, nailed to a tree at every subsequent fork in the road.

Each was painted with the word "hostel" and an arrow pointing in the appropriate direction. When I got there, as often happens, I was one of the only guests. Some people have reservations about booking a bed in an eight bed dorm, but having the room to yourself for basically nothing is quite economical.

In the morning I hiked through the forest, up a hill, to the Mantra resort. Its website advertised a poker room "which is visited every year by the best players ... in the world, (and) holds events with prize pools above 1 million dollars." The main entrance's escalator took me to an empty, spacious casino floor, replete with slots and some table games. The employee I spoke to said they hadn't had poker in years. I got the sense he was trying to get rid of me. I was traveling great lengths for an unguaranteed proposition.

My toil-free day complete, I took to ordering Coronas and calamari at the astutely named "bikini beach." There are always families, people of all ages (and shapes), at these places, not the classically imagined eye candy. But wandering any strip of sand, you're likely to find some diamonds in the rough.

I took the bus back to Punta del Este at noon the next day, renting a bed for twenty dollars a night at the '1949 Hostel.' I couldn't imagine that it had been so named, on and after its founding date, with the plan of eventually cashing in on nostalgia. I was now five minutes along the boardwalk from a casino that actually dealt poker. While I was scouting the location a hostess told me the game started somewhere around seven, and added with a hint of admiration, that it ran until daybreak. I took out cash; the ATM dispensed American dollars in hundreds.

Hostels invariably carry the same cast of characters. There was the sun soaked fifty-something European, traveling alone, and willing to exchange my Argentinian pesos at a less cutthroat rate than the local establishments. I suspected this transaction was taken partially in hopes of finding a dinner partner. There are the familiar couples a month away from grad school, the four inseparable Argentinian eighteen year olds whose music reaches every floor, and of course, the American nurse from Seattle whose body is intensely symbiotic with her Lululemon attire.

When I put my name down on the cash game list that night an old man chatting with the floorman mentioned that "you need at least $200 to sit." It didn't occur to me until later that I was being told I wasn't where I belonged. The game was three dollar, six dollar, no limit. I sat down with the maximum six hundred, moments later.

American cowboys, not gauchos, played cards in a mural on the wall. A curious logo on the felt just said "Poker Tour." The Conrad, which faced the sunset over the point, had all the winking kitsch cum grandeur of a Las Vegas casino with a dash of misimagined Americana.

On the coast of Uruguay, in ratty shoes and a t-shirt on its third shift since last being washed, I would get towed into that treacherous body of water known as the bluffing vortex.
The session began conventionally. I raised two jacks and folded to a limp-reraise, confident I was avoiding a trap more often than not. I raised king queen and flopped top pair, collecting a three-way pot with a second bet on the turn. In the cordoned off room, waitresses wearing corsets with fishnet stockings distributed fancy drinks to a motley lineup of yacht owners and displaced disco patrons. I folded pocket tens to a turn shove from an amateur who was running hot, on an eight, six, five, six board. I ran a big bluff from my button, versus an early position limper on a queen high board, with total air. My opponent dwelled before folding the river to my all-in, and with that I was ahead in the game. I picked up two aces shortly thereafter and managed to extract a couple hundred dollars of value.
They're called playing cards. And they're fun enough fanned across your fingers, guarding insipidity. Face down they aren't all that serious either. With their kings and queens, suits and symbols, these are the vehicle to playing with strange adults, in strange places?
Face up on the table however, the five cards were terrifying. At least, I hoped so. The jack of clubs was last on the scene, the banshee. I had ace three of spades. No pair, no draw. My opponent gave me one last glance and checked. I had no choice now, only the fatalist wish that the ghoul's appointment was with him. Brusquely intimidating him wasn't going to work, looking like I was trying to, even less so. So I waited, exerting what I could on my fate.

He and I had close to eight hundred dollars each. That was before our chips began eddying centripetally. I never looked at the pot. But having bluffed at every opportunity, I was sure a whirlpool had formed. Was I trapped in its current and just didn't know it?
He had reraised a late position raise. I had entered the fray with a re-reraise. When he called I had bet the three-club flop, and when he called that, the three to a straight turn. The river, the fourth club, the fourth card to a straight, left me no choice.

