EPT Barcelona Day 2

I started the day with Annette_15 and Paul Wasicka at my table, both having position on me. Luckily I was moved to a new table relatively quickly. Luckily at least I thought. I was moved directly to a table with Patrik Antonius, Martin Wendt and Adam Junglen, all 3 once again with position on me. These guys are all super aggressive, the first 3 times I opened a pot with a raise I was 3bet instantly and forced to lay my hand down.

Finally I got QQ and raised it again, once again I was 3bet by an unknown local. I shoved him for 23k and he called with AQ. He hit an Ace on the river :( I was crippled to 25k but Patrik Antonius doubled me up when my AT held against his AJ on a T high flop (he tried a weird move).

Eventually I was moved again to a table with Katja Thater and Phillip Yeh. My stack fluctuated between 40-70k, at the end of the day I had 43k when we made the money. There are 56 players remaining and I'll be pretty shortstacked going into tomorrow, but all in all I still have a good feeling. We'll just have to wait and see...

EPT Barcelona Day 1A

The trip went smooth, the hotel is very nice, the weather is perfect and the atmosphere is absolutely fantastic here in Barcelona.

The tournament started today at 5pm and within an hour I had doubled my chips from the initial 10k starting stack to just over 19k after flopping a set and getting it all in against top pair. I lucksacked a huge pot an hour or so later when my QQ ran into AA but I spiked a Q on the river in a 24k pot. From then on I never really looked back and eventually I ended the day with 59,500 chips which is in the top 3 of the 100 players that survived Day 1A.

Tomorrow is an off-day for me, which means beach, pool and relaxing. We'll probably do some kind of sightseeing tour as well and most likely a little shopping.

Sorry I can't write more, I'm too tired to dig up all the important hand histories from my shortterm memory :) Time for bed now, good night!

CelebPoker $100k Guaranteed

After a breakeven day in cash games, a nice little donkament was just what I needed. Ship the $24.5k my way please! Now I gotta finish packing and get some shuteye before the flight to Barcelona leaves in the morning!

Big travel month

Cash games have been generally running well this past week, though the results are not quite like I hoped they would be. My goal of 120+ hours and 50k+ hands, however, are not going to be reached, even though I am planning on playing two marathon sessions tonight and tomorrow.

This next month is loaded with interesting tournaments and is looking like a big travel month for me, here's what I have in mind:

Aug 27 - Sep 3 EPT Barcelona
Sep 14 - 15 Casino Bremen T'n'T Hold'em Turnier
Sep 21 - 22 Casino Schenefeld Herbstblatt Turniere
Sep 23 - 30 EPT London
Oct 1 - 6 CCC Austrian Classics
Oct 6 - 12 EPT Baden

Now that I see it, the schedule looks pretty stressful. The only tournaments I would consider skipping would be the Bremen/Schenefeld tourneys, but I'm going to do my best to make it to them all. It's going to be an interesting month to say the least.

Laziness

I spent the past week playing only 1-3 hours a day, as we had guests from Austria here from Monday-Thursday. I've also had plenty of time consumed by soccer/training/partying. It's kinda strange because I don't have a "job" but I really could use an extra 5-10 hours a day. It seems like each day just flies by in record speed. I get a feeling that I am missing out on a lot of money for all the time I'm not "working" and it was really eye-opening when I recently multiplied my hourly rate x 40 hours a week x 52 weeks. If I really did sit down and grind out 40 hours a week I would be on track to make mid 6 figures/year, which is mind-boggling to me, because I don't expect to even make half of that.

Anyway, I played just the Sunday Million tonight and finished in 198th place for $1290. These tournaments are always super frustrating to last so long and then bust out with a relatively small payout in relation to the buy-in and final table payouts. Oh well.

We're finally getting cable TV installed this week so I'll have yet another excuse to not play poker, then on next Monday I'll be flying to Barcelona for the EPT tournament. Definitely looking forward to that.

Ship...the...Barcelona seat

Finally, after countless attempts at winning seats for previous EPT events, I finally took down a qualifier ($13k package) and now have a seat for the EPT Barcelona tournament at the end of the month. Ship it!

Grinding

Been putting in 2-3 hours of play each day with mixed, frustrating, breakeven results thusfar. I am aiming for 120+ hours and 50k+ hands, which shouldn't be all that difficult if I stick to my plan.

I booked the trip to Barcelona last night. We'll be there from Aug 27th - Sep 3rd, hopefully I can qualify for the main event online this Saturday. If not, I'll try the super-satellite at Gran Casino de Barcelona on the 27th. If that doesn't work, I'll just stick to a couple cash game sessions and spend the rest of the time enjoying Barcelona. Two other buddies who don't play poker are coming as well, so I'm sure we'll find plenty of entertainment.

One final note: I hate shortstackers. Agreed?

I didn't make it

I only made it through 16 hours before I decided it would be best to pull the plug. It all started off really well for me, within the first 6 hours I was up around $8k, but unfortunately that's where I'd peak and the only way from there on was down. I lost, lost some more, then a little bit more and eventually found myself back to even after about 13 hours of play.

I then took a 20-minute break, ate a nice breakfast, got some fresh air on the balcony and came back to the tables with a good feeling. The feeling proved to be a fluke and I lost an additional two buy-ins playing $10/20NL, which brought my total loss to just around $4k for the session. As previously mentioned, I stopped after 16 hours due to the fact that I noticed myself making questionable plays towards the end where I wasn't really sure if I would have played the hands the same had I been fully rested.

Conclusion: Though 24 hour sessions can be fun and are certainly challenging, it's probably best to break down the session into several 3-6 hour sessions with appropriate breaks inbetween. This keeps you refreshed and is certainly a healthier way to get in plenty of hours.