My IPO lasted only 6 hours

I woke up well refreshed and felt very good in the morning. A nice breakfast and a 15 minute walk to the bus in the fresh but sunny air was a good preparation for the upcoming tournament. I was there early to take some pictures and enjoyed the atmosphere as the people arrived. With all the empty tables (and later full tables) in the hall it was some kind of WSOP feeling here.

Stephen McLean and his crew did a great job to make this a wonderful tournament with a €134,000 prize-pool. But as expected several people showed up asking if they can still get in paying cash. But Stephen was very clear in the past that only online registered people will play. So he turned them all down. It was amazing how "prepared" several people had been for this. There was a french guy at my table (he's part of some hands below) who didn't have a place to stay for tonight. And he wasn't willing to pay more than €30-40 per night. Good luck! And there was a guy from Portugal that came here without having a confirmation that he was signed in. Very brave guy. But in general there were a lot of happy faces when the tournament started about 20 minutes past noon.

I had a decent start and was able to get my stack from the 10,000 starting chips to 13,000 during the first levels. I didn't play a lot of hands but those I played paid at least something. The most remarkable hand was a limped 78s that made two pair on the flop and improved to a full house on the river. But two pair would have been enough anyway to take that one down.

Somewhat later I got my first beat. I just checked AJ in the big blind and the flop came J-J-5 with two diamonds. To get out a possible flushdraw I decided to bet here. Everybody folded except a french player who raised to double my bet. I called. Turn was a 4, no diamond. I bet half the pot and he called. River was a Ten, again no diamond. No flush and no straight possible. I bet out again and he called ... showing TT for a rivered full house vs. my set of Jacks. Down to 8,000 chips. But still enough chips for decent play. Somewhat later I limped with T9 of spades and the flop came 8 of spades, Jack of spades and a Ten of diamonds. What a flop. I had Top pair crappy kicker and an open ended straight flush draw. And again I was in a betting war with the french guy. Fortunately I had the better end this time. No, I didn't made the flush or the straight but a ten on the river made me a set. Although he folded to my river bet I was back to 12,000 chips.

After our table broke I took down a nice pot with 99 vs. 88 when a 9 showed up on the flop. At the dinner break I was up to 15,900.

After the dinner break I didn't get much to play. With blinds 300/600 in level 7 I raised AQs to 1,800 from UTG. It was folded to the BB who went all in for about 15,000. No way I could call this. Down to 13,600. In the very next hand I received KK in the big blind. MP raised to 1,800 and the same guy from the hand before went all-in from the SB with about 16,000. I had seen the middle position guy raise several types of hands this way so this just meant that he had some kind of hand. And I had him covered (he had only about 6,000 chips left). As I was sure that the all-in raiser didn't have Aces here the only possible action was to call his all-in. There was no way I would fold my Kings here (although I didn't liked the fact that I had to risk my tournament life here). The original raiser went into the tank and finally folded JJ face up. The all-in guy said "bad time for a move" and showed TT. Well, it was the right time ... for him. A Ten on the flop ended a wonderful tournament and I was out in 792nd position of 1072 players after around 6 hours.

This is definately one of the worst ways a tournament like that can end. I will go back later for some cash game and to get more informations about the action as I will write a german report which can be found her at IntelliPoker.