The casino didn't use twenty-five or hundred dollar chips; everyone had stacks and stacks of five dollar redbirds. They stuck together, faintly coated in residue. I squeezed my last three towers together, piled loose chips atop, and pushed. My opponent made a histrionic gesture in the corner of my eye.

This was not a good sign. I stared at the felt.

I remember the last time I bluffed all-in on the river and provoked that reaction. In that instance, a French amateur eliminated me from a tournament moments later.

He called as if he had no choice. Two black queens were good.

I realized, suddenly, I was an outsider. The hero walked over to seat five to bump fists. His friend requested my cards, which were already atop the muck, be turned over. The dealer obliged him. I cashed my remaining fourteen dollars at the cage and walked out to where the sun had set so brilliantly not many hours before. The world's worst Beatles cover band was playing "All You Need is Love."

Should I really be here, doing this? The poker professional is without supervision. When experiencing angst, we're inclined to fantasize that perhaps supervision would protect us, offer comfort and prevent ruin. It is probably not unlike the fantasy that there is such a thing as morality or moral choices, that events have echoes because we are surrounded by walls with a ceiling overhead.

But the universe, just like the deck, is indifferent. As with the state censor, no one is qualified for the supervisor's task. And everything passes in silence, which is just as well, because there is nothing out there to rebound a peep.

So when I walked out of the casino it was only me standing where the sun had gone down, left to decide what I was going to do next.

Your mind constructs peaks and valleys, triumphs over tribulations. But no drama resolved has permanence; you still have to wake up the next morning. And the alternative to that peculiar deflation is considerably worse.

I was reading in the sun, working on my burn. My consolations were not of philosophy, but in a bottle, which I shared with the cynically bemused hippie in the next hammock. I could hear all about the system and its impertinence. What an imposition it was! At night there was endless barbeque and travel tales. I could hear all about "how you really must go to Bolivia" and "oh I loved Armenia." I played cards into the night with people whose names I doubt I even asked. There was no rent money in the middle and no felt across the picnic table. Strategy but no consternation, tricks but no tallies, and tension interrupted by laughter.

Miguel had been right. I had wanted to go to Punta del Diablo all along.

***

Gareth Chantler is a PokerStars player and frequent traveler

Previously:

Borderline Gambling: Cartagena, Colombia

Borderline Gambling: Bogota, Colombia

Borderline Gambling: Lima, Peru

Borderline Gambling: Viña del Mar, Chile

Borderline Gambling: Buenos Aires, Argentina

In a similar survey in 2012, 17 percent of responders chose the internet.

When asked how long they could manage without the internet, 27 percent of responders said they couldn't cope at all, 25 percent said they could last a day, 29 percent said a few days, and only four percent admitted that they don't need the internet at all.

This past Sunday marked the first day of the 2013 Spring Championship of Online Poker. When the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final Main Event wrapped up, I decided to late-register for the SCOOP 2M. Unfortunately the internet went out at the venue, so, knowing that I could find a place to grind in the nearby Monte Carlo Bay Hotel, I quickly bagged my things and headed over.

Upon entering the lobby, I heard the familiar ding of an elevator door about to open. When it did, more than $14 million in career tournament earnings poured out. Five poker pros, most of whom were carrying laptops with multiple SCOOP tournament tables open, had also lost their internet, and were off to a nearby hotel to continue grinding. I followed Faraz Jaka, Mohsin Charania, Paul Volpe, Griffin Benger, and Sorel Mizzi as they raced out of the hotel, and continued on to my own living quarters, which were unfortunately 20 minutes away on foot.

According to EPT Live's Joe Stapleton, he also encountered a handful of poker players in the lobby of the same hotel later on without internet. One of them was Ana Marquez, who currently sits in 16th in the 2013 Global Poker Index Player of the Year race.

Poker is all about adaptability. When your opponent plays one way, you can counter with a different strategy. When you go on a downswing, you can step away from the game or drop down limits. In the middle of a hand, if the turn card or the river card changes your perceived equity, you can check, bet, or fold. There are always options available for poker players to get them out of difficult situations.

