It was a pleasure to sit next to you again - albeit a bit shorter than i would have liked but then i only have myself to blame for that and i do believe that now the score has been evened up to 1-1!
Nobody knows this but Simon is actually the primary reason why mystic monkey and all the "monkey boy" t-shirts came about.......
I'd had a particularly good year online during 2004, my first year of playing poker and so decided that i wanted to try my luck at a big live festival. I had played the occasional festival tourney at my local casino's salford and blackpool but usually just the lower buy-in events but nothing too spectacular, so in early october decided that the EPT festival at the Vic would be ideal. I withdrew enough money from my pokerstars account for spending, accomodation and to buy into the 4 holdem events (giving the wednesday omaha tourney a miss).
The week didnt get off to too bad a start, made it down to the final 4 tables of the £200 pot limit rebuy without having to rebuy or add on but was unfortunate when my KK walked into AA and i departed somewhere in the 30 somethings. On Tuesday it was the £750 freezeout and made it down to the final 3 tables and virtually on the bubble when getting involved with Lucy Rokach. She put in a small raise on the button when it was my big blind i looked down to see J-10 suited and called. The flop came J-2-10 which looked ok to me until all the chips ended up in the middle and she turned over pocket 2's. She had me outchipped by about 1000 points and so i was out in 21st - alas only the top 18 got paid. I later found out that Lucy went on to win the tourney and the first prize of £50k!
So by thursdays £300 freezout i was still feeling good about my game and during the early stages of the tournament was building up a nice stack. However we were sat at one of the tables near the downstairs bar area so unfortunately we were one of the first tables to be split which i was a bit disappointed about. My newly allocated seat was at an upstairs table so armed with about 3 racks full of chips of we go to my new table, my card tells me i was in seat 5 on table T. My heart sank as i arrived at my new table. In Seat 1 there was Paul Parker, in Seat 3 was Tony G, in seat 4 was Simon 'Aces' Trumper and in Seat 6 was Tony 'the lizard' Bloom. I stopped looking after Seat 6, i didn't want to know the rest of the table!!
I didnt want to give anything away so tried to stay as calm as possible when my insides felt as though they wanted to explode and so i sat quietly and began stacking my chips. Thankfully there was plenty of table banter from the other occupants of the table and so i could just ease myself in gently. Thankfully i managed to win a big pot early on when Tony G raised in early position and i look down to find QQ and just flat called, another player also called in late position and so we were 3 to the flop. It came down a rag rainbow flop and Tony G had come out and bet as i had expected. I announced all in but was disheartened to hear "call" immediately after from the player in late position. Tony G dwelled for a while then eventually announced "pass" and turned up his AK suited. I turned over my queens and my woes soon vanished when the other player turned up JJ, he didnt hit and i had a decent chip lead on the table.
We proceeded to play for a while before Simon lost a big pot which crippled him and about 1 round later he was in the small blind on my big blind. Everyone passed round to him and so he just announced all in, however the raise was only about double what my blind was so i had to call. He had a slightly better hand but i outdrew him and after a few handshakes he departed. I eventually got down to the final 3 tables again but was crippled when my AK was called by someone holding 22 and hitting a third 2. next hand i was virtually all in on the big blind and Joe Beevers and Rumit Somaiya ganged up on the button and small blind to eliminate me in about 25th place - again just short of the 18 that got paid.
A few weeks after the festival i was trawling through some poker websites when i came across a site which had diary entries from Simon about his escapades in the EPT festival and so decided to give it a read. During his report on the £300 he mentions everyone by name - Tony G made this move, Tony Bloom took this pot etc etc then came. "....and a new player came and sat on my left with a large stack of chips". Throughout the rest of the report i was referred to as either "the player to my left" or "the chip leader of the table". Obviously i realized that Simon had no idea who i was and it was then that i decided that my next aim in poker was to become a "recognised" player.
This i could have done in one of two ways, plan (A) begin playing a lot more festivals and live events and hopefully make a few final tables and wins. However having just seen a documentry featuring 5 poker players, one of whom was Simon where he proceeded to discribe how even though he had won the European order of Merit the previous year and despite winning several event throughout the year he was struggling to show a profit. I think the documentry ended with him playing a festival in Australia where he had to cash in one of the events to finish the year in the black. With my limited bankroll and inability to be able to take too much time off work this wasnt going to be very likely and so i had to come up with plan (B). A plan that would work out cheaper for the time being!!
I decided that i was going to continue building up my bankroll online, pay off all my debts and secure another form of income then maybe i could take the professional play more seriously and give it a better shot - but how to make sure that i would never be known as just "a new player on my left" again. I was due to travel to the Bahamas for the Pokerstars WPT event and so decided that i would use some of my FPP points and buy some Pokerstars shirts. BigArmo had always greeted me on pokerstars with something along the lines of "eh up monkey boy" due to my avatar and so the monkey boy was born (Yogi-bear did pull me to one side advising me that if i was going to pick my own nickname it might be better to come up with one that people wont laugh at) but then being a charlton athletic fan i've always liked to be different!!
So i had t-shirts embroidered with the matt674 under the pokerstars logo and the name on the back. I scoured everywhere for some kind of monkey card protector i could use and in the end found mystic monkey, a silver crystal figurine. The t-shirt was a success whilst over at the Atlantis - Pokerstars didnt have the same brainwave of giving everyone their own name badge like we had at the blonde bash, i ended up meeting lots of people i had played against on pokerstars in cyberspace. They also worked again when winning a satellite into the main event at the WSOP as i managed to meet several more people just by having them approach me after seeing my name on the shirt. Mystic monkey also proved to be a success as when playing in a tournament in Binions during the night of the final table of the main event i had an american at our table ask me "were you playing the tourney in The Orleans last night? I recognise the monkey card protector".
So thank you Simon for helping creating what lies before everyone as i write this - all i have to do now is actually try and get the name "monkey boy" recognised for the right reasons - WINNING LIVE POKER TOURNAMENTS!!
right back to work, this took a bit longer to type than my alloted 1 hour lunch so i need to look busy for a bit
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