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Saturday, February 07, 2009

Survived Day 1 of the EDPC side-event, but only 11,400 chips left

What a tournament: Some of my best poker ever, my most costly play, another luckbox hand and a real idiot. Unfortunately only 84 players bought in for the tournament. Expectation was more in the 100+ range. But still a nice prizepool for 9 guys (or girls) between €1,000 and €14,000.

Sorry folks, but I can't tell much about hands I played in this one. There's a huge number of hands that went without a showdown (either won or lost) and I can't tell the competition more about it. Lets just say I forced some really tough laydowns and some of these hands would have looked very interesting on TV ;-))

The whole thing was a real roller-coaster for me but finally I made my way up to 30k when Derek "The Clamper" Williams came to our table. I knew he was one of the better players in that tournament so getting involved in a hand with him required caution.

We exchanged some smaller pots with not much harm being done. But finally got involved in a big hand heads-up. I had Top Pair, Top Kicker and the pot had been grown really big until the river. The river put a possible flush on the board. I was sure he didn't have the flush but my problem was that there was quite a good chance that I was way behind against a set. So I decided to bet once more, he hestitated but finally called and showed the set. He later told me that he almost had folded his hand.

So did I play this hand correctly or was it a big mistake? I'm still biased. I think I could have slowed down on that hand on the flop (and giving it up without much harm). After I still played it on the turn it was then correct to go for it on the river. After that hand I was down to 15k.

In this tournament I was definately more then ever before balancing on the edge of perfect pressure and overpushing. I tend to say that this play against "The Clamper" crossed the line slightly and could have been avoided.

Unfortunately I never really recovered from that hand. With just 10k left I later went all-in from the button with T8 and ran into JJ from the big-blind. At least it wasn't AA this time ;-) But again I hit a perfect 8-x-T flop and magically survived.

From there I was absolutely card-dead and my stack went down from 22k to 11,400 chips. Day 1 is in the books, 18 players left, average is 48,000 and the next blinds will be 800/1,600 (200). Another miracle is needed tomorrow if I want to become one of the nine players in the money. Play continues at 3pm(GMT)/4pm(CET)

About the idiot: Every tournament seems to have one ... and this time he was at our table. This was really one of the most annoying poker players I ever met. He tried to bully the table from the first hand. It worked for some time and after it didn't work anymore he changed to being insanely lucky. Nothing against an aggressive player but this guy was hated by the whole table for a reason: He acted like a real A****. He later got punished with a one round sit-out for using the f-bomb extensively (after already harrasing the table, the dealer and the floor for some time). Some time after that he got a two round sit-out for using the f-bomb against the young lady next to him. You can imagine how happy everybody was after she busted him piece by piece: First with AK vs. A8 and then with AK vs. A9 ... everybody's luck runs out sometime! And everybody should treat good luck like what it is: a real gift. This kind of guy will never understand this.

And here's a little video of the venue. It starts with the running tables of the main-event and then goes over to the empty tables for the soon to be started €500 side-event:


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