What online poker players can't account for is internet connectivity. It's an invisible kryptonite, floating around individuals while they play, and striking at seemingly the most inopportune times. When connectivity is broken, it literally leaves players lifeless - they connect compete without wifi or a working ethernet chord. Players can try and counter a failed internet connection, but troubleshooting the internet can be much more difficult than reacting to an opponent's check-raise, especially if you're in a hotel with no access to the modem or router.

Thus, you sprint out of your room, laptop in hand, and you find the nearest internet connection. It might not be the optimal move, and the internet could return as soon as you leave, but you need to regain your invisible strength. You must re-discover the most important resource possible, according to 1,000 Londoners, the internet.

The five players I bumped into and Marquez eventually found the internet. None of them made major runs that night, but on Day 2 of SCOOP, both Volpe and Marquez earned watches. Volpe took down Event 4H: $2,100 Badugi, denying Shaun Deeb his sixth SCOOP watch and earning $34,780, while Marquez won Event 5H: $1,050+R NLHE turbo, earning $255,035.10.

A few weeks ago, the PokerStars Blog ran a competition for the "sickest setup," and a lot of really cool grind stations were submitted, but maybe we should've checked for kilobyte per second speeds. Massive monitors and soul reads are nothing without a strong internet connection.

While PokerStars Team Pros were well represented at the final table, they were making noise throughout the tournament starting on Day 1a. It was then that PokerStars Team Pro Vanessa Rousso played a hand that polarized the railbirds. According to the PokerNews Live Reporting Team, it happened in Level 7 with the blinds at 250/500/50 when Ignat "0Human0" Liviu opened for 1,200 from the button and Rousso three-bet to 3,200 from the small blind. Liviu, who has been a high-stakes cash game regular on PokerStars for years, then four-bet to 8,000, Rousso called, and the flop came down [3H][9S][8S].

Rousso ended up check-calling a bet of 7,500, and then check-called another bet of 16,500 on the [6d] turn. Rousso checked for a third time on the [Qd] river and Liviu moved all in for 22,375. Rousso hit the tank hard and began talking.

"I hate this hand," she said before making the call. Liviu then tabled the [QC][QS] for a set of queens. "Oh my god, that's so sick. Wow, so sick." It was at that point that things got interesting as a member of the tournament staff stated that since it was an all-in situation, Rousso had to show her cards. Rousso was adamant that she didn't have to show her cards, but alas that was the rule. A frustrated Rousso was then forced to flip over the [JH][6S].

"Sometimes you get a soul read and you're wrong. Sometimes you try to be a hero with the J6 off and they have the old QQ for the rivered set," Rousso tweeted after the hand. It ended up being a big pot, and one the PokerStars Team Pro couldn't recover from as she was eliminated a short time later.

Speaking of eliminations, fast-forward six days to the final table. After Australia's Grant Levy was felled in eighth place for €103,000, it was Mercier's time to go. It happened in Level 26 when Lodden opened to 80,000 from the cutoff holding the [AS][7S] and Mercier moved all in for 650,000 holding the [QS][10H] in the small blind. Andrew Pantling then called from the big with the [AD][QD], Lodden folded, and Mercier sighed upon discovering the bad news. There would be no reprieve for the young American as the board ran out an uneventful [7C][2S][9D][5H][9H] to send him to the rail in seventh place for €137,000.

In the next level, a big hand developed that saw one PokerStars Team Pro eliminating another, with Noah Schwartz getting caught in between. It began when Negreanu opened for 115,000 from the cutoff only to have Schwartz move all in from the button for 630,000 holding the [KD][10C]. Cody then moved all in over the top for 860,000 with the [JD][JH], and Negreanu couldn't get his chips in fast enough with the [AH][AS]. The board ran out [QC][8C][7D][8H][10S] and Schwartz and Cody were eliminated in sixth and fifth place, taking home €189,000 and €251,000 respectively. The hand also marked the elimination of the last EPT champ from the field (Cody previously won the 2010 EPT Deauville).

