That's it for 2009 ... waiting for 2010

Back from the Poker-King Weekend at the PokerRoyale in Kufstein. Unfortunately no big paycheck but still successfull in some way.

Most important: It was a wonderful tournament. That was exactly the kind of structure I like. I was able to get my stack up to 24k from the 20k start but also went down all the way to 8k. Some really heartbraking hands - like having to fold a pair of Aces on a very dangerous flop. But still I managed to get my way back to 17k at one point again. That's real Poker! No need to get desperate after you lost just one important hand. A two hour dry streak? Can be survived. But at some point you have to make your stand even in a great structure like that. With about 40 left I brought my hand to war against Kurt Haindl (one of the two PokerRoyale managers). While I had hit my King with KT on a K67 board he had found two great draws with 89s. Unfortunately it wasn't just us two. While I would have won my hand against him (despite his huge number of outs) we both had been taken out by another guy with AK instead.

The 94 participants played down till 3:30am to the final table and returned today. With an avarage stack that represented an M of just little less then 20 and stacks between 60k and 300,000k there was much play left at the Final Table.

I can't say it often enough: Thanks to Daniel Dawid the tournament director who was brave enough to offer this kind of event in the small city of Kufstein. I'm really happy that this was obviously a great success and hope they will bring back this event in 2010 again.

Beside the tournament there was of course a lot of cashgame action going. After I busted I decided to play some cash too. Didn't know at this time that I was starting an over nine hour cashgame session that ended at 8am in the morning. This was a tough one: long dry streaks, some great hits and a lot of funny happenings. My stack bounced from the original €50 up to €70 and all the way down to €18. Almost dead I recovered and ended the session with a cute €135 win. Not a huge amount of money but a decent result for €0.50/0.50 No-Limit.

So my year 2009 ended somewhat friendly and I am looking forward to 2010. Next goal: getting together the bankroll to play the European Deepstacks Pokerchampionships in February in Dublin, Ireland.

Wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Hope you still enjoy reading my blog and follow my here and/or on Twitter in 2010 again.