Poker Royale Casino - Night of the busted draws

This was a strange night. As expected the €20+5 tournament had a huge number of mainly unexperienced players that tried their luck before tomorrows team challenge. Unfortunately I couldn't take advantage of that and busted 109th of 281. As the days before I lost my AK's but this night I also lost my important flushdraws. The final hand in the tournament went like that: A MP raiser made it 5,000 to go (750/1500, ante 150) and I went all-in with KJ of diamond (10,500 chips) from the big blind. Of course I was called from the raiser with KQ off-suit. Two diamonds on the flop but no further help.

During the cashgame I met Bernd from Salzburg. A guy I know from the Xing poker-forum. It was nice to chat with him while we played the €1/1 NL game. Unfortunately I couldn't win anything here, too. The end came really cruel as it involved AK and a flushdraw as well: EP raised to €4, one caller and I re-raised to €12 from the button with AK of hearts. Both called. Pot now €38. Flop comes 4-6-4 with two hearts. EP bets $20, the other guy folds and I call immediately for my remaining $24. No wonder that he pays the remaining $4 and shows 88 for two pair. Any heart, any Ace or any King will give me a €86 pot (I bought in for €100). No heart, no Ace and no King ... good night!

But to be fair: While I played a good game in the tournament I didn't play well in the cashgame tonight. I played some hands I should have stayed away from. I played the last hand correctly but I may have gotten much more respect with my re-raise and therefore might have been able to take down the pot early. But even if not, it's no excuse for not playing my A-game!

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Wiener Neustadt - the Poker Royale Card Casino

About 50 km south of Vienna is the location of the Austria's newest cardroom. And if you liked the Concord ... then you will love the Poker Royale Card Casino. Located in an industrial area it doesn't look very appealing from the outside. But once you've passed the door there's only one word to describe it: Wow! 60 Tables in a spacious and nice atmosphere. It's that kind of room were you feel comfortable from the beginning. They also have a nice restaurant with quite good food (including a €9.90 buffet). Beside cash games and their daily tournaments they offer a variation of Sit'n'Gos the whole evening.

Tonight I played the €30+5 tournament. A total of 123 players showed up. One thing I really like is that they play the tournament 9-handed. But the chip values are somewhat unusual. You start with 8,000 and 50/50 blinds. The start stack consists of chips with values of 50, 250 and 1,000. As always the 50's confuse me somewhat in the beginning but you get used to it. Blindlvels of 25 minutes create a decent structure [PF=6.99].

Not many hands to play for me and I found myself shortstacked in the 4th level. A lucky 4 hit the felt with my all-in with A4 vs. AJ. From there I had a great run that pushed my stack from 5,000 to almost 40,000 till the end of that level. That made me the chipleader at our table fo some time. Unfortunately after a table broke I got the tournament chip leader with about 60,000 chips seated left of me. With about 32,000 chips left I had not much to play for the next two levels as he not only answered every action with huge aggression but also was a big luckbox. Short after level 7 had started I finally received a hand. Usually JJ would have been a hand to push with 26,000 chips left and 1,000/2,000 (250 ante). But being UTG and having a very thight image I decided for a raise to 5,000. Mr. Chipleader called and everybody else folded. I was willing to push on the flop regardless of the texture (except if an Ace showed up). The K-K-8 flop wasn't exactly what I liked here. But as he had just called pre-flop I was sure that he most probably wasn't playing a big pocket pair. Most probably Ax or a low pair. Therefore the flop should scare him as well. I pushed ... he instantly called and showed the only hand that scared me on that flop: AK for a flopped set. My tournament life was reduced to two outs. But neither of the Jacks appeared and I was out on 25th of 123 after 4 hours (12 getting paid). Looks like AK is my nemesis this week as I lost a big pot holding AK yesterday and lost my tournament against AK yesterday too.

After a short break I sat down at a cash game table. They have €1/1 NL game (buy-in €20-100) wich is quite interesting. Due to the flat blind structure you get a lot of post-flop play especially playing short-handed to less than full-ring. So if you are a good post-flop player this game offers some great opportunities to outplay your opponents. My impression from the first day is that you find less maniacs at the Royale. So the play in general (tournaments and cash game) is a little more passive but most people lack in post-flop knowledge (pot-size manipulation etc.). I played the €1/1 game for about 2 hours and was able to triple my initial €50 buy-in.

