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50k guaranteed, Kings Casino Rozvadov, Czech Republic

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Too sad ... no Day 2 for me again

Cologne in the early morning
In the beginning all looked perfect. I had a nice trip to Namur with an ovenight stay in Cologne. Arrived on time and even got my hotel room before the 2:30pm start.

Then I got the first cooler: The table draw put me into the 10-seat. Not only do I dislike that seat (as probably most people do) but it got me limited view to two key players on my table. In seat 1 there was a guy who later went on tilt after a bad beat and started to over-raise and over-reraise a lot. To make it worse in seat 2 was the table chipleader who also liked to re-raise a lot with his big stack.

So from the beginning this was a tough table and I never was able to get a decent stack together. I went down to 40k in the first few hours. Then back to 48k hitting my set of Kings on the flop. My opponenent had raised pre-flop and then just called my re-raise. He then bet the flop again with 4k. I reraised him to 15k assuming that he had aces. As he only had about 10k left after calling my bet this would have been a good spot for him to push. Unfortunately he folded after a long time in the tank.
Namur Main Station

Then I went into a hand with a female asian player. I tried to bluff her from the hand but unfotunately she had flopped a baby straight. Well played by her. Bad mistake by me. That hand brought me back down to 40k.

From there nothing went right anymore. I got nice (but not very good starting hands) but either didn't connect to the board at all or hit what was most probably only second best hand.

So without losing any big pots my stack dwindled down to about 18k after 7 hours of play. In the 300/600 (75) level I finally picked up AK in the big blind and got presented a great opportunity: Mr. Tilt again raised to 2.5k (a very decent raise for him btw.). Seat 3 re-raised to 4.5k. Everybody folded to me. Mr. Tilt wasn't the problem. He could have had anyting. But Seat 3 had a hand for sure. But as he has acted against Mr. Tilt it was a wide range of possible hands and I figured that I am 50:50 against him here. So I pushed all-in and Mr. Tilt immediately folded. Seat 3 thought for a long time but finally decided he couldn't fold his Q's. Bordeline decision in my opinion as this was my first all-in move and he put half of his stack on risk. I was fine with the coinflip as a win would have brought me back to over 40k.

One half of the tournament room on Day 1b
Well, let's put it that way: There was indeed an "Ace on the River" ... but it didn't help me as the guy already had hit his set on the flop. Too sad :-(

So I may play the first side event tonight but it depends on how many players will bust out. At this time only 60 seats are assigned and I am number 46 on the waiting list. So let's hope they bust out quickly ;-)

Namur Old Town
Namur seems to be a nice old city but the Casino has seen better days for sure (as well as the hotel). But you can always present things in the right light to let them shine (see below).

While the structure of the event is absolut great the local organisation has some real loopholes. Having dealers on an international event that don't even understand english spoken numbers or the word "call" is an absolute "No-Go". The registration for the side-event is nearly impossible as the local people from the casino (who manage the registration) seem to be absolut uninterested. I think you can't blame the people from Chili Poker and D4Events for that. They are doing a great job. But it seems they had to give up a lot of the "daily business" to the local casino for some reason. And that's exactly were the organisation gets worse compared to Dublin.

Still enjoying my time and hoping to get into tonights event...

Casino de Namur at night

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Thursday, July 29, 2010

DSO Namur Weekend ahead

Now it's there! The Deepstack Poker Open Namur started today at 2:30pm. Well, in reality they started yesterday with a supersatellite but today is Day 1A.

I will play Day 1B ... flying to Cologne this evening and continuing by train tomorrow morning. Really looking forward to that event. Especially after my two final tables in the last two weeks. As expected the event was sold out days before the start and I am happy that I secured my seat early enough to participate in my first 50,000 startstack / 1h level tournament.

With that huge number of chips I am thankful for a recent blog post from a friend of my old Black Jack days that reminded me that these kind of tournaments are won the "Beppo Way". If you already know what I mean you are most probably my age and have read Momo in your youth. If not, just read Bellatrix's post here.

Of course I will keep you updated via Twitter (or just see the twitter box on the left). There won't be wireless coverage in the casino but in the adjecent hotel. So expect updates mostly during breaks. Follow if you like or just look for the hashtag #dsonamur. I'll try to add that to all DSO related tweets. Hopefully other will follow so you may find tweets from others playing at the DSO Namur. But be warned ... most of those tweets will be in french for obvious reasons ;-)

Will be an interesting tournament with the huge number of french players. Most of them aren't neccesarily good but as usual very agressiv. In addition many of them are playing a rather uncommon style (good or bad ... no judgement).

According to Roy Decker from the Royal Flush Magazine (who's playing Day 1A) there will be a good number of german players arriving for Day 1B. Starting time will be 2:30pm (not 1pm as original posted) and we have to play 12 levels on Day 1. Including breaks don't expect play to end before 4am in the morning!

