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Sunday, October 23, 2005

Card Dead in Bregenz

Well, let's start with the ups before I tell you about the downs.
Bregenz was my first tournament after I started playing poker and I had good memories and was in a good mood on my drive to the Casino.
The tournament had a 40 player max and was a smaller event than that in March. They have this small one again on Nov. 19th and two bigger events in early December and beginning of 2006.
Again the two organisers Joe Fuchshofer & Edgar Stuchly ran the tournament very well. No big trouble and small incidents were handeld very professionally. They offer free juices, water and snacks during the tournament. After about 3 hours there was a break and they offered a full meal in the restaurant. A computer displays the current blind level, remaining players and average Stack.

The EUR 100,- buy-in with rebuys and one add on after the first hour created a prize pool of little over EUR 10.000,- (1st got about 3.500,- and 6th about 500,-). First 3 level were 20 minutes each. After that 25 minutes. 2000 chips with blinds of 25/50 in the first level. Add-On got you 4000 chips.

They had a lot of "newbies" there so I thought it could be a good tourney. Unfortunatly I was sent to the most difficult table: Three or four players that are tournament regulars. One of them even cashed more than once at this years WSOP. I don't like him and his style but he definitly is a difficult opponenent. To make things worse I was card dead from the beginning. Execpt for two or three All-In-Semi-Bluffs that went well I had seven hands that had been really playable. And I'm not talking about tight play - I'm talking about hands that could be played only by a maniac (e.g. 7,2 or 9,3 unsuited of course). Four of them went well: Two times queens held against weaker opponents, one time I didn't had two show JJ's on the river. The last I can't remember right now. The three others became crucial for my result: First I overplayed AJs. I had to go All-In after the flop with a straight draw but run into AA's. No nine on the river and I had to rebuy early in the tournament. After about 3 hours into the tournament I was down to 2.600 (average was 7.000) but managed to get back to average due some well timed all-in-bluffs with semi-valuable cards (e.g. K9s). I could even follow the average up to 10.000 were I reached my peek. With Blinds of 400/800 my stack started to decrease fastly. Down to 5.000 a good situation came up: It was folded around to my small blind. The big blind was the short stack with 2.600 at our table and I raised all-in with 10,10. I was sure he would call and he did. I expected him calling with a medicore hand and was reliefed to see 2,2. Unfortunatly the turn brought a 3rd two and no help on turn and river. Crippled after that bad beat I was able to steal some blinds and be back to around 5.000. With blinds of 800/1600 it was now time for a big move again. Average stake was about 16.000 at this time. Again I got a playable card at the right time: A,10s I went all-in and got one caller. Unfortunatly I ran into AQs and the Queen-Kicker held and I was out on 16th place.

Am I disapointed? Yes, somewhat. I felt good before the tournament and there was a lot of fresh fish. With average to good cards it should have been easy to get into the money. But with the awful flow of cards I should be happy that I managed to make 16th place. I even survived the "WSOP"-Guy who was chipleader during the first 90 minutes.
I told you in an earlier blog that I feel that my cash game has improved. This tournament showed me that my tournament game has improved as well. Two or three months ago I would have been out much earlier...

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