The Royale reccomends some hotels at their website and I decided for the Orange Wings. It's a simple but clean hotel that costs €46 / night plus €7 for the breakfast. If you mention the Royale upon your reservation you get a 15% discount. With free W-LAN this hotel room is all I need for a good poker trip and is another advantage of the Royale over his opponent in Vienna. The hotel is located in an industrial area. By car it's just a few minutes to the Royale. Without a car you can take the bus or a 20 minute hike.

I decided to stay another night in Wiener Neustadt and skipped the Austrian Classics event (€80 w/rb) at the Concord in favor of the €20+5 at the Royale. As they have a team tournament on Saturday/Sunday I expect a good field tonight.

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Vienna - the Concord Card Casino

I accompanied my girlfriend on a business trip yesterday - therefore my way to Vienna was somewhat unusual. First we drove from Munich to Karlsruhe and then went on to Zurich. Today I flew from Zurich to Vienna while she went back to Munich. She will meet me in Vienna three days later for our dance competition in Stockerau.

Tonight I played the €10+3 Rebuy tournament at the concord [PF=8.12]. A total of 161 players created a €5,800 prizepool. I had a great start and doubled up with a boat right on the first hand. About 15 minutes later I got KK and got paid very well against a player holding AQ. Unfortunately that were all my playable hands for the next 75 minutes. I was absolutely card dead till the next to last hand of the rebuy period. In that hand I received AK in LP and reraised a MP raiser. He called and the flop was something like 8-6-3 with two clubs. I made a pot size bet and he went all-in for his remaing chips (I had him covered). I assumed that he hit something (maybe A8) and decided that I didn't have enough outs for a call here. After I had folded he showed me QQ. Too bad. If I assumed a pocket pair here a call would have been correct. I took the add-on but even with that I had to go into the freezout time with a medicore stack.

I caught some good hands right after the break and was able to add a little to my stack. But the blinds and antes started to eat away my chips. I slightly recovered with some nice blind steals but was moved into the blinds two times due to the table break order. Finally I went all-in with K8s (9,000 chips with 500/1,000 blinds and 100 ante) but got called by AK. No help and out on 57th (with 18 places getting paid). In general there was not much I could have done different in that tournament. Of course the AK vs. QQ hand was a key situation as it involved a huge pot. But based on my informations I did the right thing. So I'm still fine with the laydown.

Before I went back to my hotel I sat down at a €1/2 NL cash game and had a good run there. I almost doubled my buy-in due to some weired plays of my opponents but the table went down two 6 players after about 90 minutes. As I wasn't in the right mood for short-handed play I called it a night and went home with a nice win.

Tomorrow I will travel down to Wiener Neustadt (about 50km) to visit the Poker Royal Casino for the first time and play some more poker of course.

REMARK: Last call for the International Poker Open. Registration closes Sunday at midnight. So far 457 players from all around Europe are registered. Rooms in Dublin are already rare (not mainly because of the IPO but some other events). But there are still some left for around €109 per night. Ask Stephen for detailed informations on special room deals. Also some cheap alternatives (hostels) should be still available.

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Bavarian Players Cup ... finally!

Today I took another shot at the Bavarian Players Cup qualifier at the "Schrannenhalle" to qualify for the grand finale in Innsbruck (Austria) were they play for a total prizepool of €50,000. This was the second to last qualifier but I knew that it would be definately my last one (being in Vienna on the last available date). I had tried it 4 times so far. I missed a ticket by just two or three places twice and went out somewere in the middle the other two times.

