Loooonggg recap of Europe....

Blog Entry – 30th November 2009 – Belgium

Hey guys!

I have a ton of time to kill as i’m at Frankfurt International airport at the moment and have around 8 hours to kill before my flight to Singapore. Correspondingly, this post may get kinda long, and i hope i don’t rant on too much but i can’t make any promises... I basically gave a brief overview of what had happened so far in my last entry and really didn’t focus on any of the poker played, therefore, in this entry i will be trying to keep it mostly poker related.

So after arriving in Belgium on the 21st of November I finally got to meet the boys (PrimordialAA, Spamz0r, and Pokiethepanda). We basically immediately gelled well which was nice and the whole time we were together I think a great time was had by all. Now these guys I would definitely consider better than myself and given that we got into a session almost immediately after I arrived I was all ears. It’s important to make the most of opportunities like this when they come along to learn, and even though my standing in the HUSNG world is reasonable and i play reasonably high stakes there is no need to be caught up in yourself and block the potential learning routes out.

After going for dinner on the first night to a French restaurant we headed back to the hotel to grind. On our way back we decided we would all play the FullTilt $20kgtd HU shootout and take 33% of each other’s action. Obviously we hit a good start to the trip when I binked second place for around $6300. Primo and Spamz missed out but it didn’t really matter since Bryan (primo) was up a ton anyways! But yeah nice start to the trip. I didn’t grind for too much longer that night because I was pretty tired. We had the next day off before the tournaments started, but we had to go to the casino to organise our BI’s for the $10k euro HU Teams event (which was basically what we were there for). The casino was definitely the most dis-organised and least customer orientated place i think i have ever been in. You would think a casino would have to be well organised, but seriously, it was a disgrace. They first told us they had no record of our BI’s for the Main Event which had been paid 2 weeks earlier by Spam, worth around 5500EU. After around 45 minutes and after going through about 10 staff, they all of a sudden found it :S .... Once it was sorted it was basically back to grinding online...

The next day was the first day of the main event for us, and we all lacked a little sleep due to a long night grinding, especially Bryan who only went to bed around 8am after playing 700 super-turbos vs the same villain. My first table was really soft and I went about grinding my stack up pretty slowly, especially given how deep we were. There was nothing really notable that happened throughout the day until very late in the day. After the dinner break, i had just been moved tables and had ground my stack up from the 10k starting stack to a touch over 25k.
The dude two to my right had been reasonably active, but had been leading out with all of his strong hands and basically check-folding the rest of the time. He seemed like a donk basically, until he owned my life...

Blinds: 150/300 – ante20.
My Stack: ~25 400
Villain Stack: ~31 000

I am UTG with KdQc and elect to open. There had been a ton of uncontested pots and I don’t expect to get flatted a lot OR played back at lightly. I make it 700 and it folds all around to the guy in SB (2 to my right), and he makes it 1450. Obviously i flat.

(Pot = 3360)

Flop ---> Td 6d 2d

Villain checks pretty quickly, and I decide to bet out given that he had been leading all of his strong hands. So I bet 1900, he thinks for around about a minute and a half and calls. At this point in time I really don’t think his hand range is very strong at all given how long he thought about it, coupled with the fact that he didn’t lead. It’s possible that he has a FD but I have the Kd so even if he binks he has to have exactly the Ad, I pretty much totally excluded overpairs at this point in time.

(Pot = 7160)

Turn ---> 4h

So a total brick turn-card. That card completely misses his range imo, and when he thinks for a second and checks it seems to be a pretty easy bet. I bet 3800ish, and once again he tanks. He thinks this time for a good 2 minutes or maybe even more, then reaches for his chips and calls. WTF??? I’m really not worried here because I think he definitely has a marginal hand (I am like 90%+ sure), and he is never calling a riverbet on a lot of cards!

