My EPT Barcelona trip report (long and wordy)

[PuertoKid]

I posted this on pocketfives.com and thought I'd cross post here too. Sorry about the length and spelling and grammar errors.
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It was a Friday night and I was looking for a tournament to play. Poker Stars and UB are my favorite tournament sites and I had noticed that Poker Stars was running satellites to the European Poker Tour events. The event to Barcelona caught my eye as I had lived in souther Spain for 4 years in the mid-to-late 1980's. I met my wife while I was in Spain and we travel to Spain every few years to visit her family. Winning a trip to Spain, I thought, would be very cool given my background.

So on a lark, I entered a 300 FPP satellite. 9 people from that tournament would win a seat to the 3000 FPP tournament on Saturday. The top 2 from the Saturday tournament would win a seat to the Barcelona event. Needless to say, I placed in the top 9 in the first satellite and went on to win the 2nd satellite. I remember that during the final table of the 2nd satellite I was barely the chip leader with about 62k in chips and 8 people remained. The 2nd chip leader, KingMambo13 (Josh Arieh's wife, Angela), was playing a very solid, aggressive game. She wound up
getting KK at the same time I got AA and we got all in preflop. My Aces held up and from that point on I had more chips than the rest of the table combined. Winning the rest of the tournament with that lead was pretty straightforward.

Right after the last hand of the satellite I was so excited that I jumped out of my chair, danced around the dining room, and did some Bruce Lee kung fu moves. It was a spontaneous explosion of excited engery. When I couldn't think of another Kung Fu move to try, I started calling friends and family to tell them I was going to Barcelona. I couldn't contain myself. This was the biggest thing I had ever won. The greatest tournament achievement prior to that had been a couple of months earlier when I took 1st place in the 1st $100+9 tournament I had ever entered for a $2700 prize.

Unfortunately, my departure date was less than 2 weeks away and with 3 kids in school my wife couldn't come with me. I'd have to go alone. But it was going to be a great experience nevertheless.

I got lucky on my flight from Seattle to Atlanta as I was in a 3-seat middle section and nobody was in the other 2 seats. I got to uncoil my 6'3" frame as much as the row would allow and take a nap. When I got in my seat for the flight from Atlanta to Barcelona, I was again in a 3-seat middle section and I was happy to see that I was seated next to a tall, beautiful, Spanish woman in her late 20's. Now, I'm a married guy and I had no illusions of picking up on anybody, but I'm certain that every guy, as he boards an airplane by himself, looks to see who is sitting in the seat next to where he will be, hoping that it is an attractive woman. That is rarely the case, but it was for me this time. 9 hours to try to brush up on my flirting skills!

About 5 minutes after taking my seat, a squat, potato-ish, Spanish lady sat in same row on the other side of my beauty queen. She looked around the airplane, then looked at the pretty lady, and asked her "would you mind changing seats with my friend in the back--we're travelling together and couldn't get adjacent seats." Ugh! The pretty lady looks back to where her potential new seat would be, shrugged her shoulders, and said "ok, I guess." Ugh! The squat lady's friend turned out to be about 5'4" and I'd say about 270lbs. As she squeezed into her seat, the flesh from her hips and thighs oozed out from between the seat cushion and the arm rest and pressed firmly into me. She gave me a hockeypuck smile to hide her bad teeth. My eyes darted back and forth between her flat, oily hair and the warts and moles on her neck. Ugh!!! I felt like my pocket Aces had just been busted by 72o at the final table of a major tournament. I spent most of the 9 hour flight standing next to the lavoratories at the back of the plane.

I departed Seattle early Wednesday morning and arrived in Barcelona about 1pm Thursday Barcelona time. The tournament was scheduled to start on Friday. When I arrived at the Hotel Princess in Barcelona I saw a table with a Poker Stars sign and a bunch of sports bags. An attractive young lady with an English accent greeted me. She checked my name off a list, gave me one of the sports bags that contained an assortment of PokerStars clothing and goodies. During later conversations I discovered that she was from England but lives in Barcelona. She contracts with PokerStars to arrange the event in Barcelona.

The hotel was quite nice and better than any I had ever stayed at in Spain. Poker Stars advertised that the hotel was a 4-star hotel, but I didn't expect it to be as nice as it was.

After unpacking and taking a short nap, I caught a cab to the Casino Barcelona. I got there about 10:30 pm and I wanted to scout out the territory and perhaps play some cash games. The casino is within a short walking distance of the Port Olympic (the 1992 Olympics were in Barcelona) but I didn't see a lot of nightlife around the casino. I was told that the famous Barcelona "night life" happened in another part of the city known as "Las Ramblas" and it wasn't really within walking distance of the casino.