This time the mainflight wasn't any better. We had a "Jamie Gold"-Wannabe at our table. Well almost, as he wasn't that good in table talk. But he played Jamie's style by playing every possible crap and hitting flops (or rivers) in a miracioulous way almost every time. So after one hour (2 levels) we had lost about 10 people on this table alone and he was up to around 50,000 chips which meant that he had now 10 times his starting chips. I had played one of my tightest games ever (mainly because I was card dead) and was able to play a total of three hands and pick up some chips without showdown in these hands during the first three levels. Finaly shortly before the 4th level (and before getting into dangerzone) I got 44 on the button and made a standard raise. Of course Mr. "Wannabe" called as well as another player. The pot had already 5,000 chips at that time. Flop was low cards but no other 4. No flushdraw, no straightdraw. It was checked around. Turn was a Q and it was checked again. River was a 6 (and paired the board) and Mr. "Wannabe" was betting 1,000 (obviously trying to buy this pot cheaply). The other player folded and I quickly went all-in with my remaining 4,500. He hard a hard time thinking if he should call or not as he put me on Kings here (mainly due to my tight image). Of course I was sure that I was beaten if he called, so I prayed for a fold. Finally he said "I think you have Kings but I have to call". It turned out that he had QJ for a pair of Queens and I was out of the tournament around 90th of 145.

Some of the people around estimated that this guy would easily get one of the four tickets as he had "full control over the other players and the table". But I said that I'm sure he wont't even make the final table. I was right. He wasn't able to change gears and went out around 15th place. That's what I call justice!

But it gets even better: The time I went out I was one of the last to get a seat in the consolation round. That one is basically a freeroll for the first 66 that busted out of the mainflight. You get less chips and the blindlevels are faster. But what makes this one really tough is that it's more or less a "winner-takes it all" format. Places two to four get a free start (worth €35) for the next qualifier but only the winner gets the ticket for Innsbruck. I had a good start and was able to double my chips from 2,500 to 5,000 during the first level. From there I never looked back until the final table. I was chipleader for most of the time with around 20,000 chips during the middle stage of the tournament (about 24 left). At that time I realized that I am on the way to take this thing down. And I would be very dissapointed if a fail here. Unfortunately I couldn't make it past those 20,000 chips (no cards). But at least I was able to keep that level.

As we reached the final ten, I was second in chips with another guy very close. We lost the next six players quite fast but I wasn't able to get much of that pie. So at the end we had four people with quite simmilar chipcounts. It was time for a move and I used the right spots pumping up my chipcount to 40,000. Took out 4th place wit AT vs. AJ when I flopped a Ten (sometimes you need to be lucky). This was one of only two times were I was behind in an all-in race situation for the whole tournament. With 80,000 chips I was now the bully but I failed in a steal attempt from the small blind. He found AQ and I was in bad shape with A6 here. No help and he knocked my stack down to 50,000. But I got my revenge quite fast and that time I was ahead. Up to over 100,000 I had more than 2/3 of the chips entering heads-up play. I almost got my opponent down with AJ vs. 87 but he spiked an 8 on the flop and we were almost equal again. The very next hand I got KK in the small blind. I decided to go for full risk and set a trap by just calling his big blind. I had either pushed/raised or folded so far. And like expected ... he sensed weakness in the call and went all-in. I called immediately and his J8 was way behind. He found some outs with a J on the flop but no more help and I won the tournament and my ticket for Innsbruck.

So what did I win here? It's the entry for a €50,000 tournament with 240 participants (only qualifiers, no direct buy-in). That makes the ticket worth around €208. I tried to qualify for 5 times (but one try was for free) so I spent €140 on that. Well, €68 is still a nice overlay here. The tournament will be held in the Casino in Innsbruck. It will be a three day event with two heats of 120 players in each heat. They play down to 40 each day. The final day will the be the combined field of 80 players. It will be the same deepstack structure as in the mainflight qualifiers, so it's a decent structure to play. The payout schedule is good too. They pay 30 places with €375 as lowest payout and €13,500 for first place.

In general I'm sure this will be a great tournament. But there are two things that I'm not happy about. First the time schedule: You have to be there one day before the first heat to draw for your heat. That means basically you have to be in Innsbruck from Sunday evening till late Wednesday night (if you make it that far). Of course the casino offers a good selection of cash games but it isn't that great for those who just want to play the tournament. The second one is worse: After they had played about 2/3 of their qualifiers they sent around an email saying everybody who qualified has to pay a €35 fee to secure the qualified seat. While in general nothing is wrong with a €208+35 buy-in it's somewhat smelly that they never mentioned this upfront. Things like that leave a bad taste, especially nowadays after the "Asch" desaster.