Despite scoring the double elimination, Negreanu was the next to go. It happened when Lodden opened for 110,000 under the gun and Pantling called from the button. Negreanu then moved all in for 1.3 million from the big blind and only Lodden called. The former was ahead with the [4D][4S] but was racing against the Norwegian's [Ad][Qd]. The [KC][10H][2S] flop kept Negreanu in the lead, though it did give Lodden a gutshot straight draw. The [9H] turn didn't change a thing, but the [JS] river did as it gave Lodden the said flush and the win. Negreanu, who was fresh off his bracelet win in the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific Main Event, had his hopes of the Triple Crown dashed, but he had €321,000 to console him for his fourth-place finish.

That left Lodden as the last PokerStars Team Pro standing, but he would be unable to claim victory. In Level 28 (30,000/60,000/10,000), Steve O'Dwyer opened for 150,000 on the button only to have Lodden three-bet to 400,000 from the small blind. O'Dwyer not only called that bet, he called one of 350,000 on the [7C][4S][10D] flop. When the [3S] turned, Lodden moved all in for 1.45 million and O'Dwyer snap-called with the [AD][10H]. Lodden turned over the [AH][JD] and was in need of a jack on the river to stay alive. Unfortunately for him, the [KD] blanked and he finished in third place for €467,000, the largest score of his career!

From there, O'Dwyer and Pantling advanced to heads-up play with the former player ultimately taking down the title and €1,224,000 first-place prize. With that, the European Poker Tour Season 9 came to an end, and there was no better way to go out than with a bang.

In April 2008, when he was still "21-year-old PokerStars Qualifier Jason Mercier", rather than Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier (and all round tournament sensation), he won the EPT Sanremo title in a final table that is still the quickest in the tour's history.

He beat Dario Minieri, Antony Lellouche, Dag Palovic, William Thorson and others in a little more than four hours to put €869,000 in his bankroll and start the most sensational modern poker story. If he does the same today in the €100,000 Super High Roller event at the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monaco -- and it is very possible -- he will endear himself even more to those weary hacks.

Of course, he will also bank yet another €1,746,400 and another massive tournament title, but it's the love of the media room he craves more than anything. I think.

This is day three of the €100,000 event, the final major event of EPT season nine. Mercier led at the end of the first day and he led at the end of the second. He is now the monstrous chip leader as we start the final table, which lines up as follows:

Jason Mercier - 4,165,000
Vladimir Troyanovsky - 2,150,000
Sorel Mizzi - 2,140,000
Max Altergott - 2,110,000
Timothy Adams - 830,000
Scott Seiver - 625,000
Mike Watson - 480,000

We will be resuming in level 17, with blinds of 20,000-40,000 (5,000 ante) and that means that Watson has only 12 big blinds, Seiver has fewer than 16 and Adams has about 21. They are the reasons this could go very quickly indeed, especially when you look at Mercier, with 104 big blinds.

He raised every hand during the period before the bubble and one suspects he will start in similar fashion. He only has six others to beat today -- and that record in Sanremo. Can he do it?

Play has actually begun in Monaco -- at 1pm -- but we are reporting on a one-hour delay so that there are no spoilers for EPT Live, which is broadcasting from 2pm, with hole cards. Our hand-by-hand coverage, plus feature pieces, are on the .

But while both stood out as Princes, they could not hope to dethrone a king, which promptly arrived last night in the shape of a Bugatti Vitesse, the encore to the Veyron, a car built purely for the satisfaction of seeing whether it could be done. It turns out after a bit of effort it could.

You heard it before you saw it, growling its way up the Fairmont Hairpin like a woken dog, its rear spoiler on display like battledress. People came from every direction to have a look, having followed the noise. One man kneeled, reverent, as he took a picture. Others simply smiled, most notably the valet parking man, who did his best to wipe the smile off his face as he was tossed the keys by the most trusting man in the world. His was the pleasure of backing it up six feet and then nudging it forward to parallel park it. Total journey distance: 21 feet; the best 21 feet of his life.

We have a similar situation at Monte Carlo Bay Hotel today. Just as you gawp at the main event you suddenly notice a high roller parked alongside. And then, while already in awe, a cash game of peculiar repute pulls up and you're given the keys. It's difficult to know where to look.

