Fun and Games at Twitchy Pete's Monte Carlo Mayhem
Where else would you find poker players wearing mittens, dressed as fish and calling all-in for the tournament life with five-high? Twitchy Pete’s Monte Carlo Mayhem!
A stellar cast of PokerStars Team Pros saw Celina Lin, Randy Lew, Lex Veldhuis, Fintan Hand, Ben Spragg, Jake Cody, Fatima Moreira de Melo and Liv Boeree take to the felt all in with a chance of winning a $10,000 SCOOP High Main Event ticket, along with $5,000 in tournament buy-ins for their fans.
"It was awesome," said Lex Veldhuis, despite him being the first eliminated. "I really like playing against people you have known for a while. It's really awesome
"I mean you still had the SCOOP Main Event ticket up top, but the forfeits and everything was going through everyone's heads. It's almost like we were thinking harder in certain situations because there are honor and gimmicks and trash talking. I think that made things really interesting."
Fellow Team Online pros Fintan Hand and Ben Spragg agreed with Veldhuis that there was a real competitive streak in everyone wanting to get one up on their fellow ambassadors.
"It's been a lot of fun," said Spragg, "Having fun playing with everyone. It's a soft table too(!) Every pot is not exactly the way you'd usually play it, because it's against people you don't usually play with and of course, you want to beat them!"
"There's also a bit of banter because we're changing the games up," said Hand, "We played worst hand wins for a while, and there was this huge hand with Fatima [Moreira de Melo] making a call with five-high."
Yes, you read that correctly. Team Pro Fatima Moreira de Melo called all-in for her tournament life with five-high. With the table playing 'worst hand wins' for the rest of the level, Spragg raised to 10,000 with 
from under the gun and Jake Cody three-bet to 30,000 with 
. Moreira de Melo called with 
in the hijack and Spragg folded.
A strange assortment of hands saw a flop of 
and it was at this point that host Joe Stapleton stepped back to the table and explained that, because the level had finished, the rules were returning to normal.
Cody bet 20,000 and Moreira de Melo called. The turn was the 
and both players checked. The river was the 
and Cody moved all in for 119,900, covering the 114,100 of his fellow Team Pro.
In one of the weirdest river decisions in the history of poker, Moreira de Melo tanked and contemplated calling with five-high.
She continued to tank, getting to her feet as she thought. "It just feels like I should call. It's that delicious feeling where you feel like you just want to."
After a few moments more she called and lost to Cody's pair of sevens. "If you had been right, it would have been the coolest thing ever," remarked Liv Boeree.
Boeree was also involved in several funny hands, most involving her wearing a pair of brightly colored oven gloves.
"I love it," she said, "The boxing gloves have become part of my body! It just feels weird playing poker without them."
Also having to contend with a new piece of poker apparel was Celina Lin, who was forced to wear a fish costume for part of the tournament.
"It felt like a sauna!" she explained, "It's a lot of fun. I'd never met Fintan or Spraggy before this trip and they're really cool guys. The gimmicks and random things that Joe's thrown in are really fun."
Three-handed both Fintan and Spragg were still in action, battling with Boeree. In the end it was Fintan Hand who emerged victorious after his 
spiked an eight against the 
of Boeree to take down his second trophy in two days, after winning the Right to Play charity event yesterday evening.