|
Trip Report (tl;dr)
Well, here it is. Had a great weekend overall and some memories to last me a lifetime. Winning 2-1 in the HU match and taking home $10k tax free also feels pretty good! Maybe I’ll spend $1.5k on a watch as a memento.
The weekend kicked off with a mid-afternoon flight out to Prague on Friday. Party had given me $1k for expenses, as well as pre-booking my room and transfers to Rozvadov, so four of us managed to have a weekend away for practically nothing. I’d been to Prague recently for a stag-do, but it was nice to see a different side to the city this time around. The city itself is beautiful and the quality of beer top drawer as well. We ended up having something to eat in a couple of old breweries/beer halls: U Flecku and U Medvidku. Both highly recommended.
On Saturday, we got up early and took a walk around Prague castle before being collected and taken to King’s Casino, Rozvadov. Rozvadov is a tiny, quiet place on the Czech/German border, which is dominated by the casino and a few titty bars/massage parlours. Consequently, there’s kind of a weird, random feel about the place that doesn’t quite make sense. The hotel accommodation is also a bit strange. My room was about half a mile up the hill and it seems the paint has barely dried, plus they seem to have forgotten to put in a lift. The casino itself is dominated by poker though and it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer amount of tables and the amount of games running. Full marks to the owner Leon too for providing a free buffet to all, as well as making all alcoholic drinks dirt cheap. Not that the latter mattered, once we realised my Party patch was the golden ticket for a free bar!
The poker evening kicked off with a charity shootout. I managed to get heads up with an older, aggressive player with a 5:3 disadvantage. He was a great guy and also a better HU player than me. He quickly had me (correctly) pegged as a bit too passive at HU, but I did at least pick up on that and let him hang himself in one hand by checking back top pair and leaving him to barrel off turn and river bluffs. We then exchanged a bunch of small pots for quite a while before both getting down to about 8 bigs. I open jam Q4s and he called with KTo and held. The guy was so pleased to win though and I wasn’t surprised to see him battling at the high stakes cash game later on. On the next table, Sam Trickett ran over the competition in no time.
Once the charity SNG wrapped up, I was introduced to Boris and we kicked off the three matches. I really enjoyed playing with Boris and he’s a nice guy. He probably found me a little bit annoying (I get overly chatty and confident after 8+ pints), but he was engaging enough and it was a lot of fun being stared down by him. It was also kind of him to sign my winning hand from the third match (J9hh) and tweet about having a great time playing against me.
The match itself highlighted some weaknesses in my game. I’ve barely played any HU and should have been more aggressive in a few spots post-flop as Savy mentions, particularly as I had Boris tagged as slightly loose passive (if not weak tight). The structure would have made it fairly tricky to not get committed to pots, but I could have picked a few good spots that I whimped out of. I think being televised and commentated on definitely made me think twice before taking a suspect (but +EV) line that I wouldn’t think twice about online.
Some spots were also pretty shitty as well when down to 5-10bb. If I didn’t rip it in pre when Boris limped, I was completely whiffing on boards that Boris would have caught a piece of often and wouldn’t fold, so I don’t think there was much chance of making a move. I also made a few big stack size errors when playing due to being a live novice and probably being a little bit nervous/excited/half-cut when playing. I haven’t been able to watch the stream replay yet as it doesn’t seem to work for me, but maybe I won’t anyway due to the cringe factor of watching myself (and let alone before I make some donk moves!).
After the match, Sam Trickett presented Boris with the €15k cheque for his children’s charity and apparently said “well done” or similar to me as I left the table . I struggle with my hearing so didn’t catch him saying it, but that was nice of him. I’ll be honest and say I assumed he was a bit arrogant before I saw him on Saturday, but he really conducts himself well and seemed like a good guy with quick wit away from the table. The four of us then watched a bit of the high roller cash game and retired to bed.
We get up mid-morning Sunday and return to the casino for breakfast. Trickett, Leon, Rob Yong and a few others are still in the bar drinking and wearing the clothes from the night before, so they clearly had a good night. We then head back to Prague and kill a few hours before flying home. Overall, a great weekend and big thanks to the staff at Party for being friendly, organising a fantastic charity night and making me feel like a celebrity for the weekend. Their official evening report is here, along with a picture of me looking moderately drunk:
http://www.partypoker.com/blog/boris...ur-kinder.html
|