Nice cash in Salzburg (but not in the tournament)

As we danced a Boogie-Woogie competition on Saturday near Salzburg this was a good opportunity for a visit to the Concord Card Casino in Salzburg. Unfortunately the summer took a break and it was a horrible weekend in regards of the weather with a lot of rain.

My tournament started very good. Special thanks to two awful players who donated most of their stacks to me. During the first two 25 min. levels I went from a 5k startingstack to 11k. But in level 3 (50/100) this hand broke my tournament:

I got AA in early position and raised it to 250. This was my standard raise and I had shown a lot of decent hands already with that raise during that tournament. Three callers. The flop came 5-2-7 with two hearts. The pot was 1k and I bet 700. First player folded. Second went all-in for 5,700 and third one called all-in for 2,800.

Uuups, that wasn't like expected. I had already seen a lot weired play at this table. But 5,700 at this level into a 1,700 pot was a huge overbet and usually desigend to take the pot down right now. What could he have? Most probably a big pair. Flushdraw was possible but for some reason I gave the flushdraw to the smaller stack. I ruled out a set as I don't think he would have played it that way. Maybe the smaller stack could have the set but I was of course focused on the bigger stack here anyway.

It was a borderline decision for me. In a deep-stack my aces may have gone into the muck as I wouldn't have been interested in a gamble in that early stage. In this format, with 25 min. levels and the next blinds being 100/200 (25) and 200/400 (50) there was no way I discard this hand on that flop.

But the showdown was a desaster: The smaller stack showed 48s for a baby-flushdraw (as expected) while the big stack showed a surprising 52s for two pair. That indeed was the only hand I really had feared in that setup. No help and I was down to 5.5k. Didn't get many cards in the next level and went out in level 5 with TT versus QQ.

Shortly after my exit they opened a new €1/2 NL casgame table and I decided to jump into that game. As always patience pays off in a cash game. The table had 3 decent players and 3 who splashed around with chips. They loved to do straddles and showing big bluffs. Unfortunately I didn't get the right cards for a long time and my stacked dipped heavily. But finally I started to hit and it was amazing that even after I had shown several times that I have a hand when I play it strong I got customers all the time. Left the game after 4 hours with a €322 net-win. So far I am up in 4 of my 6 sessions I played since I started playing live cashgame again.

Not sure what and how much I can play in June and July but I have fixed plans for the Pokertour.at in Kärnten and the APAT - World Amateur Poker Championship in Nottingham in August.