Bleeding chips in the big one but taking down the side event

Last weekend I checked out the Kings Pokerroom in Rozvadov, CZ (close to Waidhaus). They have started a series with a €250+25 buy-in on Saturdays during July/August. The tournament sounded very promissing as they offered 10,000 startchips and 45 min. levels (Level 1-3 were 30 min.). In addition they have a guaranteed prizepool of €50,000 ... a huge overlay as they got between 100 - 150 players during the first tournaments. This weekend they had 112 players. A decent tournout as there was another big tournament in Cheb (which is not far away) running at the same time. They gave a €275-Buy-In-Ticket to players placing 16th - 30th. This ticket is non-transferable and has to be used in about 4 weeks. In addition every of the 15 paid spots gets the ticket too as part of their payout.

Unfortunately my tournament day was over after just four levels and I was really bleeding chips this time. I never lost a huge pot or made a major mistake. I even had a monster laydown with AK were I had hit TPTK and was up agains a rivered straight. But I should have known that I was doomed when I realized that I forgot my lucky dinosaur (my card protector) in the hotel room. And I was indeed jinxed. When I was holding red cards the board came all black. When I played unpaired facecards the board was all small cards. I had pairs ... there were at least two overs on the board. And of course with suited connectors the board was all face cards.

No wonder I went out in 92nd position of 112. But the same continued then in the cashgame too. It just wasn't meant to be and I went back in my hotel at 4 in the morning really unsure what to do. The options were: driving home after breakfast, playing some more cash on sunday afternoon or playing the One Rebuy + Add-On tournament at 6pm. Still unsure I arrived at the Kings around noon hoping to find Thomas & Silke who had made it into day 2. We talked for some time and then I railed them as no cash game went through this afternoon.

Silke busted before the paid spots (but got a ticket again). Thomas eventually won the tournament (at the end they split the prize money 4-way). At this time I was already sitting in the rebuy-event which had a decent structure for a €60 buy-in. The levels lasted 20 minutes with a moderate increase (no antes). With 3,000 chips + 3,000 rebuy and 6,000 add-on you got plenty of play. I was running much better here then the day before but during the middle stages my stack shrinked from 19,000 to 9,000 very fast as the blinds now started to get expensive and I had to give up some good opportunities.

I managed to reach the final table but did it as the absolute shortstack. There I got my daily lucky hand as I was all-in with A5 vs A6 hitting my 5. Still short with 18,000 chips I was now at least in the position to put selective pressure on several people and raised my stack to 38.000 with 7 players left. Now came the hand that turned everything around: I was holding AK when a decent player went all-in for almost 50,000 and I was sure that he didn't have AA or KK as he seemed to be very unhappy as soon as I asked for a count. So I expected that the worse I could get was a coinflip. With just four spots paid and the fact that everybody was shortstacked already this was a decent opportunity to call. You may imagine how delighted I was to see that I was up against AQ.

With now around 80,000 chips I was chipleader and everything had changed. Somewhat later I got a real present from the second in chips. At this time we were already down to six players. I had AJs and called a raise from this guy. Flop was 2-K-7. I checked and he checked too. Turn was a Jack. I checked again and he bet. For some reason I was sure he didn't have the King. So I re-raised him all-in and he called with A9s. Wow! The river blanked and he was out (of the money) while I was now sitting on 140,000 chips. Remember: about an hour and five eliminations before I had barely 9,000 chips!

But there was another guy who had a great run at the final table. The one who ran his AQ into my AK. He was down to 8,000 chips after that hand but managed to accumulate chips and finally we both went into heads-up almost equal in chips. It was a great heads-up as nobody of us was short at this time and we both liked to play post-flop poker. Eventually I managed to win the tournament for €1,355.

This put a great ending to a rather tough weekend. But despite my bad run on Saturday this place is a real reccomendation! It's a nice and clean place that offers very good tournaments and a wild but profitable cash game (at least in the €1/3 level that I played). On Saturday they had also games at €2/5, €5/10 and even on game at €20/40 running.

Almost all kind of drinks are free and there is a very tasty buffet almost all-day around. The service personal is among the friendliest I've ever experienced (even compared to very good american standards). The only real downside are some of the german guests that still seem to think they are superior and treat the czech people in a way that isn't appropriate in my opinion. Although you may still feel like being in Germany in that place you are not! We should always remember that we are just guests and should behave that way. I am happy to be a guest in a country so close to Germany that allows me to play my favorite game legally.

In general the tournaments are run in a decent way but the floor has to get a little bit more experienced. Especially the rebuy-event went a little hectic at one point. But I have no doubt they will get this sorted out very soon. This is really a place and tournament I can reccommend for everybody who loves to play good poker and wants to enjoy their time in addition. If my schedule would allow it I would be back in the next weeks for sure.

Their series ends with a €750 main event on August 22nd/23rd (if I remember the date correctly) ... I really hope they add a little for the higher buy-in by making the main event 60 min. levels and offering maybe 12K or 15k starting chips. But so far no details are published about the main event yet as far as I know.

I really wish them success with their series and I would be happy if they decide to either extend it or run it again in fall. In that case I would quote Arnold "Terminator" Schwarzenegger: "I'll be back!" :-)

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WSOP 2009: The good guys and the bad guy of the November Nine

The WSOP is over and I am back to Germany for several weeks now. But of course I followed the action closely. The WSOP main event was and is still one of the most impressive things in the world of poker. And this year everything was even better.

Compared to the last years there had been less problems then ever and almost everything went the right way. The only "glitch" was the sell-out at Day 1D ... but I think Harrah's made the right decision. It was and is my opinion that everyone who got shut out can blame nobody then himself!

