Update from Monte Carlo

I spent Saturday (Day 1a) hanging out doing nothing except playing Fifa 08 on the PS3 that Pokerstars had set up in their players lounge. The first game I played against an American who wanted to play me for money, so I beat him 3-0 and the second game he preferred to play for no money :) Then Chris Moneymaker came over and wanted to play me so I gave him a 2-0 beating with him having 0 shots the whole game. Ship it.

Day 1b was yesterday and I busted out in level 5 (150/300) after getting it all in with AK vs 88 in a button vs big-blind situation for 11.5k. The road up to that point was a wild up-and-down as always. I had a really sick table after the 1st hour, as I was sandwiched inbetween Dario Alioto two seats to my right, Max Pescatori to my immediate right, Marc Goodwin to my immediate left, Gus Hansen two to my left and Antonio Esfandiari three to my left. The last thing I wanted to do was get into too many pots with these guys, especially against Gus or Antonio when I was out of position, but because we played so long some situations were inevitable.

I made a nice fold against Gus after I raised QQ UTG and he 3bet me, which I called. I check/called the 943 flop and check/folded the 6 on the turn. He had a set, which he didn't show but I later read in his blog ;) In a later hand I flopped a flush against Esfandiari after defending my BB with 76s. I got two streets of value from him after he called the flop & turn but folded the river.

I escaped that table and was moved to a new table with Isaac "WestmenloAA" Baron to my immediate left. I had around 20k at this point but lost 8k after firing a couple barrels with AK on a missed flop. Then came the aforementioned hand with AK vs 88 where I got it all-in preflop and lost the flip.

And so ends a very disappointing EPT season for me. I played 7 tournaments and cashed only once for slightly over €10k. I'm not disappointed with the way I played, though, as I feel I made pretty good decisions throughout most tournaments. The large field tournaments are really high-variance so not much can be said after just 7 tournaments, so that's not really what I'm worried about. The fact of the matter is that I had a lot of fun, got to travel to a ton of cities and will certainly be back next season with better results.

I'm now going to forget my troubles and devour a €25 cheeseburger from room service. I'll add a €10 chocolate mousse to that and wash it down with an €8 bottle of Evian. This place is a pretty big ripoff, but food options are limited so I have no choice.

Monte Carlo baby

My few days off in Berlin were nice, believe it or not I actually won online! Yesterday we flew from Berlin -> Zurich and then Zurich -> Monte Carlo. Originally it was just me, Chris Niesert, Tobi Reinkemeier and Flo Langmann but at Tegel we ended up bumping into Johannes Strassmann and Freddy Keitel. Unfortunately our seats were spread all throughout the airplane so we couldn't get any group chinese game going. I played Chris HU and won a little bit, which certainly made the flight go by faster.

After arriving in Monte Carlo we all went out to eat at a local Italian restaurant "Gianni." Katja Thater, Jan von Halle, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Benjamin Kang, Max Bracht and Daniel Zink joined us so we were a pretty big group! The food was excellent, the coversation was all about poker (what else?).

After I registered for the Main Event (playing Day 1b) a few of us decided to join a €1090 SNG, where there are 10 players and winner takes all (Main Event seat or cash). To make a long story short: After capturing the early chip lead, I then lost everything except 1BB only to make a full recovery and then chop 50/50 with a pretty weak Italian player when the chipcount was 13.5k for him and 11.5k for me HU. I got €5300 for my efforts, not a bad start.

Today's plan is basically to chill (remind me to post pictures of the hotel/view/Monte Carlo when I'm back in Berlin) and get my head clear for a long day tomorrow. One time Monte Carlo!!!

EPT San Remo Day 2

I pushed my 8.9k chips all-in the very first hand of Day 2 with K4o on the button and gathered the blinds + antes. A few hands later I did it again with A9o and gathered them again. Now I had 13.3k and someone in EP raised to 3k. I shoved on him with QQ and he tanked before finally calling with 77. The board came down 56842 and I was kicked out, which is a shame because that was a 30k pot and I would have had a playable stack had I won it.