Having lived in Spain, I knew smoking was the norm with the Spanish people and I girded myself for entering a room full of dense cigarette smoke. To my surprise, it wasn't too bad when I walked in. Ahh! But the poker room was downstairs. After getting a ticket that allowed me to enter the poker room (I'm not sure why this is required in Spain) and heading downstairs, I found the clouds of smoke I had been anticipating.

I wandered around the poker room and found they were at the final table for a $1000 euro poker tournament. A young energetic player had a big chip lead and was playing very aggressively. He won the tournament. Little did I know then that he would be at my table in the Barcelona Open the next day (that's what they called the EPT Barcelona event in Spain).

After watching the final table for awhile I looked around to see what cash games they had going. The smallest game going was 10/20 limit (euros, not dollars). Well, actually they had a 5/10 NL game, but I consider that a bigger game than 10/20 limit. 10/20 was bigger than I was anticipating playing and bigger than the games I play online. I didn't bring enough to play 10/20 (only brought 300 euros cash) but I wanted to play so I went to the cashier and got another 500 euros on my credit card. I got on the 10/20 list and was called to be seated about 45 minutes later.

The game was wildly loose aggressive with lots of preflop raising and reraising and post flop bluffing, semi-bluffing, and calling down with anything. I didn't want to blow through a lot of money so I decided to play a tight aggressive game and not open up as much as one should do in this type of game to extract maximum profit (at the risk of more volatility). I got involved in very few hands and got no respect in the hands I did get involved in. In fact, I certainly got the impression that more people got involved in the pot when I came in for a raise simply to suck out on the tight American player. They were gonna show me! Well, they didn't show me very much. My game plan kept me in the black, though I did fluctuate quite a bit. I was up 190 euros at one point but was down to being +70 euros when I left. But hey, no complaints from me. That was certainly enough to pay cab fares and meals for me while I was there. One lady that had been playing at the table was a complete donk who obviously fancied herself as an expert player. I would find myself playing against her for a nice profit 2 days later at the same table after I busted out of the Barcelona Open.

I left the casino about 3am and caught a taxi to the hotel. The cab driver was telling me all about a place called "La Sauna Cristal" where I could get a beatiful woman for 30 minutes for 100 euros. He was telling me it was a nice, clean environment for having sex with prostitutes and that he highly recommended it. He gave me their card which I kept so I could bring it back and show my wife. I would enjoy teasing her about having gone to "la sauna cristal."

The next day I woke up about 12pm and got ready for the 1pm lunch that Poker Stars was hosting. I arrived at the lunch room about 10 minutes after 1pm and there were a number of people already there. I got some lunch from the buffet. PokerStars put out a very nice spread. I got to meet a number of people including Brandon Schafer, who is also from the Seattle area and qualified for the EPT French event last year via fpp and took first place. He is a super nice guy who doesn't give a hoot about dress codes.

I also got to talk with the Global Marketing Director for Poker Stars (forgot his name) who provided some interesting insights into the state of online poker. Their was a film crew there and a couple of people I probably should have known of, but didn't because I don't know much about poker personalities. I also got to meet with Pauly McGrupp, who writes the "Tao of Poker" blog at http://taopoker.blogspot.com. we rode the bus to the casino together and Isabelle Mercier was in the seat behind us. I had no idea who she was and Pauly whispered to me who she was. I had heard the name and seen her picture on Team PokerStars, but never paid that much attention until Pauly pointed her out. She's hot! I remember my friend Mike from work telling me to get a picture with her, but I forgot to bring my camera. Pauly spent some time talking with her too and I just kind of listened in.

When we got to the casino there was a long line to get the permission slip required to enter to poker room. Pauly pointed out several poker celebs to me who were also waiting in line: Gus Hansen, Marcel Luske, and a couple others whose names I forget. After getting the "poker permission" slip we had to wait in another huge line downstairs to get registered. It was obvious that while Poker Stars did a great job, the casino itself wasn't prepared for an event of this size with so many people. There was a waiting list of over 90 people wanting to get into the tournament. The tournament was supposed to be capped at somewhere around 280. I think they gave special treatment to a couple of the stars as they got into the tournament while people that got there before them were turned away. Perhaps they had already registered, but I don't think so as they were there with money in hand. But I suppose that having name pros in a tournament goes a long way to helping establish its credibility so I understand the move.

Another strange thing they did was that they decided at the last minute to allow people on the waiting list to come into the tournament as people busted out for the 1st three levels. The people that came in late came in with the full 10k in chips. They also pulled into use some tables that were obviously not poker tables. They could only hold 8 people (very crowded 8 people at that) so some tables were short handed while the regular poker tables were pressed into having 11 people. It looked odd to me later seeing Marcel Luske crunched into one of these tables, like he was playing a home game in Joe's kitchen. Anyway, the casino didn't prepare properly and was overwhelmed.

