Vienna Recap

Thursday, February 23rd:
Sutti and I fly from Berlin to Vienna the morning, check into the hotel, and head to Concord Card Casino around noon. Right away I was very impressed with the card room. Everything was very clean, the place was very well kept, everyone was very friendly. We both sat down at a 3/6 Limit Hold'em table, and I quickly realized we were playing against regulars. A few old guys who would call call call call all the way down, two Swedes who played stereotypically tight, one young guy who could barely keep his eyes open but still managed to play every hand he was dealt, and then Sutti and myself. My strategy was to just play tight and solid poker, which worked pretty well. I played for 4 hours and won around €90.

At 5:30, Gerlihard and Bla met us at CCC. They are both very nice guys, and they were kind enough to give us a ride to Pokerworld, which is another card room in Vienna. Unfortunately, though, Pokerworld has got nothing on CCC. The place looks like an illegal Chinese Mafia hideout. It all seemed very "iffy", but we decided to play the €20+4+Rebuys tourney anyways. None of us made it into the money, though, and we all went back to CCC to play more cash games, which went so/so. We finally went back to the hotel at 4:30am.

Friday, February 24:
We had decided that CCC was the only place we were going to play at, and so we went back in the early afternoon. I sat down at a 3/6 limit table and lost two racks of €100 each with the following hands:
My AA lost to 4h3h, he chased and caught his flush
My AA lost to 7d3d, you know the story
My TT lost to QK when the board read AJT

Matze and his girlfriend Tina arrived later on that night, they are both very nice people. I decided to try my luck at 4/8 limit, bad idea. There are days when you should just not play poker. This was one of them. All this limit poker is starting to get to my head. I am a no limit player. Tomorrow is the €150+20+Rebuys POT LIMIT Hold'em tournament. I decide that I am gonna play it, pot limit is no limit's cousin, and that's good enough for me!

Saturday, February 25:
Big day. Matze and Tina took us to CCC, where I played a little 4/8 limit while waiting for the tournament to start. I won a little (€40) and was feeling generally good when the tournament started at 5pm. I did not recognize anyone at my starting table, and my strategy was to play tight and hopefully avoid a rebuy. That strategy worked. I built up my starting stack of 1000 to 4000 at the first break after 90 minutes. I won one coinflip, my AK vs 99, which helped get me a lot of those chips. I took the add-on for 2000 chips, ate the wonderful buffet, and then came back to play with a stack of over 6k.

At this point they announced the payouts. €12k for first place sounded good to me. For that to happen, though, I would need some cards and some luck. Neither of them showed up. I gradually was blinded away, then I tried to use my tight table image to bluff at a pot, which was unsuccessful. I eventually found myself around 3.5k chips when the following hand came up:
I had KcJc in MP folded around to me
I raised to 900
SB and BB both call
Flop comes K 9 7
SB bets 3k, BB folds, action to me
Why would he do that? I am the preflop aggressor! Something was not right about this play. Time to disect the hand. I immediately ruled 77, 99, and KK out. AA-TT he would have raised my preflop bet, those were ruled out too. That left AK, KQ, K9, or something of that nature. I thought for about 2 minutes and finally realized that I had to make the call. My chips were well below average and I had to take a stand. I called and he showed AK. Turn and river did not help me and I was out in place 38 (top 10 got paid).

I went over to the cash game section and saw that Gerlihard had also arrived. He somehow worked out a €1/2 NL table which I was very excited about playing! I bought in with the maximum €200. It started off rough for me, I was quickly down over €70. After about 2 hours of not playing any hands, I looked down and saw AA in UTG+1. I knew that if I raised here, someone would know what's up, since I had not been playing any hands at all the past couple hours! And so I just called. A crazy Italian named Marco (remember him please!) raised to €12 like he does every hand, SB called him and BB called him, action to me. I thought for a few moments and reraised to €35. Marco folds, SB calls, and BB folds. Heads up to the flop, which comes A 7 2. SB checks, I do my best at pretending that ace did not help me and checked behind him. Turn comes 9, check check. River comes T. SB bets out €50, I think for a few seconds before pushing all-in, I see on his face that he knows what's about to happen, but he calls anyways. He shows TT for a rivered set, I flip over my aces and rack in the €250+ pot. €10 tip for the dealer for dealing such a wonderful hand.

Then all of a sudden 4 people left the table and I was playing alone with three Italians. The only problem was, they were all friends, and were all speaking Italian to each other. I should have just stopped there, but I wanted to prove to myself that I can handle it. They attacked and attacked my blinds. I had around €220 left when the following key hand happened:
I had Ah8s and raised to €12 (this was the standard raise)
Everyone calls.
Flop comes Ad 7s 9s
I bet €30, the BB calls me
Turn comes Ts
He goes all in for over €150
OK, I have top pair and a straight flush draw! What could he have to beat me? I had to think about this one for a while. To make it more interesting, I flipped over my hand to show him how difficult my decision was. I did this mainly because I wanted to pick up a tell on him based on his reaction to seeing my cards. I showed the Ace first and said "You already know I have this one." He nodded his head. I showed the 8s and said "But this is the one that makes my decision so difficult." I looked at him and saw the look on his face. He was surprised and did not look like he wanted me calling. I called it and he flipped over As4h. He had the ace and just a flush draw. According to CardPlayer, I was a 45.45% favorite to win, 36.36% to tie, and I had an 18.18% chance to lose. The river came Ks, he completed his flush, and the humungous pot was shoved over to him.

At this point I was very pissed, but did not want to show them that that hand got to me. The game broke up shortly afterwards, and I did not play poker for the next few hours.

At around 3:30, one of the crazy Italians (Marco) came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play heads up. I asked how much, he said €500. I immediately said yes, I saw how bad he was playing before. I really thought I was favorite to win this match. We agreed on a tournament structure heads up game, he wanted to make it a cash game, but I said tournament style or nothing. The CCC Floor Manager agreed to give us a table and a dealer, in exchange for a time fee. Sutti made a side bet for €50 with one of the other Italians on the winner of the match.

The game started at 4am and it went back and forth. He took a slight lead when I semi-bluffed with middle pair, but I had to fold when he went all-in. Then I went on a little rush, gathered up some chips and we were back to even. After about 45 minutes, I only had about 1000 chips compared to his 2000. The blinds were 50/100 and he raised to 300 in his SB. I looked down at As9h. Something told me that this is the time and I went all-in. He called instantly with 88 and although I turned a flush draw, it did not hit and I lost the €500 to an Italian named Marco. Matze, Tina, and Sutti were there supporting me but I just wasn't able to get my game on.

It was originally planned that Sutti and I were going to extend our stay for another day, but after I lost so much money there was no way I was going to stay in Vienna for another day. It was really nice meeting Gerli, Bla, Matze, and Tina, overall I'd say it was still worth the trip!