Easter Special Poker Tournament at Casino Savoy (Czech Republic)

Once again I drove up to Česká Kubice for a very good structured tournament at Casino Savoy (organized and held by pokerandmind.com). Just recently the pokerroom was moved into a separate area. Although it's a bit cramped with 6 tables in there its a very nice location with it's own bar and service (and restrooms not far away). The whole style of the room is somewhat countryside-like. You may like it or not ... I must admit I do.

With 6 tables available they had split the event into two starting days. Unfortunately Easter doesn't seem to be the best choice for an event like that and the good weather wasn't helpful either. But they still got 42+35 participants creating a good prizepool of €18,000.

With 12,000 startchips and slow 30 minute blinds there was again room for lots of play. The PF=22.82 is lower than in the Pokertour event last week but anything over 20 can always be considered as a good structured tournament.

Unfortunately it wasn't my day and the hands I received would have been good enough to bust in three tournaments in a row. First hand in the tournament I raise ATs in late position and get a re-raise from the big blind. Easy fold ... he shows KK. Second hand in the tournament I get AKo (Ace is a club). This hand goes till the river on a Jc-9c-3c-8h-Tc board. I had raised pre-flop and bet the flop. We checked the turn and the other guy then bet the river. This guy was either a complete donk or...! I smelled a rat and just called. He showed me then KQ of clubs for straight flush. I know a lot of people that would have been busted in that hand. He was shocked to see that I just called his bet with the "not-so-nuts-nut-flush" ;-)

I continued to get decent cards but wasn't able to profit much from them. A little later I got KK in middle position. There was a raise in front from a guy who earlier rivered me with K3o (hitting a 3 on the flop while I hit my Ten with AT and paying all streets until he finally hit his King). I called the raise and another player called the raise too. Flop came A-K-x. The original raiser bet 3k (which was a reasonable bet). As he had only 3k left behind and there was a flushdraw on the board I went all-in for 11k to shoot-out the other player. That guy thought for a long time and finally folded (later telling he had AQ). The raiser called and guess what he had? AA for the higher set!

Down to 4k and then made my way up to 21k again due to two dumb plays of players that thought they were smarter then they are. But the blinds already had been costly now and I went down to 13k again when we reached two tables. There I found AK on the button. Everybody folded to me and I raised to 2,000 with blinds 400/800 (75). The big blind put me all-in with a 15k bet and I decided to call. There are a lot of circumstances were I could discard AK. But 600/1,200 (100) blinds were close around and this move could have easily been an attempt to get me off the hand (he had about 45k total). Unfortunately it wasn't ... as he had AA. Flop got me some outs but none appeared on turn and river. Went out 18th of 35.

Must admit I wasn't to unhappy. The way this whole tournament went I could have easily been out after 30 minutes. That I lasted that long showed that even with bad cards and bad beats you can survive longer then you might think if you do it the right way.

The tournament didn't went much better for Thomas and Silke from minraser.me so we sat down and had some nice talks about our last tournaments for a few hours before I drove back home.

Will play the low leg of the SCOOP main-event. You can follow me on twitter (@ShadowBJ21) if you like ... and of course there are still some shares available on ChipMeUp ;-))