Anyway, this will be a great tournament and I'm looking forward to this. It looks like the coming months will have some great poker. First Vienna as a warm-up, then Dublin in early October and Innsbruck in early November.

And if you wonder why I'm coming back from a tournament late in the night and sit down at my computer at 5 o'clock in the morning to write this blog entry ... I'm so exited that I can't sleep. Sounds weired, I know. I only won a €208 entry, nothing more. But winning this out of 66 players (basically on my last opportunity) makes me feel so great at the moment.

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Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad is the youngest bracelet winner ever

Congratulations to Annette_15 for winning the WSOP Europe Mainevent and becoming the youngest bracelet winner ever at the age of almost 19 years. The £1 Mio. (approx. $2Mio) she gets for first place is her biggest payday so far and is also the biggest single win ever made by a female at a WSOP bracelet event (Annie Duke won once $2 Mio. at the Tournament of Champions). But the bracelet proofs that she is not only one of the best online players but can compete live too. Of course 362 entrants wasn't that much but the quality of those was tremendous. And Annette Obrestad wasn't shy to compete with those big names. Therefore she eliminated several big name pros's herself including Jennifer Harman and Annie Duke. PokerNews interviewed her shortly after her win. I most like her last answer to the question "what is more enjoyable live play or online" when she says with a smile and without hesitation "live now". I'm sure this won't be the last time we will see her at a final table in a live tournament!

Video found at PokerNews.com

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WCOOP - Event #1 (Hold'em NL, 6 max.)

I thought for a long time if I really want to play this event but finally decided to give it a try and see if it works as well as in the last days.

A total of 4,610 entrants created a prizepool of $922,000 (well over the 400K guarantee).

I wasn't getting too many playable hands throughout the tournament but those I played paid off well in the beginning. Unfortunately in the third hour I was forced to fold several good starting hands due to missed flops. Fortunately a flopped Full House (99 on a 9JJ board) gave me back some chips. With a below average but still decent stack I went into the next next phase of the tournament.

The play became more intense now as we were down to 1.155 players at this time (with 534 getting paid at least $368).

This hour was a real roller-coster ride for me. Starting after the break with 7,595 chips it went all the way down to 3,000. At one point (with still around 6,000 chips and blinds 100/200) I forced myself to fold pocket Jacks to an all-in raise. Being shortstacked I would have called in a second but with a stack still far from danger-zone I wasn't willing to risk more than one third of my chips on that hand and gave up my small blind here. It was a tough decision as I had seen this guy playing some weired hands. On the flipside it was the first time I saw him going all-in pre-flop.

At the time I was down to my lowpoint I got somewhat lucky to double up when I was behind in a 45/55 race. From there I was able to rebuild my stack to about somewhat over 7,000 (150/300 blinds with 20 ante) due to good positional play on a quite tight table.

But finally my raise to 900 with AQ got called. Flop came three low cards (2 hearts). My opponent checked, I bet 1,300 and he raised it to 3,600. I was sure that he was on a draw and had nothing so far. So I went all-in with my remaining chips (about 5,800). He called, being on a flush draw, with Th 9h. Turn was blank but the river brought the infamous heart that ended my tournament in 768th position after little over 4 hours.

Of course, I could have saved those 5,800 chips for a better opportunity. But being just minutes away from the 200/400 blindlevel I decided to take my chances here. Looking back I must say that I made a crucial mistake in that hand. It would have been much better to go all-in directly after his check on the turn. Facing a bet of 5,800 may have prevented him from calling. Betting 1,300 into a pot of 1,950 obviously didn't make it. On the other hand raising all-in for another 2,200 after his check-raise into a pot of 6,850 clearly doesn't have much fold equity. Calling my raise from the BB with that hand was marginal. Check-raising my bet on the flop with a weak draw was a huge mistake, but calling my all-in wasn't. Although I was very dissapointed to leave the tournament this way I can't blame it on a bad beat here. I tried to take my chances but blew it myself by being not aggressive enough. Of course I was considering the check being a trap but pushing or a check/fold would have been the right option here. Betting was clearly the worst possibility to use. That's one of the reasons I hate those "little over danger-zone" stacks. You have to much for push or fold mode and to little to put pressure on people at later streets.