The tournament was supposed to start at 4pm and run until 4am. They didn't get started until 5pm. They didn't have enough ept chips so there were also a mix of chip types in play. The "nice" ones, and the "not so nice" ones. I noticed that the players put the "not so nice" ones out first when they bet or posted the blinds.

Anyway, the tournament did get started and there I was, playing in my first major tournament event. Pauly had given me some encouragement before the game started. He asked if I had a plan. I told him that I was going to play tight in the beginning and open up later on as the table and blinds dictated (standard operating procedure for most newbies I suppose). I also told him that I was going to be very aggressive preflop with my good hands. I'm a very inexperienced player and I knew that I'd be outmatched in postflop play. The only way I thought I could compensate for that was to bring a lot of preflop pressure with my good hands. If the really good players wanted to get in with me so they could outplay me postflop, they were going to pay heavy for the right.

Right away I saw that the winner of the previous night's 1k euro event was at my table and that he was extremely aggressive. A maniac. He made a couple all-in moves early and showed he was bluffing. He started building a stack early and was up to over 12k pretty quickly. I quit thinking he was good and just thought he was an overaggressive, reckless, machoboy who no skills other than to push hard. Indeed, it was reported he hit some magic cards at perfect times in the previous day's tourney. No skill, just luck and bravado. He had been putting A LOT of pressure on the guy to his immediate right, reraising him incessantly. Finally, on a flop of J87 with 2 spades he pushed all in when the guy to his right bet into him. After a few minutes of thought the guy called and turned over KQ both of spades. Machoboy turned over a trash hand that hadn't hit and another spade came. He was now down to 900 chips. I leaned over to the guy next to me and said "now he's going to go all in every hand." Indeed, the very next hand he goes all in. I look down and see AA. It is folded to me and I called. He showed 8c5c. My aces held up and he was out. I'm at just under 11k and feeling like I'm off to a good start.

I didn't play another hand until the the 100/200 level. I got 66 and called in the cutoff. The small blind raised to 400, which didn't feel too threatening to me as he was being very aggressive. There was 1 caller in front of me and I called. The flop came JJT. It is checked around. The turn was a 6. The small blind bet 1200. I raised to 3000 and he folded. I couldn't believe it. My first major tournament and I was building a stack!

A little while later I got AQ in middle position. UTG, an asian female who had been playing aggressively, but solid, raised to 600. I called. The flop came Q high. She bet, I raised, she reraised all-in. I had seen her make some big bets wth top pair, non-nut kicker, so I called. She showed AQ. When I showed my AQ she beathed a sigh of relief. The turn brought me a 4 flush however, which brought some excitement to the hand. The river, to her relief, was a brick and showed me a big smile. (edit: after posting this I was reading some blogs and discovered this lady was "Bad Girl" Xuyen Pham).

At the same level I got 66 again a little while later and called after 3 limpers in front of me. The flop came 86T rainbow. It was checked to me and I bet 600. 1 caller. Turn was a T. I checked, button checked. River was a brick and I bet another 600. Button folded The chips were shipped to me and I counted my stack to find I was at T16400.

Whoopeee! I was doing pretty good at my table.

I had been winning almost every hand I'd been involved in and showing down good, solid hands. I used this to bluff a couple of very big pots when I felt the other players were weak. My heart was thumping hard the time when I bluffed at a KJ8 flop when holding 56 against an early position player who I was sure had me beat. But I felt he wasn't sure of his position. He bet 1k into me on the flop and I raised to 3500. I almost crapped my pants when after a long hesitation he called. The turn brought a 6 and he checked to me. I bet 8k. He thought for a long time and then folded. There were a couple of things he did in the past that made me think I could pull that move off.

Fortunately I was right and I was well over 20k at that point. Things continued to go well over the following hours and I built my stack to T58K by about 1:30am. The average chip stack is somewhere in the 40's. Pauly and some of the Poker Stars staff would come around occasionally and encourage me and ask my chip count. I'd always gave them a chip count a few thousand less than what I really had.

They broke for dinner in two groups. There was a fairly long line to get into the dinner room and I was a bit disappointed to see Isabelle Mercier cut to the front of the line. Bruce Springsteen wouldn't do that and he is a much bigger celebrity than she is. I didn't see Gus Hansen or Marcel Luske cutting in line earlier at the tournament (though they probably got some kind of special treatment to get into the tourney--but I understand that). Anyway, that was a dissapointment.

