Velden!

On to the next one! The WSOP may be over but the poker never stops! We have arrived in Velden, Austria for the another amazing tournament series! Myself and the rest of Team Intertops are in this beautiful location to take a shot at the massive 2700 euro Poker EM main event! Intertops had satellites running for a while a couple months ago for this awesome trip, and lucky few of us are here to attempt to make the poker dream a reality. The idea of scooping a win here for insane amounts of money for only a cheap satellite entry online is “iving the Dream” to be sure! Intertops has done it again, not only did they pick a great tourney in a great spot, they over deliver on taking care of their players.  From helping with rides from the airport to getting us settled at the hotel/casino to taking us all out on a boat ride to an amazing dinner! Its been incredible and its only day two! lol No ones even played poker yet!

After writing my last blog post on lesson learned from the WSOP, I knew I needed to take a step back and get some perspective. I will admit, at first the idea of traveling this far and playing poker again so soon after the WSOP wrapped up was not looking so great to me.  The life of playing poker professionally can be brutal sometimes. The airport lines, the long flights, hotel living, the costs and just the straight grind that is tournament poker wears on you quickly.  But as soon as I arrived here, I knew this opportunity could not have come at a better time.  The country is beautiful, the location is amazing, and the people I’ve met already are great! It’s already been the best reminder for why I wanted to do this for a living! These are the experiences that make all the losses, bad beats and close calls worth it. The job could allows us to travel across the globe to play a GAME…It puts things in perspective really quickly, especially with all the tragedies that seem to be happening on a daily basis in the world.

Wish us all luck, as  we start our main event here today!  And I know from my previous experience in Seefeld that the competition will be fierce. At least the insanely aggressive play will not be a surprise this time around! lol  It should be a really challenging tournament to say the least, but I know will all will enjoy it! Maybe Team Intertops can come away with a five way chop!? (Nahhhh no chops! but I’ll let them have 2-5th at least! lol) We are all hoping for a deep run and to come home with the championship trophy, but all we can do is play our best and enjoy the ride!  Everyone here has already won in my book!  I’ll be back soon with another post updating our day 1 status!

This week starts the last round of satellites in Intertops poker for EPC Velden! Check out a great review of this amazing trip here and a special shout out from pokertube at https://www.pokertube.com/article/viva-las-velden

Well another Intertops satellite trip has finished up and it was a great success, by far. I wish I could say I took home the title, but the experience itself was a win for sure. We all made day two, which is always tough and a plus for any poker player. The big buy in and long structure always bring around the better players, so just making it that far was quite an accomplishment. So I hope everyone is proud of their play. Unfortunately, only myself and Emil made day 3, but the rest of the guys got to enjoy a day out in Velden at least! I’m not gonna lie, I was a bit jealous they hit the beach without me. lol I can’t complain too much though, as I was playing day 3 for a chance at 142k and the trophy! The day started out with a great table draw for me, seating me at what would be the final table. Always nice when you know you won’t have to make any table changes and have the time to get reads on players. The play started out tough, aggressive and at times confusing, lol. So I had my work cut out for me. There was an odd balance of big/small stacks at the table with with shortest being about 20 big blinds or so. While I was one of the shorter stacks(35 bigs), I felt very comfortable and knew if I could just win a few good pots or get a double up, I could do some serious damage at this table.

I quickly noticed two guys on my right were very aggressive and the rest of the table somewhat passive. So this looked good for me at first. They were opening on my right frequently, and I 3 bet them a few times and took down the pot. A few other times my 3 bets were called and we battled post flop. One particular hand involved me 3 betting from the small blind w A6 of clubs for the aggressive button raiser. He thought for a moment or two then called. In retrospect, I think I made the raise too small, only going for a x 2.6 3 bet, knowing he was a good post flop player and I was out of position. It worked out well for me though when the flop came Ace 4 4 rainbow. I decided to check, knowing I was well ahead of his button raising range but still leery he may have a better ace. When he checks back the flop I knew I was good, and once another Ace hit the turn I knew I had the nuts. The only next move was to just figure out how to get any more money out of him! I decided to check the turn and call if he bet, and then put out a large donk bet the river, to look like a bluff. My hope being he wouldn’t believe me and look me up light. Well he bet the turn like I hoped, but after a minute or two of thinking, he was good enough to make the fold. He even said out loud, it looked like a bluff! Crap! lol I think I may have missed some value there. I could have either checked to him and let him bluff the river, or just thinly value betting, and hope to get called. But, oh well, I had a gut feeling and went with it. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work out. Almost though!;)

While I had a few decent hands and spots, I never really got any traction going, and after a few levels ended up about where I started the day. I Think there were some other hands I could have played possibly played differently, but still think they were probably the right moves. I just didn’t have many hands to work with and the spots I did take, either didn’t provide enough chips to keep me going or just completely backfired lol. Once the money bubble burst, I decided to open up my game, only to get 3 bet shoved on 3 times when I opened relatively light! So I found myself really short and it was a matter of getting a good enough hand to ship in at that point, hoping for a double. I shipped once with J 10 suited from under the gun, and surprisingly the big blind open folded an Ace! I had some other hands that I am looking back on an wondering, “what if” Like pocket 6s from the small blind with the same button player opening; and an open with KQ off suit that I discouragingly folded to a 3 bet shove from a tight player, when I had only about 15 bigs. When I finally put my last 9.5 bigs in, it was from under the gun with 88 and made it through everyone but the small blind, who called with Ace Queen of clubs. The queen hit for him but also added outs for me with a Q J 9 flop. A 7 turn was still hopeful for me but another q on the river sent me off the to rail in 22nd place. It was a decent payday, so while I was upset I didn’t get the win, I will gladly take it lol I always find it funny when I do better in larger buy in tournaments with better structures and tougher players. I guess I should take some comfort in that as a player, an know my abilities are at least up to par with some of the big dogs. Clearly I still have a long ways to go, but it is encouraging at least. lol

From there we got to sweat Emil’s action and enjoy Velden, having some delicious meals and enjoying the scenery between stops in and out of the final table area. It was awesome to see another member of team Intertops there, even though I was jealous i wasn’t there with him! lol We did some interviews with the beautiful lake in the background, gambled a little in the very cool little casino and had some drinks to celebrate when Emil went out in 6th place. He was disappointed it wasn’t a win, but the extra 26k in his pocket made him feel better very quickly as we enjoyed a fun last night out together in what was probably the coolest location Intertops has had us at yet. While we didn’t scoop a win, we all had deep runs, played well, ate great food, enjoyed amazing scenery, drank delicious Austrian beer, and had ALOT of fun. You can’t beat that. Well maybe at least not til the next satellite tournament! lol 😉

Check out all of the videos on pokertube and the Intertops facebook page!

Get to EveryGamePoker now for your next shot at this amazing event!! https://link.everygame.eu/c/410216