My trip to the EDPC III in Dublin

Finally it was there! And I was there - back to Dublin again. There are two events every year I try not to miss if possible in any way. One is of course a trip to Vegas during the WSOP and the other one is this event. This year as well as last year this was a very difficult task as I was away on my girlfriends birthday for that event. But even so she isn't into poker she knows how much I love this event. Thanks a lot for that to her.

Very nice hotel room
very close to the tournament

The good news: the weather is much better here in Dublin than in Munich. About 7 degrees celcius and partly cloudy compared to 0 degrees celcius and snow. And I got a nice and cheap room very close to the venue. The bad news: well, that was it basically with the good news :-(

The event itself was great again. Some minor kinks (like technical difficulties with the second tournament clock) but in general it was well organised. Due to the lowered buy-in of the main-event the number of players was much higher. 465 in the main event, 294 in the €300 side-event and 200 in the €200 side-event.

I had played the €300 side-event and was once again very much card dead. At the highpoint I brought my starting stack of 20k to 21k but from there it went all the way down to 9k. There may be one or two hands that could have been played better but in general I can't blame bad play for the decrease. I got a short break in between were I was able to get back to 19k but then started to go down for a second time.

The tournament area

I had to pass on a great opportunity were I held KQs but was faced with an all-in. I passed here but would have won that huge three-way pot against two weak aces and a middle pair (as I would have hit my king). Right play but wrong outcome. As somebody said: "If you justify your play just by the result you should seriously think about your game plan"

Unfortunately KQs remained one of my best hands and finally my stack hit the bottom at 9k again. But now the blinds had reached 400/800 (75). I decided to push all-in with KT of spades and got a caller from the big blind. Unbelievable. Not that his AJo is a bad hand, but I never went all-in before in that game ... so why does he think he could be way ahead with that hand. He called for a third of his stack for something that was just a coinflip.

The board was as cruel as it could be. Of course an Ace hit immediately, but also two spades for the flushdraw. The turn was another Ace for his set ... but it was the ace of spades for my nut-flush. Sweet! Then the river brought the last Ace to make him quads. Ouch!

Sandra Naujoks with no (good) cards and no luck
at the EDPC

Went out in 170th place after about 8 hours of play. That wasn't they way I wanted it to end but there's not much anybody can do than trying to play good poker. So no cash for the third time at the EDPC ... but I'll be back! And with the deepstack series starting to arrive in other places of Europe too, there should be plenty of occasions.

It was nice to meet EPT Dortmund winner Sandra Naujoks, who played the main-event, for the first time and I had a nice talk with her during a break. Unfortunately she was card-dead too and at the end went out about 100th of 465. But obviously she knows how to fight those long and grueling marathons. Even after a 14 hour day one and another 7 hours in day two she was in a friendly and good mood. It was her first visit to Dublin and like the most firsttimers she immediately liked the city. So I am sure she still enjoyed the rest of her trip after she busted.

Next stop will be the Deepstack at the PokerRoyale in Kufstein. Trying to run better there. Not sure how much poker I will play the next 1-2 months beside that. We just sold our appartement and will move in mid of march from the south of Munich into the outback in the northeast (close to the airport). There's a lot of stuff to do. So I might play less and update less in the meantime.

ChiliPoker Deepstack Open (DSO) Dublin 2010