My first Venetian DSE and stories from the Rio

I was in a good mood entering the Venetian and got a very good start: Tight table and decent cards in the beginning including AA, KK, QQ and a set of sixes. During the first level (50/100) I was able to pump my stack from 12k to 13k already.

Then during Level 2 (75/150) I made a horribly bad play. I had hit my straight but the board showed a possible flush too when my opponent made a 6,000 chips bet into a 3,000 chips pot on the river. This smelled so wrong. Why would he bet so high if he had hit his flush? Did he really want to chase me away? I finally called and it cost me half of my stack as he indeed had the nut-flush.

The call was a huge mistake on my part (regardless if I was ahead or not). At this stage of the tournament there was no need to play a hand as big as that with anything less then the nuts.

Down to 7k I tried to calm down and decided that I still had way enough chips for playing good poker. And that's what I did. My stack went up to 9k very soon.

In the meantime a "famous guy" came to our table: You may remember the guy who was sitting there in his under-shirt while hitting a Royal Flush at the 2008 Main-Event? Well he still looked the same and I really hoped it wasn't the same undershirt anymore :-/

But to be honest, I liked this guy. He was a very bad poker player but nice at the table. Courtesy to him I made it back to 15k (and he soon left after that) in a hand that he played absoluty awful. Any decent player would have been able to get me off that hand and scoop the pot.

From there I made it to my highest point of 18k when we reached the blinds and antes. With about 3,5 hours of play the level was now at 200/400 (25) when the final hand appeared.

The setup: An asian guy - very aggressive. Had played several pots with him and lost most. Think that he was a good bluffer but didn't had the hand to proof so far. An older Lady - decent player. Had accumulated many chips since she came on our table (and busted one guy). And me of course - the victim.

Asian guy raises to 1,275 from UTG. I find AKo in MP and decide just to call his raise. Split decision here. In many cases I would re-raise with the antes already kicked in but I wanted to see a flop before inversting more (and tried to avoid him re-raising me pre-flop). The Lady just called from the blinds.

Flop comes K-7-5 and the Lady checks. So most probably she had missed the flop completely. Asian guy bets out 3k (as expected). I didn't give him AA here. Maybe AK too or a high pair. Maybe he has just nothing. So a re-raise may take down the pot directly. I make it 11k and the Lady ... calls! What? That was very surprising as I didn't had her on the radar at all anymore. At least for the Asian my plan had worked. He folded. Now I was in deep trouble. With over 25k in the pot and less then 5k behind I was committed anyway to go all-in on the turn. Turn was a 5. She checks again and I go all-in. She calls and I know I am doomed: The Lady shows 77 for a flopped set and turned full house. No help on the river and I am out in the high 600s of 840 players.

Wow, that was a perfect play on her part. Obviously she knew that those two aggressive players will battle on the flop and she could sit back and enjoy. Of course I was unhappy to leave the tournament but I prefer to bust like that against an opponent who played it well rather then against a luckbox.

I don't know if this play has a name but I would call it "reverse sandwich". By just checking the turn and knowing the Asian will bet out anyway she put me in a real bad position. Had she raised I never would have re-raised. I may have called but there was a slight possibility I would have at least survived the hand. She had shown "weakness" and I fell into her trap.

Over to the Rio to check out the action there. Right in time to see Jeff Lissandro winning his bracelet in the Stud-Game. Then looking for Cort in the 2,5k six-handend event (as I have 1% on him). He had little over average and was sitting at the table with Eric Froehlich and later the former Main-Event winner Jerry Yang.

A good number of german speaking players reached the end of Day 1 in this one: Daniel Zink, Lennart Konst, Johannes Strassmann, Thorsten Schuler, Claudio Rinaldi, Hanno Offen and Rob Sterken. But at the top of the list and second in chipcount there was Nasr El Nasr (7th EPT - Prague).

Over to the Omaha High-Low which had at least one poker star on any table. Annie Duke, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Phil Gordon and many others. Even Phil Hellmuth who made it deep into the event but again missed a good result in a non-hold'em event.

And finally there was the final table of the 5k-No-Limit with the german Fabian Quoss. Fabian went in as the chipleader and rolled over the final table. One of his victims was Ivan Demidov's girl friend Lika Gerasimova. Then he went into the heads-up with a 4:1 chiplead against Brian Lemke. And Brian was the only one to stopp him. He shortened the difference piece by piece and finally turned it around and took down the bracelet. Still a great success for Fabian Quoss who earned $427,911 for his efforts.



So today I wont play a big tournament. Maybe a smaller one but mainly will check out how the action evolves in the Rio.