Back from Nottingham and planning for Dublin

Just back from Nottingham and already planning for Dublin ... I love this time of the year :-)

Also I didn't win I still had a good time in Nottingham. While it was cold and snowy at home it was not so cold and sunny in Nottingham. I found a nice room right in the center of the city (which only lacked good mobile and wireless connection). But for just €49 (including full english breakfast) there wasn't much to complain. This time I flew directly to East Midlands Airport with bmi baby. Although the trip to Birmingham as I usually do isn't too bad either this was much more convenient. Just outside the terminal there's a bus that drives you directly to the center of Nottingham in about 30 minutes. And the flight was just €30 for the single trip.

Poker could have been better that weekend at Dusk Till Dawn. While I don't complain about my warm-up I do about the other two events. In the warm-up I took my chances with a good draw when it was appropriate and missed. I knew the risk and I took it.

But in the main-event as well as in the Super 50 I got beaten almost the same cruel way. In the main I had hit a set with 77 and bet every street till the end just to get beaten by a guy who called his straight draw as long as he hit the river at the end with his 68s. Way too early end about 2 hours into the first day. So no chance to get a part of the €81,100 prizepool (created by 811 players).

The Super 50 was a little different. With 270 total they paid 27 spots. Down to 28 players I found AQ one from the button and put in a standard raise. I could have moved in but unfortunately this would have looked a little too agressive with my stack. The button and the small blind folded as expected but the big blind hesitated and then just called. I wasn't at that table for too long but from what I've seen from him I had the impression he wasn't on anything strong. The flop came 458 and he checked. I moved in to challenge his stack (he had only a few chips more). Although I didn't hit anything I was still the original raiser  and he was now the one to decide if his hand was still good enough.

He decided instantly ... to call! Well, I was right. His hand wasn't strong pre-flop but it became a monster with that flop. He in fact had committed 20% of his stack pre-flop with 67o! I was out on the bubble and still stunned how much bad play get's rewarded some times.

But there are two other things that I didn't liked that day. Usually the Dusk Till Dawn floor and dealers are very good ... but this time two bad things happened to me due to dealer and floor mistakes: First I got shorted 5,000 chips on a 55,000 chips pot. As I stacked my chips I felt that something was wrong. I counted them once. Still thinking something was wrong and telling the dealer to wait because I had to confirm this. Unfortunately this moron didn't even react (although he realized what I said to him) and started to deal the next round. If I would have been compeletely sure about the mistake I would have called the floor immediately. Unfortunately at the time I had verified I was indeed shorted one 5k Chip it was way too late. Next time I call the floor first even if I look like a complete idiot if I am wrong. But what makes me angry most is the fact that this dealer absolutely ignored everything and even didn't apologize for his mistake.

The second thing was very bad clock management by the DTD floor. When I played my AQ hand the clock showed still 29 players and it wasn't played hand for hand. Not sure how and if I played the hand differently but still a thing that shouldn't happen.

Beside this two instances (from which I believe they are single instances and I was just unlucky) playing at the Dusk Till Dawn was still as nice as ever. And after that bad experience in Salzburg I was delighted to see that you in fact can create structures that allow a 270 player tournament play out in a decent way. Remember this was only a €50+8 side event but it took eight hours to reach the bubble ... did I mention I was the bubble-boy? ;-) And at this time the average M was still around 10. Sure 10 is push & fold for many but it still is a huge difference to a M at 3 shortly before the bubble! And comparing travel costs the cost per day between Salzburg and Nottingham wasn't that different. Just try to shop for good rates and plan early enough in advance.

My trip back was a little more complicated as I had to travel down to Stansted and then fly to Memmingen with RyanAir. But this was just to a personal appointment I had that evening. Otherwise I would have had another easy travel via East Midlands Airport for another €30.

On Wednesday I travel to Dublin for the EDPC IV and hope to run better than last weekend!

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Grand Prix at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham

A great poker weekend in Nottingham ist coming up. The Dusk Till Dawn is running the DTD Grand Prix and some side events. The main event is a sell-out since yesterday and now 810 players are competing for a total prize pool of €81,000 with the first paid an estimated 19k+. I will play Day 1b on Saturday.

Tonight there's a small warm-up tournament and on sunday they have another great structured side event - of course only in the unlikely case I don't make it into the final day ;-)

As I won't scatter facebook and/or my blog with too many messages I suggest you follow me at my twitter account if you're interested in most up-to-date informations on my trip.

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Epiphany Tournament at CCC Salzburg - a monster crapshot!

Before travelling to Nottingham and Dublin I wanted to kick off the poker year 2011 with something in my area. The Epiphany tournament at the Concord Card Casino, Salzburg looked very interesting: 12K startchips for €58 with one €25 rebuy for another 12k chips. As usually the CCC Salzburg didn't answer to questions regarding the structure but I expected at least something decent.

I was wrong ... as wrong as somebody could be. The least problem was that the tournament wasn't a rebuy- but a second-chance-tournament (so you could do the rebuy anytime regardless of your stack). But making this an 11-handed tournament from 128 players down to 20 players is a real shame. Could it get any worse? Of course it could! While the first levels of 30 min. with 50/100, 100/200(25), 200/400(50) weren't that bad (in regards of the startstack) it started to get really ugly from level 6-7. Not only did they go down to 20 min. after level 3 but going from level 6 at 500/1,000(100) to level 7 at 1,000/2,000(200) made this a real crapshot.

Imagine with half of the field left the average M was 10. With 40 left the average M went down to 5 and with 20 players it was as low as 3! Can't tell how it was at the final table as I busted in 18th position (with 15 getting paid) but you may imagine how it went there.

Of course with a total buy in of €83 I didn't expect a super deep-stack structure but getting a structure like this in a CCC card-room is really awful. The CCC's isn't known for the best structures in general but at least they usually had something playable (especially for their "events"). In my opinion the CCC Salzburg really ruins the good name of the Concord Card Casino group offering this kind of tournaments.

Looks like I won't be back anytime soon to this place!

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