I fly back home on Saturday, so I have today and tomorrow to just hang around San Remo. Then I need to take care of some things in Berlin before flying to Monte Carlo on April 11th. It's about time that I cash in one of these things again...

EPT San Remo

I played Day 1A today and I'll start with the good news: I'm still in. The bad news: I have 8.9k with blinds of 500/1k. Before I get into the rollercoaster of today, I'll start off with what happened yesterday.

I ended up meeting Moritz and Nico in Zurich as we all had the same flight to Nice together. Chinese poker on the plane didn't run quite as planned but I managed to win back my losses later in the hotel. At night, Nico and I went to the Pokerstars Welcome Party, but because it was a boring sausage fest as usual, I ended up leaving pretty quickly.

The tournament started today at 3pm and throughout the whole 9 levels of play I was pretty shortstacked. My strategy was to tighten up a bit as opposed to the last EPTs I played. I had JJ 3 times and AA once during the day but could never really build a significant pot. I tried to focus a lot on pot control in most of my semi-strong hands, something that ended up saving me a lot of money. I also made some pretty big laydowns (with the exception of one hero call that left me crippled) which is something I'm proud of.

Once I was short I had several auto-push situations where I was flipping:
79 vs K8 - I win after a 7 hits the turn
JTs vs A6 - flop QTQ and I double, though this push was questionable
AK vs AQ - the board double pairs and we split :(
Q5 vs 22 - flop QKQ, easy money
AKs vs Q4 - river 4, this was one of the last hands of the day

So as I mentioned, I now have 8.9k but anything can happen really. I'll definitely be pushing so hopefully I can find a nice situation and double/triple up to get a playable stack.

Other than that, San Remo is beautiful. Italy is a wonderful place to be in April as the weather is very pleasant. I'm also a big fan of Italian food and so far everything I've tried (spaghetti, lasagne, cappucino, red wine) has all been fabulous. The only thing that bothers me is that most Italians seem to show absolutely no interest in even attempting to speak English. I guess you can't have it all.

EPT Dortmund Day 2

I began Day 2 with just 11k chips and blinds of 400/800/100. The very first hand, a Scandinavian player limped UTG and I shoved with 99 from MP. He folded and I was off to a decent start, up to almost 14k. I was constantly looking for spots to get it in during the next few orbits but no great opportunity presented itself to me. Then came a hand where it was folded to me in the CO and it was a clear any-two situation due to the fact that my stack only consisted of 6.8k. I looked down at my cards anyway (I made the mistake of not doing this once in Vienna and won't be making that mistake again) and was pleasantly surprised to see AKs. Still, I got no callers and so I had 8.8k.

The very next hand, Macel Baran limps UTG and I shove 7d7h for 8.7k, hoping to take down the pot right then and there which wasn't all that unlikely since Marcel had limped UTG a few times already with weak hands. Tobi Reinkemeier was on the button and asked for a chip count, then made the call after a little hesitation. Marcel folded as expected and so it was me HU against Tobi's AQo. The flop came down AhJhJs and I was drawing pretty thin, having just a backdoor flush draw and two outs to my set. Lucky for me, I hit the magical 7 on the turn. Lucky for Tobi, he hit the magical J on the river.

I took it with humor because it's really a waste of time and energy to get all stressed out about busting out. Especially when it's a hand like that where I feel I didn't make any mistakes, there's only so much you can do and then the cards decide your fate. I'm sitting on the train right now back to Berlin and will most likely be using February for some serious grinding as January was pretty expensive for me due to all the live tourneys/travels (made more expensive by a nasty Chinese session last night). I'd like to play 4-6 hours a day and see how long I can last, right now I'm motivated but we all know how quickly that can change.

Here a couple pictures as seen on Pokerolymp.de:

Marcel Baran, Seb, moi, Moritz

Chinese with Seb, Jan, Katja, Vito, Moritz and myself

In Dortmund

Quick update just to say I'm in Dortmund and will be playing Day 1A today, wish me luck!