(Pot = 14760)

River ---> Jc

Oh god! Basically I’m not stopping on this card, but in saying that I really don’t want to bet too big because basically he is folding all of his missed draws to any sized bet, but at the same time I don’t want to price him in to call if he did have Tx (which i expect he folds by now, unless it’s exactly AdTx). Anyways, he thinks again before checking, and I almost immediately bet out 6950. This time he really goes into the tank, and i mean for a god awful long time. Then all of a sudden after about 4 minutes or so, he fucking clicks it back. Yeah, he min-raises. I couldn’t help myself, I literally point and laugh at him and muck my cards. Such a retarded line, he obviously flopped the nuts and sure I got owned but that doesn’t make him not a retard. God i hate live players and their time banks sometimes!


So anyways, that dumped me down to around the 11k mark. I got back to grinding it out again and got up to around 17k again when i got moved to Bryan’s table. Now Bryan had a big stack and had basically been playing around 70% of pots and just owning everyone’s lives. He had about 43k or so when i got to his table and this was after he was 0-3 in all-in’s. It took me about an orbit to get into it, but given that he was 2 to my right I was going to have to start playing back at him or just blind out basically. I think we came out pretty even at the end of the day, but he did own me in one spot really hard.


Blinds: 200/400 – ante50.
Bryan Stack: ~36 000
My Stack: ~18 000

Bryan opens 850 from the HJ and I elect to flat As6s from the button instead of 3-betting. I had 3-bet several times previously, but given how capable he is, I really don’t feel like getting it in pre this deep with A6s. The blinds both fold (which was standard).

(Pot = 2700)

Flop ---> 8c 7d 4h (or similar)

Bryan leads around 1700. Even though his range is really really wide here and does include hands which hit this board, I also think he knows it hits my flatting range. Furthermore, I had an overcard and a gutshot. I decide to click it back and make it 3400. It was really close in my mind at the time between raising a bit bigger and snapping a shove, or raising small and seeing what he does. Well, i obviously elected to go small, and he shoves pretty quickly. I genuinely felt I was getting levelled and was very very close to making the call. In the end I folded, but it was really close in my mind. After the end of the days play he told me he had Q8, so i guess it was a good fold but I don’t know if I should really be raise/folding vs him there still...

So at the end of the days play I end up with 16 900 in chips (below average) and Bryan ends with 43 500. Actually, reversing up a bit, we had Moroccan in the dinner break and it was delicious! =)

We have the Tuesday off which is basically filled with sleeping in (after another all night session online), and then going over to the casino to do the an interview for the Pokerstars Blog. They asked for us to do an interview given how International our HU team was, and with this they also give us entry into the Pokerstars tent at any time during the tournaments, where there are poker tables/PS3/Pool Table/Foosball Table etc. That night we just go back to the hotel and basically grind all night again, this time not quite as late as the HU event is the following day.


So we arrive at the casino around 1:30pm for a scheduled start of around 2:30pm. It actually gets underway around 2:45pm and there were only the 6 teams competing (24 players obv). I am first up as well as Spamz (only 6 matches being played at a time), and I basically crush my opponent really hard. He plays really weakly (which was a sign of things to come) and allows me to get him down to under 3k in chips (start 10k @ 50/100) by the 150/300 level. Nothing at all happened in the match besides me raising, c-betting, barrelling a couple of times, and him open folding a ton of buttons. He has 7BBs in the end and I open shove Q9o, he calls KJo and I flop the Q and win my first match. Spamz unfortunately loses his first match, Bryan wins his first, and Ben gets a start last but against Elky. I railed his match vs Elky and I have to say he completely and utterly annihilated him... Ben ran him over worse than I’ve seen anyone get ran over, and had him down to 1900 chips at 100/200. Ben limp/shoves 44 and gets called by Elky’s AJo, obviously Elky binks his A on the flop and doubles. Then chaos ensues as Elky goes on a tear and is all-in 3 times and wins every single one, then gets Ben all-in and obviously wins that too. Such a sick game, Ben had 3 flips to eliminate him and couldn’t find the knockout blow but I guess that was the story of what was to come.
My second match is against a dude who was much more aggressive than the last one, but essentially it was the same story. He was bad-aggressive in the fact that he would be aggressive but instantly muck when i 3-bet/4-bet/check-raised or displayed any counter-aggression. He had his fair share of hands but at 150/300 we finally got it in.

