World Speed Poker Championship Report Part 1 (Loooong!!)

[PokerNeal]

I posted this first on the MTT forum and then realized that this is probably suitable here because of the discussion topic. Please ignore if you already read this on the other forum.

As some forum members that read my posts may know I qualified to play in the World Speed Poker Championship in Estonia by winning a satellite on PartyPoker. No, no, Estonia is not in New York state. This Estonia is several thousand miles away, as member state of the former Soviet Union now an independent country. It is tucked between Sweden and Poland and Latvia and Lithuania near the Baltic Sea. Women here are quite beautiful as many have nordic origin.

The trip report is broken into two sections. First is my take on Estonia and the second part is a report of day 1 of the speed poker tourney and my observations. For those that just want poker details scroll down.

Section I -- Getting to Estonia and being there!
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To begin with it took longer than expected to get to Estonia as the flight from Amsterdam to Tallinn (Capital of Estonia) was delayed by 4 hours. Estonian Air was a small operation and information was scarce. Finally the plane showed up and I was on board to Estonia!

Landing in Estonia and took a cab to the hotel. Very few Americans (if any) ever visit Estonia so the cabby appeared quite curious. But Estonians are known to be polite and silent and they don't converse unless you do. It cost about US 10$ to get to the hotel (10 minute ride). The cabbie appeared gratified by my $1 tip. It seems people here do not tip and if they do it does not appear to be on American standard as I was to find out over the next couple of days. The first impression was Estonia is quite pretty with weather that was gloomy (cloudy skies, constant drizzle) which is typical for this part of the world. My hotel was situated in the old town part of Talinn. Unlike in the USA the buildings here had at best one sign (a name) and absolutely no description of what sort of business happened there. As I was to find out later I had a hard time finding out where I could buy things because unless you walked into a business you had little idea what sort of merchandize they had for sale there. Today I took a trip to another part of the town where a brand new shopping mall had just opened up. Wow, this was comparable to if not better than many shopping malls in the U.S. Very very clean and quite fancy! Again, prices quite comparable to that in the U.S.

The hotel suite that was described as deluxe was at best equivalent to a standard room in a standard U.S. hotel chain. In restaurants that were on the same scale as the U.S. the prices were comparable if not a little more expensive than a typical U.S. city. I was told that the median income here was quite low and many Estonians dined in their local restaurants and not frequent the places tourists did.

Estonia became independent in the mid 90's and the government here has been quite progressive in their approach to a free market economy. As you may all know Estonia was a part of the old Soviet Union and declared independence in the mid 90's when Gorbachev declared "Glasnost and Prestroika" (Spelling?). Independent businesses were unheard of in the Soviet days but they are sprouting all over the place. They try emulate a western business model but are quite not there.

The funny thing here that restrooms (called toilets) had just MWC or FWC on them with no male or female figure markings and I presumed (correctly!) that MWC was for males. This I first noticed at the player party thrown in at a bar called Cafe VS. I was blown away when the appetizers that followed were described by the waitresses as Naan bread, Chicken Tikka Masala, Korma and so on. It turns out that Indian (India) food is very popular in Estonia and served in many places. I found that places here are quite formal requiring you to check in your jacket at the reception and such. If not they will come and ask you politely but firmly! My leather jacket was frowned upon when I didn't check it in and I was asked to take it off and check it at the front desk.

Section II -- Poker tourney talk (Wow! them clock girls!!!)
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Now poker talk. All over town there were mini casinos with at best 20 or 30 slot machines and tables each. Estonia appeared again like U.S. from the 50's or 60's as each of these casinos were overstaffed with 2 doormen, many bartenders, receptionists and so on. At the casino called the Astoria Palace Casino (equivalent to the size of a very small Las Vegas casino) the stage was set up for World Speed Poker championship. The first round was to take place on Thursday and I found that my seat assigment was right next to Marcel Luske (one seat after next so really two seats away), who (I am told) is a world class poker player with many accomplishments!

Wow, the first order of the day for the poker host was to do an intro to the poker clock girls. Wearing outfits that seemed appropriate for a niteclub there were nearly a dozen strikingly beautiful, tall and mostly blonde girls with figures that would bring any man down to his knees! Apparently, there job was to stand behind a player (two per table) and start the clock and give no more than 15 seconds to decide whether to bet or fold. As it happened one such beauty located herself right behind me and I tried not to be distracted. I need not have worried because Marcel Luske (spelling?) was doing enough talking at the table drawing a whole lot of attention to himself. The whole event was being filmed by a crew and therefore I got a lot of camera time because I was seated next to Marcel!