The main event saw a lot of interesting names lately including Dennis Philips, Joe Sebok, Peter Eastgate, Antonio Esfandiary, Ludovic Lacay, Tom Schneider, Blair Rodman and many others. In addition the german Marco Mattes had a great run and ended 23rd out of 6,494.

Joe Sebok (the inventor of Pokerroad Nation) as well as Dennis Phillips (a great guy who showed an incredible performance again and was only stopped by a rather bad beat) clearly belonged to the favorites of the masses. It was a sad moment to see both getting busted in the 2009 main event.

Only one guy was able to go ahead of those two! Not only regarding fans but also regarding result. ESPN and Harrah's will obviously thank the poker gods that one of the best players alive made it to the "November Nine" in the 40th anniversary year of the WSOP. Although Phil Ivey is on the lower end of the chipcount he will be good for great TV and I assume that except for his eight tablemates and fans almost all people in the poker world would love to see him take down this event.

"Ivey is Jordan, Einstein, Picasso, and Mozart all rolled into a one professional gambler"
from Tao of Poker

Every year again there is the question "will a well known pro ever win the main event again"? Every year the answer was "No way, won't happen anymore". This year can be the year. It already was the year of the pros: Three bracelets for Jeffrey Lissandro and two for Phil Ivey, many cashes for Daniel Negreanu and final tables for many other well known names.

But Ivey has to face a stack more then six time bigger then his own. This stack belongs to Darvin Moon. The difference couldn't be bigger. Moon doesn't have any big results in the books so far. But from what I heard he got great cards and made the best of it. It will be hard to overcome this monster stack. Moon reminds me in many ways of Dennis Phillips. He's not a professional but the nice guy from your neighborhood. So different and down to earth compared to some other crazy guys in the pokerworld. To play good poker you don't have to enter the Amazon room as Julius Caesar ;-) Also I am rooting for Ivey to take it down I think I wouldn't mind if Darvin Moon would make it instead. Oh, and isn't it funny that today is the 40th anniversary of the first men landing on the moon. It's the "day of the Moon" ;-)

Enter the bad guy! Beside Ivey there is another well known name at the final table. If you had asked me a few days ago I would have loved to see Jeff Shulmann from Cardplayer Magazine at the final table. But since yesterday I lost every respect for this guy. Imagine there are thousands of players that have a dream - the dream of winning the main event one day. There are people like me that stay up all night to catch the action there because this is the event for almost all poker players.

And now this guy says that he will "throw the bracelet into the garbage" if he would take down the event! Isn't that horrible? I wouldn't mind if he said that he won't ever wear it because it doesn't look nice. But what he said lacked every possible respect against a great event and is a slap in the face of every poker player. Even worse is his reasoning. He thinks that Harrah's treated him and Cardplayer Magazine unfair by selling the media rights to Bluff Magazine. So why play here at all? This guy has a passion for business but no passion for poker.

Ivey winning the main event - great for poker. Moon winning the main event - good for poker. Anybody else except "Garbage Jeff" - probably good too. "Garbage Jeff" winning - horrible for poker.

I never ever did this before (not even for Jerry Yang) but this November I am rooting for Jeff Shulmann getting busted as soon as possible!

Isn't that great? A guy like Phil Ivey who already achieved so many things in poker still has a dream - the dream to reach a main event final table. This dream has now come true for the one and only Phil Ivey!

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My coming events in summer and early fall

It's some time since the last update so here comes a little wrap up and a list of my coming events for the next months.

Hadn't played much since Salzburg but last weekend I went back to Ceska Kubice in the Czech Republic. The Casino Savoy now has a weekly €50+7 DeepStack tournament. Well, personally I wouldn't call it "DeepStack" as it has a PF=12.56. But still for that buy-in it is a very good structure (and has a lot of weak players).

I started off very well by doubling up with AA vs. QQ but again lacked playable cards in the middle section of the tournament. Finally my chips went in with JJ and I was called by A9c on a two clubs flop. Of course a club hit on the river. :-(

So I went on with my cashgame experiment and again left with a nice €186 win at €1/2 after 4 hours. Most remarkable hands: Getting QQ and KK in a row and hitting my set both times on the turn. Got a decent payout on both hands. Another huge hand was QQ vs TT with Full House over Full House.

Looks like I'm still running better in cash then in tournaments. But I love playing tournaments so much more. Let's see how this develops in the future...

On July 18th I will travel to the Czech Republic again. The Kings Pokerroom in Rozvadov now offers a PF=18.67 two-day DeepStack event. Again this is a weekly tournament during the summer.

Mid of August I finally will be able to play the Pokertour.at again (LM Kärnten). Had to miss some events due to other appointments. End of August will see a trip to Nottingham for the APAT World Amateur Poker Championship at the Dusk Till Dawn. The Pokertour.at has a close stop in early September in Innsbruck. Of course a thing I don't want to miss.

And then there is October and I am really happy that this years International Poker Open in Dublin doesn't conflict with my other appointments. Was really sad that I had to miss this great event last year. I was able to catch a flight for this with Ryanair from Memmingen for just €18! Adding another €40 for the train ticket makes it still less than €60 for a return flight to Dublin. Wow! I expect my gas bill to Rozvadov next week will be about the same amount ;-)

It's a kind of tradition that the german speaking people who travel to the IPO make a little meet-up before the event. This year we will meet in a pub in the center of Dublin on Thursday Oct. 15th at 7pm. So if you play that event too please contact me and I will give you the exact location.

So as you can see there is a lot of poker planned already. And there are several other plans that are not fixed at this time. I will let you know a soon as I know more ;-)

Promise that the next blog entry will be much more interesting ... just trying to keep the tension up with that one. Next destination: Rozvadov, Czech Republic and another one of the deepstacks I love so much!

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