EPT BUDAPEST

After the disappointment of London I was off to Budapest in late October. Seeing as everyone I know works or is broke I had real trouble finding someone to share my room with. Thankfully Eddy "There is such a thing as a free lunch" Eyre was available again to abuse the free Breakfasts of another 5star hotel.

I arrived alone the night before the tournament started, traveling in style via Wizz Air. It had been a while since I'd left England and on my taxi ride from the airport to the Hotel I began to remember how much I enjoyed being abroad in Europe and how exciting it was to travel. I have a real thing for European cities (they make up 97% of the cities i've ever visited so its no wonder) despite their similar characteristics there is something about the Architecture that makes me feel weird inside, like I've gone back in time or am Jason Bourne.....one of the two, i'm not really sure which one it is. It could also have something to do with the amount of alcohol i'd consumed in the airpot/plane (I wont lie, i'm not a big lad, one pint usually does the trick).

The Sofitel in Budapest was probably the nicest hotels I've been in, located on the Danube with a spectacular view of the Parliament on the opposite side of the river but more importantly a Casino inside the building so there is no need to go outside and risk getting mugged. I met up with Eddie, who'd already become accustom to the room and Mini-bar, and we went to check out the Blackjack tables.

We sat and played. I spent more time trying to work out exactly how many froutiers (money) I was betting in £ than I did trying to count the deck and Eddy just chained smoked in the chair next to me until the novelty of smoking in a public place wore off.....it never did.

Next day we got up ate the breakfast which i'd probably rate an 8/10. I think Londons was better quality but I liked the porridge/rice pudding thing they had so I reckon i benefitted more from it. Eddie liked the champagne that you were apparently allowed to take by the bottle and drink around the hotel which he had scummed to by the 3rd day.

We went and hit the town later and looked for somewhere for lunch. We hit some Japenese trendy restaurant and had Sushi that seem to be a 6/10 but that might be because I had eaten it a lot recently. I paid Eddie 20€ to eat the massive one with Orange eggs, he didn't enjoy it so it was worth the money apart from he felt ill and that knocked the wind out of his sails, so we went back and I played some 10/20 PLO (o the god old days) on FTP and chatted to Annette who was apparently in the same hotel and playing DAy 1B also. Eddie managed to perk up later in the day when he entertained himself for 2 hours watching the street hookers from our hotel window. I think I offered him 50€ to go and do the 'Monkey Dance' in front of them but then decided it would be cruel/weird for all parties involved.

Day 1B. I looked forward to the tourney and felt a lot more relaxed. I guess the rate I was winning EPT packages I had guaranteed a seat at every spot on the tour so this had become more of a routine than a yearly highlight.

I was seat 7 on the table on which I had Danny Stern (Ansky) in seat 3 and Luca Pagano in seat 10 as well as a SNG reg on my left whose name SN escapes me momentarily but he's from....some where in Europe. Play was standard for me as I shrunk into my live poker shell and spewed 0% pre but then again won fewer pots then I would have online as a result bluffing 0% and finishing the day on a modest 27k. No dinner break meant we were finished early which I like because eating makes sluggish and I'm used to playing 10 hours of poker+ with no breaks online, usually pissing, shitting, eating and doing whatever else you can think of whilst balancing my laptop in my free hand.

Day 2 was interesting for me as I became more shortstacked and felt comfortable shipping 15-20 BBs as resteals and value 2,3,4 bets etc and was able to soul read a LAG euro donk for a light 3bet from the BB and happily ship AJo for value.

I then probably made my biggest mistake of the tourney even tho I stood by my rationale. A youngish Hungarian opened OTB making it his 3rd consecutive LP open in as many orbits and I decided to cram ATo for around 16BBish over his 3.5x. My reasoning was that although I felt he liked the look of his hand his bet sizing gave away his range. I scrubbed JJ-AA out on a feel basis and that there was no reason for him to make such a large raise against opponents who had shown no tendencies to defend their blinds or splash around generally. I also felt that he would fold AJ alot of the time and that I was value shoving the times he called with AT or worse and with TT unlikely and smaller pairs a flip I felt that this was a +EV shove with AQ+ and some AJ's the only threat. Online this reasoning is factored down to mathematical ranges but in this live setting the feel factor requires an explanation of my thought process. Well he snapped AK so I guess I'm a donk and on an K T x flop my chances were looking very slim indeed. That was until I binked another TEN on the turn, ooops! He was not happy. I told him it was standard. ***stack sizes are a little blurry***

So with my stack I kept snug for the first 3 or 4 hours of the day. My UTG KK open got 3Bet by Tristan Clemencon on the CO. We were both about 30BBs deep and he had just outplayed the previous hand so I figured he must have a big hand. I did contemplating flatting to look as if I was steaming but felt a cram here was my best line as he would be making less mistakes than others post flop. Anyway he tank folded to what he said was QQ and I do believe him cos he did look in agony as he did it. I don't think many online regs would fold there, I know i'd have trouble as I felt I was stinking of AK. Having said that in my attempts to polarize my range to one specific hand I ended up stinking of KK+ AK+ and so folding QQ was not that difficult for him. I had planed to exchange 10% with him because I felt he was playing well but fortunately I didn't because he busted before the money.

I later made an error once I had spewed a little in that I raised QT from the sb with the intention of snapping BBs 10ish BBs. Instead I was faced with roughly double that (if i remember correctly) but thankfully still called and won a flip versus 33.

The bubble then burst and I had made my first EPT cash in 3 attempts which was nice.

EDIT: 22nd Dec/2009

To finish this off:

I ended up busting the tourney in 10th place when I got coolered for the chip lead, raising k8o on the button and bet/calling the BB's shove on Ks 8s 7 flop and losing to 77!

Even though I took 30,000€ in the end I was fortunate to have swapped a piece with Will Fry who took down over 400k. So in the end I made more out of his finish then my own.