The cash game in action

The Bugatti parked up just as the cash game was in full swing last night and, as the EPT live team were reluctantly closing down owing to main event commitments tomorrow. It was left to Dutch PokerNews Blogger Frank Op De Woerd to handle coverage on his own.

Op de Woerd's commentary, which you can read in full on his @Webjoker twitter feed, is a brilliant example of "Alamo" poker reporting. Having secured a limited visibility spot on the rail nearest the table, he tweeted relentlessly until the battery on his Mac ran out. Undeterred, he switched to tweeting from his phone until he found an adaptor in his bag to fire up his laptop again. What followed were hundreds of tweets, enthusiastically reporting on everything he could see - the arrival and departure of players, the stack sizes, even the mood of the players - Isaac Haxton happy, up €1 million, Sam Trickett riled, Paul Newey reluctant to play short-handed.

Eventually it ended at 5.30am, when they announced three more hands, at which point Talal Shakerchi left by saying: "goodbye, see you guys tomorrow." That's right, they're coming back for more at around 3pm today. For the record, after a little sleep, Op de Woerd was back at work today before all of us.

Naturally a game like this raises a raft of questions, usually from people wanting the world - to watch online and see hole cards. It's an urge that will have to be measured, owing to the Lamborghini in the next room.

Or is the cash game the Lamborghini? Is the Bugatti actually rolling up to play on the main stage, with coverage starting at 2pm on EPT Live? We all have our opinions of what is the best car (there was a lovely Renault Megane on Casino Square a couple of nights ago). The same goes for what's currently stands as the best game in town.

Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

For a start the chips are different. This is big money. The yellow chips are worth "one" and the blue chips "five". Two or three of those blue ones will get you a sandwich in any Monte Carlo café. That's the kind of money we're talking about.

Not that you could tell that any of the players involved were rich enough to order a starter and main course at a local restaurant. Aesthetically there's not much difference between this and the one-two game at The Vic. The only difference is the presence of TV cameras, and an audience.

That exposes the world to Paul Newey's shirt, the sartorial equivalent of bringing a knife to a gun fight, actually a brightly-coloured shirt to a gun fight, featuring as it does the trinkets of gambling - cards, chips, dice - and a complete absence of menace. And yet Newey looks at ease.

Paul Newey

The audience is also different to that of a tournament next door, watching the single table a bit like those sepia people who used to watch freak shows, with bearded ladies, fire eaters and sword swallowers. Some watch intently, others watch their telephones intently, while the rest watch the TV monitors intently, ironic given that the picture technically shows a table further away than it is from their chair.

Isaac Haxton is the man right now, having won a bucket list pot from Shakerchi, who disappeared, and then returned, presumably having raided the mattress in his hotel room, to take up a seat on the other side of Sam Trickett.

Talal Shakerchi

Haxton sent him there, winning enough to keep himself in Brylcreem for some time yet. Shakerchi sits opposite him, thin shoulders in a check shirt, with ordinary glasses, looking like a man on his day off.

Isaac Haxton

Between them is Sam Trickett, in front of the dealer, royally enjoying himself in his natural hunting ground, the place David Attenborough would go looking for him. In contrast, this is the last place you'd look for Viktor Blom, who's not a stranger to the game necessarily, just playing it in real life.

Sam Trickett

The players talk among themselves, oblivious to the crowd, one of whom, a player sitting next to his girlfriend, watches their every move on the TV monitor. His girlfriend watches him watching the monitor then looks towards the players, perhaps wondering whether her man had applied himself to his chosen profession with enough vigour.

Looking on it was easy to see why there was such eagerness and anticipation. As a spectacle it has some magnificence; an anthropologically fascination. And yet despite all the talk on Twitter about whether to watch this or the main event, I'd side with the latter. A cash game is never ending, an end in itself, while the main event - or at least this main event - has a narrative, a story that needs its conclusion.

That's just my opinion of course. For now, if you're anywhere near Monaco it's worth stopping by to take a look. It's the best freak show in town.

Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

In the lead up to the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final a rumour emerged of a big cash game. No, scratch that, big doesn't cut it. Chatter filtered through to the PokerStars Blog that a huge, enormous, gigantic, stupendous, colossal cash game was brewing. We broke the news here.

Since then we've heard behind-the-scenes whispers and brazen camera chat from the likes of Gus Hansen, but we were told that until our nosebleed players actually sat down to play with chips then it could yet fade away. "This is a ridiculously big poker game," said PokerStars' Head of Poker Communications Lee Jones. Now, six players are seated and playing. It is, as they say, 'on'.

Players confirmed in the starting line up - and now playing - are PokerStars Team Online's Ike Haxton, EPT London High Roller champ Talal Shakerchi, Paul Newey, Viktor 'Isildur1' Blom, Niklas Heinecker and Sam Trickett.

The blinds are set at €1,000-€2,000 with an optional straddle to €4,000 and a minimum buy-in of €500,000 meaning there will be at least €3,000,000 on the table in real money. In other words, this is huge. No, not huge (see above).

There is no maximum buy-in.

How they line up
1. Viktor Blom
2. Empty
3. Empty
4. Niklas Heinecker
5. Sam Trickett
6. Talal Shakerchi
7. Isaac Haxton
8. Paul Newey

Don't forget
Cash game chips must be cashed in by 4am on May 16. Don't forget to collect your Euros or you'll end up with some very expensive card protectors, particularly for the guys named above...

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Check out all the festival results and write-ups here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

PokerStars Live Events Specialist Neil Johnson said: "With a great structure and three different chances at the coveted first prize, everyone will get their shot at a piece of the first-ever €500,000 Monaco Cup."

Among the players taking their shot today are Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker, Pierre Neuville, Jan Heitmann and Humberto Brenes. Day 1B takes place tomorrow and Day 1C the day after so you still have time to drive on over to Monaco!

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Check out all the festival results and write-ups here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

Keeping it old school

Sarah Grant talks to Lee Jones who runs through some of the new features available on mobile apps.

Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Moneymaker, whose WSOP win is partly credited with kicking off the online poker revolution, topped a 1-2-3 podium finish for Team PokerStars Pro beating Matthias De Meulder and Chad Brown to the trophy. Brown had just a few hours earlier stone bubbled the Main Event running queens into aces so the €4,500 cash would have helped to soothe some of those cooler chills. And you can check out this interview with Moneymaker about the last ten years here.

"It was a very difficult final table and a good challenge," said Moneymaker, who added that he started learning mixed games at a time he was feeling a little "burnt out" with Hold'em.

Last night's €12,000 win at least part way pays for that policy change and there could be more to come.

"There's a €5k 8-Game here so I'm going to see how many that gets," he said.

EPT9 Monaco, event #17
Date: 9 May, 2013
Buy-in: €1,100
Game: 8-Game
Players: 31
Prize pool: €30,070

1. Chris Moneymaker, USA, Team PokerStars Pro, €12,000
2. Matthias De Meulder, Belgium, Team PokerStars Pro, €8,100
3. Chad Brown, USA, Team PokerStars Pro, €4,500
4. Joachim Haraldstad, Norway, €3,070
5. Mihails Morozovs, Latvia, €2,400

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Check out all the festival results and write-ups here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

Bendik has gone and won another trophy here for €39,400 making it really tough for Robert Haigh and co to catch him. Haigh finished runner-up at EPT Berlin little more than a week ago bringing him in close behind Bendik. This win gives Bendik another 500 points. If you want to get a lie of the land then check out this article, which shows that, among others, Steve O'Dwyer could yet make a late dash for the title. Check the standings below the event #12 payouts.

