Summerfeeling and Poker at Lake Woerth

My trip to Lake Woerth, Austria started with a real good beat. Although I had reserved the smallest rental car category I got a brand new BMW 120d with a mileage count of just 100 miles. So I had a nice, relaxing and enjoyable three hour trip across Austria.

My hotel was located directly at the highway rest stop "Lake Woerth". A hotel in that location doesn't sound too inviting but don't get fooled. For a decent price they offer small but nice and clean rooms. And all of them are lakeview rooms! The Marché restaurant next door offered good food and an outside terrace with a magnificant view over the lake. So I was well rested, well prepared and in a good mood at the start of the tournament.

158 players created a nice pricepool with 18 paid spots and a first prize of almost €8,000. Our table was quite friendly and mostly filled with educated amateurs. Most of them seemed to have played in the team event the day before.

Very often it appears in a tournament that the same opponents get heads-up again and again. In my case it was the young girl on seat 8. I lost our first confrontation but got enough information to value her as decent but tight. Shortly after I got most of what I lost to her back again. And then during level 3 we got into a real big hand. She made a huge raise from MP that cried for AA or KK. Everybody folded to me on the button. I decided that the blinds were still low enough and the stacks deep enough for a call with JT here. In addition this was the first time I got the opportunity to have position on her on the remaining streets.

The flop came 789 rainbow. What a monster. She made a decent bet, I shortly hesitated and then called. Turn was a 3 but now put two hearts on the board. She checked and I made a half pot size bet. She called immediately. The river was a meaningless 6 of clubs and I was still holding the nuts. She did bet again and of course I re-raised her. She open folded AA with a big sigh and I showed her my hand. Why did I do that? First because I wanted her to know that I had a real hand here and second playing the hand the way I played it gained me a lot of respect from the other players after they realized what I had behind. From now they were more carefully when I checked to them ;-) I tried a simmilar stunt against another player who appeared to have AA (and later showed them to me) but missed that time and was able to let my hand go with not much invested in the pot. Small-Ball at it's finest.

Jonathan Luetkenhorst the tournament director then added even more to that respect I already got. As always he does some interviews for the promotional video they create for every event. This time he decided to interview me again and he started with "2 final tables last year, another one this year ... it seems you are our inofficial highest ranked pokertour player". While this of course is a nice accomplishment (although I think Jan Schwarz from the PokerBlatt is equal successfull) I expected my image being totally ruined now. But the opposite was the case. From there I got a whole lot of respect from the table and I was able to take down a good number of blinds and antes without much resistance. This raises a good question: Is it better to appear as a fish or a professional? As always the answer is: It depends. In that case with "educated amateurs" getting respected was the much more valuable option.

Until level 4 (45 min. each) I was able to run my stack up to almost 15k and felt very good. Bustouts came fast and at that time we dropped below 100 remaining players. With table balance needed everywere I was forced to change tables and I was jinxed. In a big hand my TT ran into AA. That hand could have been even more expensive but I was able to resist trying to bluff here on the river. A little later my raise with AJ was faced with an all-in from a short stack. I was more or less commited to call here but doubled my opponent who was holding KK.

We already had reached level 5 with 300/600 (50) blinds now. So losing those two hands became expensive even in a deepstack event that had started with 10k chips ... and I was officially shortstacked now.

I waited for my spot and it came with JJ. The chipleader on my right had raised to 1,500. I went all-in for about 6k and then the second chipleader on my left made one of the dumbest possible moves. He went all-in for about 40k chips. Why was it a dumb move? Because he was holding just AQ! Calling my all-in was o.k. even though he still had to invest more than 10% of his stack ... but raising all-in after the chipleader had raised in front didn't make much sense with that hand.

But he got rewarded twice: First the chipleader folded and then he hit his Queen on the flop. I was out in 92nd position but not unhappy about my play. No big mistakes, no plays to regret, taking calculated risks. Just a bit unlucky at the end.

With no day two for me I decided that I still wanted to enjoy my Sunday here. Especially as the weather was georgeous. So I took an extended breakfast at the hotel terrace and then started for some sightseeing. Drove around Lake Worthersee, enjoyed the scenic view over the lake from the "Pyramidkogel" and relaxed lakeside before I started to drive home.

So I am feeling very good for the upcoming APAT Amateur World Championship in Nottingham - which has a similar deepstack structure. On a funny side note I just saw the odds on the players in the APAT event and my odds are among the top 20 players. Best ten odds are 66/1 and I am ranked 80/1 with another nine players. All others are ranked 100/1 to 200/1. Getting ranked that high really surprised me. Hopefully the results will reflect that ranking ;-)