2010-09-02 • Gugster • Views:863

Woke up sometime in the afternoon, on Sunday. I had been up late and partying with Mr Stevizzz and Crew (Thanks for the kick-ass party guys). Came home after six, something, and I was still very much drunk… hehe.

Lying in the sofa watching TV and feeling the world spinning around, Norrland had invited me and Junior to play in the casino at Casino di Venezia. I was a little relentless against going, but Junior convinced me to go. He had already fixed a shuttle bus to take us from Portomaso Tower to Casino di Venezia. It’s a great service by the casino to pick up customers free and to take them to the casino. However, meanwhile Norrland and his friend had decided to change plans, and starting cooking food or stuff, (wtf)… And they had abandoned me and Junior. E tu brute?

Casino di Venezia is located north of Valetta in Vitteriosa, inside the historical palace known as Capitan Palace. There are some restaurants along the waterfront except for the casino and the view is great from there. The interior of the casino was pretty nice and the service was pretty good as well. Perhaps the dealers weren’t top notch, but they did okay. And I don’t get it why they can’t get automatic card shufflers. Free sandwiches and snacks were also provided when playing at the casino games and in the poker room. That was good for both me and Junior, because we hadn’t eating anything and both was hungry like two bears waking up from hibernation.

It was a mix bunched of people at the tournament. There was a philosophy teacher, a former golf course manager from South Africa and a few other interesting characters at the event. I was hoping I could sit beside this cute Italien girl so I could chat with her a little, and my lucky star was already smiling on me, when I got seated to the right of her. Unfortunately, she was pretty new to the game, and she busted early.

I don’t know. But the Nordic poker reputation seems pretty good, because people was making a fuzz out of me and Junior coming from Sweden. Apparently we are all loose aggressive good players.

The tournament saw 16 starting players and the prize pool was very modest. It was unlimited re-buy the first hour with an add-on. Starting stack was 5000 in chips and the levels were slow at first. I went into cash game mode, playing with speculative hands and profiling players. Junior and I sat on different tables, and when the first break came, both me and Junior had almost quadrupled our stacks.

However when the break was over the blinds had gone up pretty steep. And the first couple of hands I had thrown away 10k of my 28k stack. Blinds was 500/1000. And I had a difficult time with a big guy on the table, so I decided I should avoid him and go in to tight mode. Junior had in the brake told me that the philosophy guy we met earlier was playing a little bit tilted on his table. And when the philosophy guy was moved to the left of me, that tip proved pretty crucial.

I limped in UTG with 99, Philosophy guy called, and BB just checked. Flop comes 3, 6, 8 with a flushdraw. BB who was pretty much a tight aggressive fellow bet into the flop, I wanted to see where I was in the pot so I re-raised him. Now the Philosophy guy went all in with his average stack. BB folded and was set to make a decision. I thought it was marginal call, and the decision was based pretty much on Junior previous tip, so I called after a while and he showed A, 8 for pair of 8’s. My 9,9 was holding up and I busted Philosophy guy.

I was still pretty drunk when we were playing the tournament. I had problem counting my chips and when I made a raise or something I just said the amount I wanted to raise. I’m pretty used to having my chips pushed in automatically online, and the other people on the table had to remind me, I was playing in a live tournament (lol).

It was Junior who gave me some really important tips in the tournament (future poker coach?), when I was seated on the final table, he had pointed out a certain dude who played very “fishy” in the beginning of the tournament. So when he went all in shortstacked and was called by another player I had profiled as a maniac, I went all in with pockets 10, 10. I was up against J,7o and K, 9o… And my hand manages to hold up and I tripled up.

And when we were down to three players, Junior (who unfortunately busted out with AQs two pairs against trips earlier in the tournament), said to me I was playing like a tight-ass, I made the decision to mix it up a little and starting playing in über-aggro mode. I started to go all in, and made some pretty good moves, I thought.

Finally it was HU against the man I had feared from the start. The big guy who I had been avoiding and who had been dominating the table with his semi-aggro style. It was pretty hard to put him on hands… But there was no time for running away. A man got to do what a man got to do… And we wished each other good luck before we started playing….

He had more than double the amount of chips. I looked down on A,9o early and went all in. Big guy called and showed K,10o.. My hands stands, and I double up and take the chiplead. I went all-in 2-3 more times. Didn’t want to play the flop, because I thought he was better than me flop. And the BB was a massive 6k/12K, so not much room for mistakes. When I looked down on k9s, and the big guy goes all-in I was thinking I pretty much had him. I instant called and he shows up Q6o… And I win with pair of nines (Yippie!)…

So, that was our adventure at Casino di Venezia here on Malta. Nice place, nice people and some good games. Thanks to Junior for being such a good poker coach/advicer and to Norrland for fooling us all the way to Vitteriosa from St:Julians, when I was still pretty messed up (lol).
..............................