At least I survived most from the Team PokerStars: Greg Raymer (4,022th), Isabell Mercier (3,933th), Bill Chen (3,245th), Daniel Negreanu (1,779th) and Joe Hachem (1,595th).

The next one I would be interested is Event #13 (PL Hold'em) next saturday. As I don't want to fork over $530 directly I will try get a seat via one of the $53+5 satellites

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You have to be on the right track...

...if a bad beat is the only way to stop you.

As already said yesterday I'm gaining more and more confidence with my tournament play. This time I tried the $5.50 rebuy tournament at PokerStars. I'm usually not a big fan of rebuy tournaments but these (as well as the $3.30's) are really great. So much maniacial play. Pick the right spot and the reward can be big. This time I just needed one rebuy and the add-on to build an above average stack at the first break. A rebuy champion (about 20 rebuys) was very helpful to the whole table.

After the break I played only a few but very aggressive hands and increased my stack from 12,000 to 45,000 chips. With blinds 600/1,200 this was the key hand of the tournament:

MP3 ($21,380)
CO ($27,865)
Button ($5,595)
SB ($10,888)
BB ($6,555)
UTG ($26,874)
UTG+1 ($22,815)
Hero ($45,935)
MP2 ($140,850)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with A, A.

UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $1200, Hero raises to $3,600, MP2 folds, MP3 folds, CO raises to $7,200, Button folds, SB folds, BB folds, UTG+1 folds, Hero raises to $45,810, CO calls $20,540 (All-In).

Flop: T, K, 3 (2 players, 1 all-in)
Turn: T (2 players, 1 all-in)
River: 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $75,625

Main Pot: $57,555 between CO and Hero.
Pot 2: $18,070 returned to Hero.

Hero has A, A (two pair, aces and tens).
CO has K, K (full house, kings full of tens).
Outcome: CO wins $57,555. Hero wins $18,070.

Well, there's nothing I could have done different. My money went in with the best hand and I was a huge favorite. But it hurts to lose such a key hand that would have put myself in a good position for making it deep into the tournament. I busted about 30 minutes later on 220th of 1,925 after more than 3 hours of play. Winning $37.82 is almost meaningless in that situation.

Oh, and sorry for that bad beat story. I usually don't like to write bad beat stories. But this hand kept buzzing through my head. So I hope to get it out of my head after writing about it. Oh, and to add insult to injury: About half an hour earlier I was forced to lay down my raised QQ's against a re-raise and a re-re-raise. I was sure that at least one of them had AA or KK. It turned out that I had given them too much credit. They played AQ and AJ (all the money went in pre-flop) and I would have won that hand. But I don't like to moan about that hand. Of course winning that hand would have left me in a much better position after my cracked aces but playing it at all under that circumstances would have been a huge mistake!

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Gaining confidence

As the International Poker Open is just 23 days away I have started to play the PokerStars Deepstack tournament as often as possible. With 30 minute levels and 5.000 starting chips this is the perfect training for the IPO.

And my results are getting better and better. I lasted longer and longer (although I busted on the bubble last week) in the last time. But today I was really successful by making a 5th place out of 206. It was a fight for more than 8 hours and as always it took already 5 hours to make it into the money. Winning almost $250 is a nice thing but the most interesting part is the way how I was able to reach this 5th place.

I was almost card dead for most of the early stages of the tournament. And until the second break my stack was down to 3,000 chips while the average was around 10,000 or so. I resisted to gamble and waited for my spots (which is of course easier with that great structure). On the last hand before the break I got AA and was paid off in a nice way. On the first hand after the break I got KK and received a nice pot again. That brought me up to average. Unfortunately that was it again for a long time with playable cards. So even with the good structure I eventually reached short-stack play and was forced to change into push or fold mode. But again I was able to select my spots (cardwise and position-wise) carefully. I never doubled up but was able to increase my stack slowly. I wasn't in big danger before the bubble but still down at the lower part of the field with 27 players getting paid.