Blinds: 150/300
My Stack: ~11 000
Villain: ~9000

I am dealt 77 on the button and make it 700 (standard size), he makes it 1900, I shove, and he snap-calls. He rolls over 66, NH sir!

Board---> 2h Jh Th (neither of us had a heart) --> 9s ---> 6c.


Yeah so that was pretty sick and I was down to 3.3BBs. But it was fine because I ended up coming back for the win. He made one particularly bad short stack call with like 7BBs effective, he called Q7o. But I won a couple of flips and ended up shipping, which was pretty fun and left him evidently tilted. (What the fuck dude it should have been over ages ago but you binked the 6 so gtfo with your tilt). In other matches, Spamz won his second match, Bryan went down to a Pokerstars pro, and Ben also lost in once again sick fashion.

We went for dinner break after we had all played two matches, which was delicious at the restaurant in the Casino. The guys who had organised the tournament had also organised free dinner and it was brilliant! We were 4 wins and 4 losses at dinner and it wasn’t looking to good given that two teams had really shot away, and we basically needed to win all 4 matches to have a chance of the finals.

When we got back from dinner, Spamz and Ben were thrown straight into it. Spamz crushed some dude who wanted to yell at Bryan for railing on the wrong side of the table, lol, and Ben’s match was still going when I sat down to play. I played a guy who I later found out has a WSOP bracelet under his belt and is rather famous in Belgium, but essentially he wasn’t particularly good either. I ended up coolering him on a Qc5d7d board when my AQ beat his KQ (I had chipped him down a fair bit already still at 75/150), but i still don’t know if he was right to 4-bet shove the flop. I’m not likely to be 3betting draws in that spot or even QJ, so his KQ really beats nothing that I get it in with, but anyways we got it in and i held. In the meantime, Ben had once again been brutalised, and Bryan was playing some kid from France with a $2k sidebet. Bryan ran absolutely disgracefully after having his opponent down to around 4k in chips or less at 100/200. One hand of note was Bryan opened AQo and the French kid 3-bet shoves 25BB’s with 84s. Obviously he binks the turn and goes on to win the match in the end.

Overall, was a really really fun tournament, especially playing with a group of guys I have a ton of respect for and enjoy their company. Was fun to rail each other and also a ton of fun owning people’s lives, even though results didn’t go our way. We truly crushed, and I think a lot of people look at results and think “well you didn’t win so you obviously suck”... Not true... We could not have given ourselves better opportunities to win the tournament, and sometimes it just goes that way. We were absolutely pumped about how we had played and basically couldn’t have been happier, besides the fact that we busted.

So the next day it was left up to Bryan and I to play day 2 of the main event. And wow, what a day we had. I started the day with 16900 and after one hour of play I was up to around 30k without playing any all-in pots. After 4 hours I had 50k in chips and was cruising. My table was relatively tough, with the guy to my right and three guys to my left all very capable. In particular the guy directly to my left enjoyed 3-betting me and we had a very aggressive dynamic. It all came to a head just before the dinner break in one of those hands that makes or breaks you in an MTT.

Blinds: 450/900 – ante100.
My Stack: ~52 000
Villain: ~35 000

So this was the dude directly to my left and as i mentioned, we had a very aggro dynamic. Blind vs blind had been crazy with a TON of raising/3-betting and 4-betting. Basically this had been happening because the other end of the table was really nitty (they had position on our blinds), and the rest of the table wouldn’t open anything weak on our blinds because they had seen how much we had been 3-betting etc.

