Deep run at the EDPC ... but not deep enough

I definately should go back to my old routine that was posting every day during a trip. Much easier with several short blogs than to compile a long one after I am back from my trip. Especially if you can't post directly after your return.

Nevertheless here's what happened in Dublin. As said in my last post I was forced to travel one day earlier due to AerLingus problems with their cabin crew. At the airport we got informed that the flight was operated by Ryanair instead of AerLingus. I don't like Ryanair too much (especially as I paid AerLingus fares) but anyway ... most important thing was to arrive in Dublin early enough.

As I arrived late at 10pm I just went to my hotel room and took a long nap. On the next day I was lucky with my new hotel room (I stayed in another place for that first additional night). I arrived there at 12am and they told me that my room was already cleaned so I was able to check in immediately. Went down to the Ballsbridge (a short 10 minute walk) to watch the start of Day 1A of the EDPC and to take some photos. Met some of the other germans like Reinhard, Roy and Hanns-Peter. Roy told me he had switched from Day 1B to Day 1A and for a short moment I thought about doing the same. But I decided to stick with my game plan and not rush anything.

So this was an easy-going day that ended with dinner at Eddie Rockets round the corner and a trip to the Fitzwilliam card room. I really love the burgers at Eddie Rockets and especially their 50's style. The Fitzwilliams was a first time visit for me and it's something like in between of the Jackpot and Sporting Emporium in regards of their style. This evening they had a low-buy-in rebuy tournament that gathered over 85 players. With mostly french speaking players at the tables you could imagine that this tournament is much smaller on any other day. It was a nice warm-up but nothing special for me as I busted somewere in the middle of the field.

At least I got enough sleep for my starting day at the EDPC. It was a real roller-coaster on that day. First it went down from the 50k starting stack to almost 30k. Then up again and down again. It looked like whenever I made it to my new high something bad happened. At least I didn't do anything bad myself. I avoided a blow-up for the whole day and never invested too much money in bad spots. Finally I got a break when I got an almost full payout with A's that improved to a set on the flop (I got Aces 4 times that day!). That was the first time I broke the 100k mark and never look back to two digits during the rest of the day. Then I busted another player and his 70k stack which got me to my high at 210k. At the end of the night I was able put 197,800 chips into my bag. 36th in the combined chipcount (and third best german).

Of course I slept very well that night. This was a very good starting point for Day 2 which was planned to end in the money. And it started perfect. A weak button call allowed me to sneak in from the small-blind and to bust the big-blind as I flopped two pair (vs. his TPTK). Up to 260,000 in less than one level. Another bad betting pattern from an opponent allowed me to catch my flush and I reached my high of 299,000 in level 2 of the day.

Then it happened: QQ in the big blind. An early position raiser made it 7k (at 1200/2400-300) and I re-rasied him to 21k. He called after a short hesitation. I ruled out AA and KK due to the call and put JJ on the not probable list with the J-J-2 flop. With expecting him playing something like TT or 99 I challenged him with a 28k bet. He went all in for 40k more and I had to call due to the pot odds (even if I was running into quads). He didn't have JJ but had played J9s which was still enough to take down the pot. Calling a 21k reraise preflop for 20% of his stack with J9s? Well played ;-)

I still had about 200k left so there was no reason to change into panic mode. Unfortunately I was out of playing mode too! For the next hours I was abolutely card dead and my stack went down to 93k with the average at 230k. I was able to recover to 150k again but it never went further. Finally I went in cheap with A8 against the big-blind and we saw a flop that gave me a gut-shot straight(-flush) draw. It was checked and the turn gave me a double gut-shot. I ruled out the possible straight as it was to weak with the 8 and decided to put my stack all-in. 94k went into a 100k pot. My opponent thought for a very long time and finally decided to call. And again I was surprised. He had called for more then half of his stack with just two high cards (AJ) and a possible nut-flush. The river blanked for both of us and I was out in 140th of 737.

Went to the sporting emporium that night for a small freezeout tournament but busted shortly before the money. On the last night I came back to the Jackpot Club (which was the place I visited first on my initial trip to Dublin). I was quite surprised. They had changed the positions of the tables (making it look like more space) and changed the old tables and put in very comfortable chairs. The place is much nicer now then it was in the past. I played my last tournament of the trip there and it ended in an awful way: Was able to get all the chips in with a made straight on the flop, got called by a set of eights and the board paired on turn and river ... ouch!

The good part of the AerLingus strike was that I was able to rebook my return flight free of charge too. So I went back home one night earlier and was able to watch the Superbowl at the comfort of my home.

Although I didn't make it to the money this time ... this was definately one of my best tournaments I had ever played. And only two bad plays by opponents that got rewarded had been able to stop me to making it into the money, So yes, I really liked that days in Dublin regardless of the results!