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Saturday, July 24, 2010

Back to winning at poker ... and it feels good!

Maybe it's just an interruption of my dry run or I finally can be successfull at tournament poker again ... no matter what - it feels good! Try to imagine that: I had three almost back-to-back final tables in 2008. Two times at the Pokertour.at and one time at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham. I then missed the money at the EDPCII in Dublin (by my own mistake mostly) in early 2009 and cashed a third time at the Pokertour.at.

From there until now I virtually achieved nothing ... 15 month of pure frustration. There was a very small win (3rd place) in a €10 tournament upon my first visit at the Poker Royale Kufstein and a final table (without cashing) somewhat later. Every other tournament was just a big fail.

Most of it can be blamed on a very dry run and being a sure loser on any 90%+ situation but it wouldn't be fair to blame only (bad) luck. Of course it's hard to win a tournament if you don't get anything. Of course you are out if your best hand gets rivered on an all-in. But there are options to avoid getting in that situation at all.

Last week and this week I final tabled two in a row by making 3rd and 2nd in the Poker Royale Survival Tournament. This isn't a big win ... it's only a 30 people €50+7 tournament. But what counts most is the confidence boost that you get from this. You now know again how it has to feel if it's "just right". I didn't play bad in the last 15 months but looking back and comparing it to the last two tournaments - I didn't play great either. And "just not playing bad" isn't good enough at poker. "Making a move" or "living the move" are two completely different things. "Trying to trap with a good hand" or "designing a trap with a good hand" falls into the same category.

I think you got the picture. Of course I was again lucky some times (as are others) but in general I felt like being "in the zone" all the time in that two tournaments. Funny part is that both ran absolutely different. Last week a busted bluff (due to a borderline hero call from my opponent) saw me struggling early and fighting my way back until the final table were I still was the shortstack. Yesterday I was chipleader for about the first third of the tournament. My stack never took a deep dive until the final table and I arrived there with an average stack.

Two different runs but both can end successful - that's what poker is about. Can you imagine how good I feel now? Of course nobody can tell if my run continues. But I know that I still can do it. All the negative feelings are blown away. What better timing could this be with the coming events:

My little Dinosaur from Nottingham
  • EDPC Namur (seeking consolation for my missed final table in Dublin 2009)
  • Pokertour.at at Lake Woerth (my most successful series so far)
  • APAT World Championship at Dusk Till Dawn ... back to Nottingham the place were I had one of my best results. Oh, and btw. the Dinosaur is coming home to his birthplace again ;-)

Whatever happens in the next six weeks ... cashing or not, final tabling or not ... I will enjoy what I do and I will do my very best to make it happen again ... "because it feels so good!!!!"

Oh, and if you think my run will continue ... there is an option to jump on that train while it's still gaining speed: ChipMeUp - Namur Event ;-)

But Poker is not all what's happening. Some of my german readers may have already seen my article at wettfirma.com. So I am back into sportsbetting and trying to give you some interesting views into the world of betting the NFL.

Tweet no. 1,000


Last week I also had my 1,000th tweet at Twitter. When I started with Twitter about  two years ago (ironically it was a tweet about the APAT) I wasn't really sure about that twitter thing. But now I really love it. Not only for tweeting myself but also for reading tweets from a lot of interesting people (not only poker related). Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare ... three tools have that I with me all the time. So if you are still interested in my adventures ... you know were to find me!

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Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Soccer half-finals Germany vs. Spain (no poker content)

Honestly, I'm not a very big soccer fan but worldcup is always something special. Even more at times were Germany gets a deep run. And much more when they play some of the best soccer ever seen.

We had seen the game against England in Berlin. Great game and great place to watch. When they destroyed Argentina we were together at the Boogie Baeren Clubhouse. The german team can be really proud about what they achieved so far (and especially the last two games). Still feeling somewhat sorry for Argentina. They are a great team and it's tough to get beaten that badly. Sad to hear that Maradonna resigned from his job ... a personality really to be missed at the 2014 worldcup on the south american continent.

Siemens Soccer City, Munich
Not sure were to watch the game this time but I'm thinking about "Siemens Soccer City" in Munich. The place reminds me about my first public viewing. Guess what - it was the euro 2008 finals Germany vs. Spain (in front of the Vienna city hall). Spain still owes me a big afterparty since then ... so this would be a good time to pay back.

We got our revenge for the Wembley goal, so why not just add revenge for the lost euro 2008? ;-))) After Brazil was kicked out of the worldcup I thought that Netherlands vs. Germany would be a fun finale. The Netherlands already did their part for it ... now it's our turn!

Octopus Paul decided for Spain ... must be a good sign! Why? Well, he was almost perfect in 2008 predictions. Except for the Germany vs. Spain finale (he predicted a german win). He's perfect until now in 2010. So it's time for his usual one time error ;-)

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