EPT9 Monaco, event #12
Date: 8 May, 2013
Buy-in: €1,100
Game: NLHE turbo
Players: 166
Prize pool: €161,020

1. Jan Bendik, Slovakia, €39,400*
2. Fedor Holz, Germany, €35,000*
3. Pasquale Vinci, Italy, €15,700
4. David Gutierrez Lebron, Spain, €11,700
5. Mike McDonald, Canada, €9,600
6. Nicolas Chouity, Lebanon, €7,500
7. Alexander Scherdin, Sweden, €5,900
8. Ami Barer, Canada, €4,400
9. Nadar Kakhmazov, Russia, €3,560
10. Steven van Zadelhoff, Netherlands, €3,560
11. Kane Kalas, USA, €3,120
12. Robert Andre Giordano, France, €3,120
13. Lorenzo Sabato, Italy, €2,700
14. Richard Toth, Hungary, €2,700
15. Alain Daien, Belgium, €2,350
16. Elias Brussianos, Greece, €2,350
17. Daniel Camus, Belgium, €2,090
18. Robert Auer, Germany, €2,090
19. Dany Parlafes, Romania, €2,090
20. Boutros Naim, Lebanon, €2,090

*relates to a heads-up deal.

EPT9 Player of the Year leader board
1. Jan Bendik, Slovakia, 2,745 (now moving up to 3,245)
2. Robert Haigh, Germany, 2,440
3. Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Canada, 1,870
4. Ramzi Jelassi, Sweden, 1,850
5. Kent Lundmark, Sweden, 1,660
6. Steve O'Dwyer, USA, 1,650
7. Griffin Benger, Canada, 1,610
8. Joni Jouhkimainen, Finland, 1,600
9. Bryn Kenney, USA, 1,585
10. Scott Seiver, USA, 1,580

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Check out all the festival results and write-ups here. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

PokerStars.tv's Sarah Grant spoke to Lee Jones, PokerStars' Head of Poker Communications to get the full low-down on exactly what you can get expect from the $5,000,000 giveaway!

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

So followed six levels that looked a lot like those of yesterday, the only difference being that the 30 tables in use at the start became 13 by the close, all moving towards the far end of the tournament room.

From all of them top spot rested with Johnny Lodden, chip leader tonight with a stack of 605,200 chips.

Johnny Lodden

Lodden pushed past the 500,000 mark late in the day, albeit in a hand that caused no small amount of controversy between him and chip leader at the start of play Victor Sbrissa.

Lodden's lead is sizable but, as always at this stage, it's a nominal one. The quality of opposition make it such, the lead chase pack made up of the likes of Calvin Andersen (472,400), Oleksii Kovalchuk (414,700), Noah Schwartz (453,400), Steve O'Dwyer (389,200) and Daniel Negreanu (340,100). All are within reach of Lodden and all capable of the appropriate dramatics tomorrow that turns the main event in their favour.

Hungry for chips: Daniel Negreanu

Just hungry: Calvin Anderson

But to count on them would be to bet against the field, some 110-strong at the close that includes the likes of the following, who reached their positions after a volatile day in the Salle des Etoiles, which you can read about on our live coverage page.

Alec Torelli - 270,100
Paul Volpe - 256,500
Andrew Lichetenberger - 239,300
Jake Cody - 223,300
Victor Ramdin - 202,900
John Juanda - 181,300
Ville Wahlbeck - 148,200
Marcin Horecki - 137,800
David Vamplew - 116,500
Chad Brown - 115,900
Mickey Petersen - 96,600
Toni Judet - 91,100
Chris De Meulder - 89,200
Tatiana Barausova - 48,800
Alex Kravchenko - 41,800

Along the way we lost the bulk of the field to the whims of the side events. They included Artem Litvinov, Mathew Frankland, Isaac Haxton, Craig McCorkell, Benny Spindler, Felipe Ramos, Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, Vicky Coren, Justin Bonomo, (breathe), Aaron Gustavson, Salvatore Bonavena, Max Silver, Bryn Kenney, Nicholas Chouity, Marcel Luske, Martin Finger, Fatima Moreira de Melo and Michael Tureniec.

Actually we lost even more, all of whom can be found on the live coverage page, along with existing counts of those remaining. It's there that you'll also find details of the pay-outs that will kick in when the bubble bursts tomorrow when there are 80 players left.

As far as the day's action is concerned you can catch up at any of the links below.

It was a make or break day in Monaco for most of the field, which was introduced by Sarah Grant and Rick Dacey at the start of play before Lee Jones revealed PokerStars's upcoming 100 billionth hand celebration.