After the bubble bursted the whole play became looser and I was able to take advantage of it (as I was doubled up two times and took down some good pots). Unfortunately just before the final table I was the lowest stack again. I sneaked into the final table and doubled up with my greatest hand of the tournament when my 99 vs. AQ improved to quad 9's. But finally my TT ran into a AJ and a flop that contained another J.

Of course I had my fair share of suckouts (I think I was behind in two crucial confrontations) and won some important coinflips (being ahead when the money went in). But I was amazed how you can get that far without many good cards. But "Patience and Aggression" are most important here. Therefore my stats look very good in that tournament: VPIP 12.01% / Went to Showdown 21.82% / Won at Showdown 58.33% / Aggression Factor 3.86

No surprise my results are better the deeper the structure is. I know this for some time now. But I'm getiing more and more on the right trail in my tournaments. This gives much confidence for the coming tournaments in Vienna and Dublin.

Being mentally exhausted is quite normal after that long time. Especially as I had played a rebuy tournament for 3.5 hours late last night until I busted as 236th out of 2,068 for a small win (as I only invested the buy-in and an add-on). But that reminds of a nice video I found some time ago. The theme is "endurance" and I really like it ... of course (but not only) because they use swing music for it.

"Endurance - because it's a marathon not a sprint"

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August Update

Sorry to my fellow readers for not updating the blog since early August. But I have an excuse! I was busy ... playing poker :-)

I played exclusively tournaments for more than a year now as most of you may know. But I decided that it was time to get back into the cashgames. First I played some live games and addded then online cash games. For the live games I played $1/$2 (mostly PL) while the online play was mostly $0.5/$1 NL.

I logged a total of 6,721 hands in 105.5 hours playing online (no multi-tabling, just one table at a time!). Therefore I reached one of my goals and became Silver Star at PokerStars. Unfortunately I wasn't able to reach the more important goal (winning money) as I ended up in the red. I had a good start but ran into the worst downswing I ever had in poker. For a full week I wasn't able to win any coinflip, hit any important flop, and so on. The total downswing was 10 Stacks from my 2 stacks peak. I can blame about two or three stacks to my own mistakes but at least seven stacks are definately belonging to the bad side of variance.

I am now using PokerTracker, especially for analysing my own game. My latest stats still could be better but I think I'm on the right path here:

• VPIP 17.54%
• PF-Raise: 8.37%
• Total AF 1.37

My total bankroll would have allowed to continue with $0.5/$1 NL but losing half of what I put aside as a cash game bankroll was a major hit. So I decided to step down to $0.25/$0.5 NL. I will stay there until I get back at least 50% of my previous loss.

Regarding tournaments I had good and bad times but today missed a huge opportunity. In the $25,000 guaranteed $3+$0.30 Rebuy at PokerStars I was in a good position (around 30th place) with 250 of 2,203 left. I received AKo in late position but had a 6 times raise (8,000) and a call in front of me from two stacks that really could hurt me if they pushed on the flop. Additionally I had a much bigger stack behind me in the big blind. So I chickend out here just to see an AAx flop. Oh my god! The initial raiser bet out 18,000 and the caller folded. This hand would have put me in a huge position. Shortly after I lost two coinflips (no complaints as I had my share of good luck in that tournament) and went out 206th (winning some pocket money).

The registration for the IPO in Dublin is open for another four weeks. They have now almost 100 players signed up and another 100 that said they will sign up later that month. I'm not sure they will reach the 1,000 but I expect them to get past 500 without any problems. I'm registered, my flight and hotel is booked ... so I will be there. If there are any players from Germany, Austria, Switzerland that will be there too (and I haven't contacted you yet) please get in touch with me. There will be a little story about two weeks before the event at IntelliPoker. And of course we will try to follow the results of the german speaking players during the event.

Shortly before my trip to Dublin I will be in Vienna for a dancing competition. I haven't decided yet if I will play the €80+15 Rebuy at the Concord during the Austrian Classics [PF=9.84-11.98] but I will play some tournaments at the Poker Royal Casino in Wiener Neustadt (50 km south of Vienna).

Beside that I will continue playing cashgames online and hopefully will be able to play some cashgame in Vienna too.

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