Schenefelder Herbstblatt tourneys

The Friday €600 Herbstblatt tourney started off pretty well for me. I had a set get paid off in full and won a nice little pot with a turned full house, catapulting my stack to 25,000 (7k starting stack) relatively fast. From then on I played smallball and gradually built my stack up to be above average. When we were down to the final 2 tables I lost a couple steal attempts and was forced to go into push or fold mode. That's nothing new for me, though, so I had no problems picking the right spots to make my shoves.

I probably shoved 10-12 hands and only got "caught" once when I had 73s and lost to TT. I had the player covered but it crippled me immensely. Luckily I recovered when I won 33 vs AT and then AJ vs A7. The very next hand I lost half my stack with AK vs A8, for those of you wondering if I ever get sucked out on :)

We eventually hit the final table and I was still in push mode. None of my pushes got called until we were down to 5 players, when I pushed 84o from the cutoff with just over 5BBs. Ben Kang called me from the BB with AJ, but the board came down T6728 and I lived on. I continued to apply pressure and when we were 3-handed I shoved 77 on the button with 11BBs. Jan "50outs" von Halle called me from the BB saying "Let's gamble!" The board came down A886Q and I was eliminated in 3rd place for €6614.

Saturday's tournament had an €800 buy-in but only 40 players. The tourney started off crappily (is that a word?) for me but I managed to rally a comeback and made the final table, where I met Benjamin Kang and Jan von Halle once again. Only 5 players got paid, but I busted in 7th place when my KQ did not improve against Jan's TT in a huge pot. Then I was super crippled and lost my final hand with A9 vs Alex Jung's AJ. The players all agreed to make an even-split deal right after I busted, oh well, shit happens :)

The poker management in Schenefeld is by far the best I've seen in Germany and most importantly they are constantly looking for ways to improve their poker service. As as player I really appreciate that and honestly it's going to be keep me (and many others) coming back time and time again for other tournaments. They are planning a nice tourney week in December with a €500, €800, €1k and €2k tourney, I will certainly be there.

All in all the trip was pretty expensive for me (have I mentioned that I hate chinese poker???) but I had a ton of fun so I have no regrets. My flight leaves for London tomorrow afternoon, I'll try and post an update sometime in the next few days.