My first major live tournament - a mini-op.

First off, I want to thank FTR and all FTR forum members. The information on this site has raise the level of my game and is largely responsible for helping me achieve my goal of playing in a major tournament.

Background:
After playing many (lost count really) $3 rebuys and $12 freezouts sub-qualifiers, I won and played in 4 $100+$10 main qualifers for the Party Poker Spring Poker Festival in Vienna. In each of these there were about 120 entrants and only 2 guaranteed packages or 1 package for every 65 entrants whichever was greater. I improved in each tourney with my final showing in 8th place. Got busted out badly when villian caught his river card. Ouch. I was about to give up on this tourney, but then I noticed that Party was having a finale with a buy-in of $325+$25. This one offered 1 package for every 20 entrants. So I played a sub-qualifer and made it into the finale. There were 46 entrants and I fought my way through and won a spot!!!

This tournament is a good deal for me since I live in Vienna and get to keep the spending money and accomodation money. That $2300 itself is my biggest win ever and that doesn't even count the €3000+€150 main event buy-in.

Overall goal for the 5-day main event:
1) Win tournament. (gotta think big, right?)

Goals for getting there:
1) Stay calm.
2) Be patient and don't rush things.
3) Don't play like a complete donk.

I will post some more info about the tourney and structure when I have some more time. The main event starts Monday, March 12, and I plan to update this post with my experiences. I really enjoy reading about other people's live tourney experiences, ie. Michael1123's WSOP recap from 2005. An old one, I know, but still a great read. Hope you all enjoy it!

Thats awesome that you won a seat. Have you figured up the total amount you spent trying to satellite into it?

I was thinking about that the day after I won, but Party's transaction history database sucks and will only let you look up 3 days at a time. I don't have a tracking program, so I need to go through my hand histories. I was planning on posting that when I find out.......that is if it isn't some ungodly and embarrassing amount of money. I won't be surprised if it is a nice chunk of change, but I don't think it is anywhere near the $2300 cash that I came away with.

Wien, Wien nur du allein, sollst Du der Platz meiner (Poker)Traeume sein. Viel Glueck!!

Party Poker is holding a special freeroll today for the Spring Poker Festival Qualifiers. It has a prize pool of €100,000, but I don't know how it will be split up. They calling it the East vs. West Challenge and it matches up qualifiers from Western Europe with qualifiers from Eastern Europe. Tony G and Dave Ulliot will be leading the East and West respectively. I am not exactly sure how it is going to work, but I think each side will play down to 4 people each and then there will be a final table with those 8 and the two pros. This event as well as the Main Event that starts tomorrow are being taped for TV distrubution.

I went to sign up yesterday and when I handed my US passport to the PP rep, she didn't even want to touch it. Luckily I had my Austria "greencard" with me and it was all good.

Next update after I finish this freeroll. Will be heading over to the CCC in about 2 hours.

So I busted out early in the Freeroll. Each team started with 49 players then played down to 40. Then it was a shootout with the winners going to the final table to represent their team along with the pre-chosen "captains" Tony G and Ulliot. From the €100,000 prize pool, the winning team will split €50,000 and the other €50,000 will be distributed among the final table. I left before the final table even started, so when I go today, I might have an extra €1000 waiting for me!

We started with 3000 chips and 15 minute levels. Blinds started at 25/50. Basically one time around the table for each blind level. I got myself in a rush and tried to do too much too fast. Kept getting reraised when I would make a move, etc. With a small stack I push from the SB with after it folded around to me. BB has and of course calls. I was still alive after the flop with no A or K on the board and a gutshot straight possibility as well as any J or 9, but a K came on the river and that was it.

Now I am looking forward to the Main Event which starts today in a few hours. Starting stacks will be 15000 with 90 minute levels. This is going to be a nice challenge with such deep stacks and long levels. Also, they plan to do 6 levels per day. Endurance is a must.....too bad their chairs suck.

My immediate goal is to be patient. My goal for the day is to make it through and stay alive for day 2. I think that patience will be key as the starting stacks are large and the levels are longer than anything I have ever played before.

More to come.......

Wow.....it has been a long week. I never knew how tiring it would be to play poker non-stop for 12 hours a day.

I am just going to post a short recap now with more details after I recover a bit.

Tourney started on Monday with 206 entrants. 24 places paid, €191,000 for first.

Day 1: I was getting amazing flops with my opponents paying me off. Got up to around 42,000 but made a couple of bad moves right near the end of the day. We had been playing for almost 12 hours at that point, and I was not thinking straight. Ended up with 28,400.....a bit more than average.

Day 2: Treaded water the entire day. Pretty much card dead. My stack never got above 35,000. Ended the day with 29,500.....about half the average.

Day 3: We played down to 24 from 45. Got some good cards at the beginning of the day and doubled up. Worked my stack up to around 100,000 only to finish the day with 50,600. But I made the money!

Day 4: I drew the TV table for this day and was a bit nervous about making some stupid play. I was the 2nd smallest stack left and the smallest on my table. Built it up a bit pushing my aces over a raise and call and both folded. However, I made a huge mistake that sent me out of the tourney in 23rd place. I am just hoping that it doesn't end up on TV! I will definitely look like the table donk.

Overall, I am really happy with my play. I made good moves at the right times and for the most part was able to avoid putting my whole stack at risk for the majority of the tourney. Since this was my first major event, I am not too worried about my mistakes. The next tourney I will not make those same mistakes.

wow, nice job man!! Cool to hear you atleast made the money.