Vienna Day 4 (Sunday)

The Poker-Tester Forum tournament was scheduled for 14:00, so Sutti and I were at the casino at 12:00, where we had breakfast with bbberni. We also met Rene (susch), who was playing in the €3/6 Limit game. When 14:00 arrived, there were 12 of us from the forum and two non-forum members playing the tournament. At my table were Susch, Enchant, Mishkin, Mishkin's Phil Hellmuth Look-a-like friend, Raderix, and Raderix's woman. I began playing pretty loose and built up my stack with several small pots early on. I rivered Rene for a good portion of his stack when my 89 found two pair on the river against his AK. Later on I gave him another bad beat when I runner-runnered a flush as he was all in. I felt kinda bad because he drove so far just to play the tournament.

At the final table, I continued to build my chips up. I doubled a few people up, then doubled myself up with AA vs KK. I was chipleader with 5 players remaining, but then I kind of lost control and eventually blew off my entire stack. Oops. It was definitely a great time, though. There are some pretty neat people in the forum. Props to Berni for lasting longer than any other member (and taking home the CelebPoker Deluxe Chipset as a special prize. Also, props to gigx (now a Poker-Tester member) for taking the tournament down.

Afterwards, Gerli and I continued our heads up battles. I got nothing going for me in the first match and he won it with relative ease. The second match ran somewhat better for me, I was able to build up some chips and eventually win. The third and final match was decided by a coinflip, namely my A5s against Gerli's KJo. The flop came down AJ7 and things were looking good. Somehow a magical J appeared on the turn and his suckout was complete. Overall we have played 9 heads up matches, and I am still up 5-4 :)

The cash game afterwards sucked really bad for me. I must have missed the newsflash, but apparently 94s is a new premium. Just ask Mr. Chinaboy at my table who cracked the shit out of my aces with it. Within no time, I was down €400 for the day and in need of a breather. I was also in need of a little money, which worked out quite well. The walk to the bank was extremely refreshing, and I came back with 4 fresh €100 bills. I would only end up needing two of them.

After waiting over an hour to get my seat back, Gerli decided to quit for the night and offered me his seat. Thanks, buddy! Right away I went on a small tear and almost doubled my stack to €400. The table was one of the juiciest tables I played on over the whole weekend. Particularly one player (seat 6) needed to see any flop to see if his cards could connect, cost the flop what it will!!! Some other players had similar strategies. I continued to be dealt some monster hands, and even my speculative hands like QTo flopped me things like KJ9. By this time it was around 1am and I said to myself that I was going to stay at the table as long as the player in seat 6 was still there. Sitting next to me was a player who I knew from playing SNGs with at CelebPoker, he goes by the screen name MI0108. A really nice guy, we talked the whole night through about all kinds of interesting things. He eliminated Dan Harrington from this year's WSOP ME, but admitted, he learned the most from the Harrington books.

There was one hand that felt especially fun. I was sitting on a €600 stack and was dealt 77. I limped after a few other limpers, then the tightest old man ever raised it to €10. This guy was so tight, you probably couldn't fit a peanut through his buttcrack. Supertight in case you didn't get the picture. I think 6 players called his raise and the flop came Q73 with two hearts. I checked, he bet 30, one call, and I raise it to €120. He goes all in for €270, the other player folds, and I call immediately. Thankfully no ace came on the turn on the river, because he indeed had AA. Man that one felt good.

I continued to win some small and medium sized pots throughout the morning. I drank plenty of Red Bull and coffee and I'm sure that the 24-hour session from a couple weeks ago helped as well! At 6:30, my favorite player in seat 6 left the game. I played until 7am before calling it quits. When I cashed out my chips I had €1329 in my stack. It was very satisfying to put that money in my wallet.