This is not anything you will find on GV or any other site because it's my personal bitchfest. I will resume quickly as I should be busy cleaning the shit off of my shoes.
Day 1
Matt and I come from Menton arriving well before Carter and Chuck to check in to the apartment we're all renting together. We know nothing about the place really other than its location and Carter said it was a good place to stay.
We get checked in and it's pretty damn hot in the room. We figure however that since the AC wasn't on it'll take a while for it to cool down, no big deal. The place also seems more cramped than we had imagine but we'll make due. Eventually MCG goes to take a shower and the knob that you pull to turn on the shower is busted so he ends up taking a bath. Much later we begin to wonder why the AC is so weak and perhaps if we try the other counterintuitive settings that might make it cooler, so we switch it.
Chuck arrives, we pack more people and stuff in and play with the AC some more. Carter finally gets in and notes what a piece of shit the room is. He was the only one who had stayed here and knew what to expect...on top of that, when he gets in, we notice a bed bug in our ceiling. Bed bugs = good times for sure. So Carter goes and bitches at the front desk, we move rooms thankfully and get to a place that is a shade bigger, the air definitely works 100x better, and all bed bugs if they exist are blocked out. End day 1.
Day 2
Start of the tourney, I play a guy who apparently either can't count pips or has no racing formula whatsoever. I am now 0-6 in Monte Carlo believing I've outplayed my opponents typically by a country mile. (3/4 matches were recorded last year so I'm sure of those, of the other 3 matches I'm only 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% sure) A couple of positions from my first round match this year: (I'm on roll in the first one and recube)
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| XGID=-BBAaDDB----------bdbbbb--:1:1:1:00:3:7:0:17:10 | ||||||||||||||||
 on roll, cube action? | ||||||||||||||||
| Analyzed in XG Roller+ | |
| Player Winning Chances: | 88.40% (G: 0.87% B: 0.01%) |
| Opponent Winning Chances: | 11.60% (G: 0.12% B: 0.00%) |
| Cubeless Equities | |
| No Redouble: | +0.776 |
| Redouble: | +1.662 |
| Cubeful Equities | |
| No Redouble: | +0.951 (-0.049) |
| Redouble/Take: | +1.622 (+0.622) |
| Redouble/Drop: | +1.000 |
| Best Cube action: Redouble / Drop | |
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| XGID=-a-a-AD-C--AbDaa-d-e----B-:0:0:1:42:3:7:0:17:10 | ||||||||||||||||
| to play 42 | ||||||||||||||||
In the second position you will have to find his play, it was quite ingenious.
Day 3
I unknowingly step in fresh shit on the way to the tournament so upon arrival and finally being inside I think to myself "holy fuck someone needs to take a shwoer". I was standing in a group of ppl and the smell was so bad I finally left. Well, when I left the smell followed me so after smelling my freshly showered self, my newly done laundry, I found the culprit. Yummy ... it was foul. I took my shoes off, eventually digging the shit out of them after my first round loss but that has done little to abate the odor.
Anyway, my first round match in the consolation today I lost in short to someone who didn't know how many points we were playing to. It's not like we were playing to 7 and he thought it was 9, or we were playing to 9 and he thought it was 11, we were playing to 9 and he thought it was a match to 17. So when I finally ended up taking and immediately reshipping in the position below the light clicked on for him.
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| XGID=-BCBB-B--b----b---Cbbb-cbA:1:-1:-1:00:1:5:0:9:10 | ||||||||||||||||
 on roll, cube action? | ||||||||||||||||
| Analyzed in XG Roller+ | |
| Player Winning Chances: | 80.86% (G: 29.79% B: 0.29%) |
| Opponent Winning Chances: | 19.14% (G: 2.59% B: 0.06%) |
| Cubeless Equities | |
| No Redouble: | +0.905 |
| Redouble: | +1.152 |
| Cubeful Equities | |
| No Redouble: | +0.908 |
| Redouble/Take: | +0.422 (-0.486) |
| Redouble/Drop: | +1.000 (+0.092) |
| Best Cube action: No Redouble / Take | |
The worst part of this position is I'm not sure if I'm supposed to drop or not OtB, all I knew is he was of course not supposed to cube. I ended up taking and reshipping and losing. After this I walked around to watch some people, take some pictures of both people and positions, and my camera broke. The lens won't open properly always giving an error on the lcd screen. Sweet, so much accomplished in so little time today, pair of shoes temporarily ruined, camera busted, consolation lost to the scoreless wonder and it isn't even lunch time.
The Gala dinner is also tonight which I opted out of last year. I have no desire to go to upscale dinners. I generally don't like the type of food involved and would be happier eating a $7 buffet at Pizza Hut than a $50 meal of chicken or fish where they marinated it in something and serve it with all these odd little side dishes that I'll never eat. I didn't want to go this year but they made it mandatory, thanks for the memo. This dinner, which I had no intent of attending, is also 'smart casual' or something to that effect. Everyone will be dressed up yada yada yada. I don't travel with clothes to dress up because I go to bars and pubs, not clubs. Me, jeans, and a tshirt are meant to be comfortably together. I'm not carrying around an entire set of clothes for 6 weeks, shoes being the biggest inconvenience, for the 1 time I'll need them in Monaco.
I left out the 18 euro rum ($20 + dollars) and coke out of left field last night at a random place (no, it wasn't magic rum) and also the baguette/baseball bat that was sold to me and left undiscovered until I got home. If it wasn't for Shakira brightening my every day and filling me with the hope that perhaps Carter or Chuck will cash and I'll get to waka waka that shit out I don't know how I'd make it through the days.
I'm off to steal Carter's shoes and take camera #2 to try to get some pix for GV.
/End Rant