CAPT Salzburg - Event #1

Haven't played at the Casino in Salzburg for quite a long time now. So I was looking forward for this event. It was a nice, sunny and warm day and I felt really good when I arrived at 2pm for the start of the event. The 126 players included: Thomas Pratter from the "Poker-Club" in Salzburg, Jonathan Luetkenhorst (TD from the CCC in Vienna), Gerhard Schiesser from the "Munich Pokerschool", Christian "chrisrokx" Taepper, Ernst Kollmann and many others. The event started with 5,000 chips and 30 min. levels.

Thomas was seated at my table and lost a huge pot quite early. He didn't show his cards but from his reaction I assume he received a bad beat with a high pocket pair. He had played his hand very aggressively but his opponent hit his ace for a pair. He never recovered from that and had to leave quite soon. Christian "chrisrokx" Taepper went out shortly before the first break. You can find his exit in his own blog.

Our table was broken soon and at the new one this funny hand happened: I found 33 in the SB but an EP player raised it to 1,000 (150/300). I almost said goodbye to may low pocket pair but a player in MP decided to call. Another 850 for a total pot of 3,000 sounded good enough for me. I wasn't severly shortstacked at this time but still below average. The flop was a desaster: T-J-5. I checked, assuming that somebody would bet and I had to fold my hand. But it was checked around. Same on turn and river. Unbelivable, but I had the best hand here and raked in a 3K pot. I assume the original raiser had AK or so. No idea what the caller had.

Unfortunately I had a very aggressive player to my left that destroyed every option to steal the blinds. I knew he played his position and stack but my hand never was good enough to stand up against him. Therefore my stack got smaller and smaller. I lost a big hand against this guy were I had a straight and a flush draw. Unfortunately despite the huge number of outs the draw never materialized.

With 4.5K and 400/800 blinds I finally went all-in with A5s. I got a called and thought to myself "well, bad timing". But I was delighted to see that this guy called me with KQs. I never gave the impression of being a loose player at this table. so what the hell was he thinking I would go all-in with? He put a quarter of his stack on risk for something that he must assume couldn't be better than a coinflip at best. But maybe he could forsee the future ... flop was blank, turn a Q and river a K. Out on 48th of 126 players after 3.5 hours.

As it was still early I went to the "Poker-Club" and played the €30 Freezeout (still had a tournament ticket left that would have been expired soon). Not much to report there. My run of "no cards for playing good poker" continued and I went out 18th of 30 here.

Drove home in a very strange mood. Still wanted to play some poker so I decided for some online play ($10 SnG at FullTilt). Wow! If I got just half of the cards that I received here I most probably would have won the tournament in Salzburg. Quad Aces two times (one time with pockets and one time with three aces on the board). Several Full houses and tricky straights. Some weak players allowed plays like 23s and got punished with A-4-5 flops and simmilar hands. I busted Aces two times. Not really bad beats - they slowplayed and got punished on the flop. Played two of those SnG's and won both of them in a very dominating way as I usually had at least half of the total chips during the bubble play.

Now I feel better again :-)) I already knew that I hadn't played badly at the CAPT event. I just wasn't able to catch anything. But knowing that it can work the other way round or seeing and experiencing it again are two different things.

Still unsure if I play the Pokernews Cup in mid April. Let's see what happens until then and if I can still get a seat on short notice.