The first hour was disastrous for me as I have never played live tournament poker and now I was in the so-called world speed poker championship sitting next to Marcel, who appeared extremely at ease. He patted me gently on the back and said, "Play poker! Have fun! Don't frown!" Easy for him to say because he played the table like we were a bunch of amateurs and soon his stack was the biggest on the table. He talked a lot commenting on each and every player's move (he was being humorous, never disrespectful) and I think (respectfully) made a mistake showing off the kinds of hands he was winning pots with. They were mediocre hands at best which after hundreds of online tourneys were the ones I would never play. (IMHO) Therein begin his demise as the Internet poker players (all the rest of the table) caught on to Marcel and started chipping away at his stack. And then Marcel made the mlost surprising bad play when he went all-in in response to another player (who I think had a 2 pair on the turn) hoping to catch that miracle card on the river(!) that would give Marcel a nut flush. He did not get it and he was busted! I could not believe that Marcel pushed his stack all-in hoping for the miracle card on the river when he did not make his flush on the turn! Someone else later said this tourney was too small for Marcel but then I also heard that he bought-in direct (as opposed to qualifying) and flew in from somewhere else for this tourney. Later I saw him playing one of the side tourneys (for a much smaller take) and he was quite the attraction given his popularity. After he busted I felt a little better (and more secure so I can at least say I outlasted Marcel Luske!) and started playing a more normal game but my stack was down to less than 1,000 and the blinds were at 200/400! It seemed like hand-after-hand poker gods were frowning on me! I got A-Q three times in late positions and had to put out some chips out there and flopped rags each and every time! Finally, I had a pair of 10's, and with a low stack went all-in, and got taken on by a guy who had A-J. I won the hand. Soon thereafter I went all-in on a pair of K's and beat the guy who was chasing an open-ended straight draw and failed to make his hand. And then I had pocket Ace's in the big blind and the player at the dealer button tried to steal the pot with a bet of 1100 chips (blinds still 200/400). The SB went all-in! Thank you poker God! I immeidately went all-in with 1750 chips and the dealer button quickly folded. The SB had Q-Q. I won the hand and at the end of day 1 my chip count stood at 6700 with the average stack being 12,500. I made the cut for the second round where 24 players play and the game goes on until 10 players left for the final table. Given that I now only have half the average stack I am not sure I can make it to the final table. The situation does not look good but then a couple of good hands and sound betting and I can hope to at least hang in there till the final table!

Trip report two will follow later and will be light on detail if I bust out without making it to money. There are 24 players left. To make it to money I have to end up in the top 12 but as I noted before I have less than half average stack. When play begins the blinds will be 300/600. The highest chip count stands currently at about 21K. Average is 12.5K. I have 6700 chips. Any suggestions/comments as to what strategies I should follow at this late stage with the dimunitive stack that I have are greatly appreciated!

PS. I heard later that one other world-class player got busted in addition to Marcel and there remain 2-3 more such players. As soon as I find out who they are I will post their names and results. I suspect that they are European players because many entrants here are from Europe. Roughly 1/5th of the players I believe are from the U.S.

[Cleveland Guy]

Marcel was one of the most entertaining players to watch on any of the WSOP broadcasts.

He can talk and dominate a table without being obnoxious.

[Cleveland Guy]

Marcel was one of the most entertaining players to watch on any of the WSOP broadcasts.

He can talk and dominate a table without being obnoxious.

He also placed very high in the Main Event, and one a bracelet at another event, so I'm sure the buy in was no big deal to him

[JasonDB]

Great post. Thanks for sharing your experience and good luck!

[ononimo]

thanks for taking the time to post and good luck on cashing in!

[PokerNeal]

To complete the thread here I placed #11 and made the money. Only the first 12 made money. The real money was with the first 6. Just before the bubble the host announced that another world class player bust out but I don't remember his name. He won a bracelet for Omaha or something or other and also made the final table at world series. Marcel Luske bust out in early stages but I think he did well in the side tourneys. Truly, he is a world class player, a real gentleman, and a lot of fun at the table.

I consider myself fortunate to have played with these kinds of players and I think I played well with a small stack in heat #3 to end up in the money. Other than that I have a lot to learn just like the rest of us.