We met one of the early chip leaders today Arlo Dotson and got our first glimpse of the money at stake this week.

One of those departing today was birthday boy Humberto Brenes, while in a few words Randy Lew made it clear that he's a better player than you.

Humberto Brenes

Away from the tables there was panic among the poker community facing a humungous corkage bill.

That's all for today. Join us for Day 3 on Thursday. Until then goodnight from Monaco.

Stephen Bartley is a PokerStars Blog reporter.

Click through to live coverage of the PokerStars and Monte-Carlo® Casino EPT Grand Final. Follow the @PokerStarsBlog Twitter account to keep up-to-date with all the EPT action.

Or the Fins.

Or perhaps it was just Shaun Deeb.

No one really knows who actually invented it - unless you talk to the Russians, Fins, or Deeb - but OFC was taking over. The first-ever OFC tournament was held at the PCA, and the winner was Peter Jetten. Jetten outlasted 58 other players, 18 of which reentered, and bested a final table of all Russians. He earned $52,280 for the victory, and can always claim that he is the first OFC tournament winner ever.

After the PCA, the buzz started to die a bit. There were issues with the application, leading to deleted games and other complications, and OFC became less of an obligation for grinders and more of an enjoyable hobby. This life cycle is common for several things in society today - particularly within the poker community.

Back in 2012, several top professionals were grinding the German game Achtung on breaks. Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst won the World Series of Achtung during a day off at the 2012 WSOP, and nearly everyday you could catch a tweet or two about the snake-like game. At the 2013 WSOP, there wasn't an Achtung game to be had.

With shortened attention spans and a wide variety of other games and applications available, it's easy to move from one really awesome, amazing new thing to the next. And thus, the future of OFC appeared to be grim once the application started acting up.

But it didn't go away.

The creators of the application released a much-needed update that included four-color decks and a popular version of OFC named "Criss Cross." Despite needing to pay for the update, those that play on the application were pleased with the changes. Even Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein, who spoke out against the application in fear of potential cheating, could be found grinding on his iPad on Monday during Day 1a of the EPT Grand Final Main Event.

While The Bear was playing on the virtual felt, there were a host of players playing in a €2,150 OFC side event with multiple reentries. The tournament generated a field of 52 players, including 17 reentries, creating a total prize pool of €138,000. Two Russians made the final table only to be ousted by a North American, as Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier was the last man standing.

Ironically, Mercier, who hadn't won a live tournament since December of 2011, told James Mitchell on a break that a Russian was going to win.

"I have even money that the winner will be Russian," Mitchell, who just made the final table of the EPT Berlin High Roller, told Mercier.

"You'll probably win," Mercier told him. "Although Victor (Ramdin) has a ton of chips."

Indeed, Mercier's fellow Team Pro led the tournament at the time, but unfortunately he fell in fourth place, earning €12,700.

Mercier, who started the final table with very few chips, was able to spin it up thanks to a good run of cards wherein he made a boat and quads. Suddenly he was heads up with the chip lead against Yakov Onuchin, and when the dust settled, Mercier was the champion.

Throughout the day, several players in the Main Event, most notably Paul Volpe, would muck their hands and jog up the steps to the secondary tournament area to sweat the OFC. In contrast to the silence of the Main Event, the OFC event was filled with laughter, smiles, and conversation. The players were very loose and having loads of fun rather than sitting silently and listening to music. The dichotomy was stark, and players who were withering away in the Main Event wanted to get in on the fun. They wanted to escape the monotony of another no-limit hold'em tournament.

The next major OFC tournament will take place at the 2013 WSOP during the later stages of the Main Event, and surely the contrast of excitement and dullness will arise once more. While those who are deep in the Main Event will struggle through long days of troublesome ICM decisions and gut wrenching coin flips, those who have already busted will laugh away while enjoying a game that has neither been solved nor perfected by any of the top professionals.

OFC is not a fad; it's here to stay. The game will continue to evolve in the coming weeks, months, and hopefully years, until neither the Russians, Fins, or Deeb can lay claim to its inception. That probably won't stop them, though.