EPT Baden

I did not survive Day 1 of EPT Baden. My starting table was decent, there were 3 fish and a couple of really predictable old players so I thought I would be able to gradually build my stack playing smallball. However, my stack size began to decrease rather than increase after a couple bluffs were picked off and a couple draws never materialized. I won a few pots back after making some 3bets with nice hands (QQ, AK and AJ) and was back to 8k when the following hand came up:

UTG (superfish Italian, 4.4k stack) minraises to 400 with blinds of 100/200, everyone folds and I am in the SB with 77. I call the extra 300 and see a flop of 8s6s4s. I have the 7s, so I have middle pair + a 1card straight flush draw. I opt to check and see what he throws at me. He immediately bets 1k. To me that looks like a huge bet with an overpair who is now scared to see another spade come off, so I checkraise to 3k, thus committing myself is he shoves his last 1k on top of that. He indeed shoved and I was forced to call. He showed AsQs for the stone cold nuts and I was drawing thin to one out. It did not come and I was crippled.

With blinds of 150/300, I had just under 3k when I posted my BB. The action was folded around to the button, who raised it up to 900. SB folded and I looked down at AA. I obviously shoved, he was forced to call with JTo. The board came down JT972 and I was eliminated.

My flight back to Berlin is on Wednesday, so the plan is to use today and tomorrow as relaxing days. I heard that the hotel offers nice massages, so I'll go check those out with Expekter.

Life is good!

London Shmondon

I headed to the casino on Tuesday to check out Day 1A and see if I could spot any friendly faces. Eventually I ran into Seb so we went back to his hotel room to play some chinese poker to pass the time. We also played 9 Card Omaha, which is a game that consists of 97% luck and maybe 3% skill, but somehow I still managed to lose like every single hand. Niki Jedlicka and Florian Langmann joined us as well, we probably played for about 7 hours. Obviously the swings in those luck games are huge, as were mine, but I managed to end the night just about even after winning the final hand :)

Some people ask "How can you gamble around so much, I thought you were a poker player?" Well, I am a poker player and it's not like I'm gambling against the house. Playing games like that are pretty much neutral EV, so it's basically passing money around back and forth. At the end of the day, it's a fun way to pass time with friends, just like any other games that people play.

I then spontaneously decided to buy myself into EPT London to play Day 1B with part of my buy-in being staked. Little did I know, I would only last just over an hour in the tournament! I made a questionable laydown early on with TPTK and had 6k left when I was dealt QQ in MP. I raised it to 300, the button repopped me to 900, I considered my options:

a) Fold. Mega weak, without reads this would make me the King of all Nits.
b) Call. Not a terrible choice, but tough to play OOP when an A or K flops. I can checkraise a ton of flops all-in, though, squeezing an extra bet out of him from his contibets.
c) Shove. I get him to fold a lot of his range here and take down the pot (1350 chips) without a battle very often. When called, I am rarely in all too great of shape, as I would usually get called by AA, KK, AK or JJ.

After pondering for a few moments I decided to shove all-in and he instacalled with AA. The board came down 679T2 and I was toast. As of right now, Sebastian and Florian are both still in the tournament, so I'll be cheering for them from now on.

I wish this could have happened to me in Barcelona, where I could have at least enjoyed the nice sun and beach. Instead I get cold temperatures and plenty of rain to deal with. I'll probably go out partying with some friends tomorrow night and then fly to Vienna on Friday or Saturday. Expect my next blog entry to be from Austria!

EPT Barcelona Day 3

I messed it up pretty bad. The very first hand of the day I made a resteal all-in with AQo which catapulted me to over 50k after the raiser folded. After letting the blinds go through me, I was on the button with A8o and slightly under 50k. The action was folded to me and I openshoved (16 BBs) only to discover that the BB woke up with AA. That's about the worst possible scenario for me and my hand found no help on a J4242 board. I don't know why I openshoved, I just got caught up in the moment instead of sitting back for a second and analyzing my options.

I came in 52nd place for €10,500, which is disappointing because it's the absolute minimum that was possible after making it to Day 3. I was pretty upset about my play yesterday, even though several people said my shove was OK (probably just to give my mind peace).

I'll consider this amateur mistake a big lesson learned.

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!

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!