I get dealt Qto in the SB and this time elect to limp. This was the first time I had done this, and the reason was simple, my hand flops well but I really didn’t want to play a big pot vs this dude out of position pre-flop. So i limp, he checks.

(Pot = 2600)

Flop ---> Qs 8d 5h

I decide to lead out at this flop, making a pretty small bet of 1200. He doesn’t really think at all before raising to 3600. Pretty sweet spot for me now, he never has better Qx hands and not rise them pre-flop, and he’s bluffing here a huge %. Given how high his bluff % is here I elect to flat, if i 3-bet this flop and he shoves, I think I have to fold because even though he’s really aggressive I don’t believe he is capable of 4-bet bluffing this flop, so he basically has 2-pair+ if that’s the case. If i flat, he may bluff again and I would be much happier taking down a bigger pot on the turn then taking it down on this flop when there isn’t that much in the pot. So i call his raise.

(Pot = 9800)

Turn ---> Ac

Not worried by this turn because he raises all Ax hands pre-flop, and I doubt he is raising Ax on the flop, he will likely just call with his SD value. I check, he bets 7400. Eh, I’m not folding now, it was just a matter of how to best go about it. With the pot so big I think I could potentially induce a bluff by raising small, or I could just jam here. I really felt that jamming only really gets called the few times he has me beat, but I could definitely get it in vs a much weaker range OR bloat the pot for river shove by raising small. That’s exactly what I do, I raise to 14 800, and he SNAP shoves. I basically snap-call as well, and he rolls over 89s for 3rd pair, and I just owned this kids life. I don’t want to keep saying this and sounding arrogant or anything, but basically the whole time we were there all of us just crushed. So i was fading a couple of outs for a 90k stack.

River ---> 9d <<< FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

Yeah so he binks. I am short and bust not long after dinner to the same dude when i run TT into JJ pre-flop for my last 15BBs. Bryan also busts late in the day, after he had multiple opportunities to have a 150-200k stack. I guess sometimes it’s just not to be,a dn that was what the whole live poker trip was like.

We go back to the hotel and Bryan, Spamz and I grind out a $30k+ session online to ease the pain. Was a really sick session and involved Spamz and Bryan crushing red pros Andrew Feldman and Romanello (his name is Roberto I think but I call him Raymond in chat). There was certainly some funny funny chat going on, and was definitely the most fun session I have ever been involved in. It’s such a cool experience to grind with them two guys, because not only are they very good players, but their cool guys as well. We had a ton of fun together on the trip in basically everything we did, as well as a couple of Spamz’s mate’s dropping in here and there who were also really cool guys! (Hey Bart and Sander!)


We slept for the large majority of the next day, then went and degen’d at the casino for a while after we ate at a Pizzeria for dinner. Spamz taught me how to play Carribean Stud which I’m now addicted to. Was a sick sick hand too, I was railing Spamz and he looks down at 22237. He was ante’ing 60EU at the time, and he buys a card and calls. The dealer flips up her hand 555XX, and we’re like WTFFFFF how does she do that! WE then go on to say, oh well who cares we’ll just bink! Spamz has 1 deuce in the deck at 20-1 and 3 threes in the deck at 7-1. Dealer flips his draw card, and it’s a beautiful deuce!!!! BINK for almost 2k euro I think. Then we failed miserably after that haha. The next day after not sleeping at all Spamz and I headed back to his place for the past couple of days, which included my biggest losing day ever -$5.5k, and that basically brings me to where I am now here in Frankfurt on my way to Singapore.

Has been an amazing time, but right now I can’t wait to get home! I will do some shopping in Singapore since I haven’t had the chance to do any in Belgium due to grinding so much and hanging out with the boys (who already think i’m slightly female). So in Singapore will definitely be looking to buy gifts for everyone back home, and can’t wait to get back and play APPT Sydney on Sunday!!!!!
I will talk to you all soon, this has been long! Still 5 hours until my flight! Thanks for hanging in there if you got this far and will be posting again once I’m settled back home!

GL in your games!!!


Matt!