After dinner things continued to go well for me and I was feeling cautiously optimistic. I tried to steal from the cutoff with A5o and raised to 2k (blinds were 300/600 I think). The button went all in for a total of 4.5k. It was 2.5k more to me and the first thing I thought was "oh [censored], I'm beat, I gotta fold." But then I remembered some things I read in Harrington about making calls when you think you are behind when the odds are right. When I thought about the range of hands he could do that with I thought I had proper odds to make the call and I did. He turned over AJ. The flop brought a 5 and my A5 held up to bust him from the tournament. I apologized to him for the bad beat. My stack went to T62k, but that hand damaged my reputation at the table.

Then things start going downhill. The table was being aggressive and it was folded to me in late middle position on a rare occassion. I raised to 2k to steal with KJo. The bb thought for a long time and then went all in for 8k more. I'm not sure what the hell I was thinking and was shocked to hear myself say "I call". What in the hell was I thinking??? I remember thinking something about calling with inferior hands when the odds were right, but the odds were not right to make that call. He turned over AJ and I knew my KJ was in serious trouble. The flop came with a K though and my opponent groaned "Oh, God, don't do this to me." The turn brought an A and he was redeemed. My stack took a hit as did my image at the table. Now I knew people would be going after me and I'd have to tighten up considerably.

And I did. But I lost a couple of races which further hurt me. An over-aggressive short stack went all in and I called with JJ. He turned over QK and hit a Q on the river. I was down to T32k when the blinds were 1500/3000 with 300 antes. I was in Harrington's orange zone and was feeling a lot of pressure to make a move. It was 3:45am and they were going to stop the tournament at 4:30am and resume Saturday evening. I then made my fatal mistake. I raised UTG with QQ. A short stack on my immediate left went all in with his 18k. A tight, aggressive, solid player on the button pushed all in. I practically got all my chips in before he got his in. I really kick myself for this now. I didn't do one of the things I swore to myself I'd do: stop, think, and consider every move. It was a huge pot and If I won it would put me over 70K and in great shape. But I had enough chips left compared to some others at the table to be able to push in a better spot if I thought I was up against a bigger pair.

But I didn't stop and think and ponder. I didn't ponder what my opponent had and I didn't ponder what my situation was as a whole in the tournament. I didn't stop to think that while I was short stacked there were a lot of other people even more short stacked than me. That is, Q's weren't good for anybody except the biggest stacks like Gus Hansen. Well, the short stack turned over AK and the button turned over, of course, AA. An A hit on the turn to cement my fate.

Ugh! Placed 62 out of 327 when they paid the top 27.

I milled about and explained to a few people that I got busted when my QQ ran into AA, leaving out the important part that I played my QQ poorly, which I knew I did (not to mention the previous KJo call).

I caught the PokerStars shuttle to the hotel, called my wife to tell her I was out, then went to sleep. I woke up at 4pm when the hotel staff called to tell me they wanted to clean my room. I heard myself mumbling non-sense in half-spanish, half-english. I was out of it. I finally conveyed to them that I didn't want my room cleaned and I went back to sleep. I Got up at 5pm, showered and played a 30+3 on UB. Placed ITM but only got $39 when I was busted by a bad beat. Then played a $40+4 and got busted when I bet a 7TK flop with my KQ and got check-raised all in. I called and the other person showed AQ. Of course, a J hit on the turn and I was out.

I was feeling a bit let down and started thinking that "La sauna cristal" sounded pretty good. I'd at least like to have a peek to see what the women there looked like. I wondered if I could get 2 at the same time for a discount. Maybe 175 euros for a threesome? I wondered if they'd make me change condoms as I went back and forth between the two of them. I then looked on the national institute of health website to find some information about the effectiveness of condoms in preventing an array of STD's. The documentation showed that the effectivenss of condoms in preventing things like herpes and warts is inconclusive. That, and the fact that I knew I couldn't cheat on my wife, convinced me I should go check out what was going on at the casino. So I showered and caught a cab.

They were just starting the final table when I arrived. There was another tournament going on so there were very few cash games (lots of lists for cash games, but no available tables). I got on the list for the 10/20 game. They got a game going about 90 minutes later. I played for about 1 1/2 hours, playing only 3 hands. In all of those I limped and folded on the flop.

The crazy lady from the 1st night I was there was playing her same style. She had made some chips and one of her friends came over and told her to stay calm and relaxed and not go crazy. I finally got a decent starting hand UTG with AsQs and I raised. I was reraised and 5 people saw the flop. The flop was all low cards with 1 spade. I check call. The turn brought another spade. Check call. The river brought the third spade. I bet, crazy lady raised, I reraised, she called. She showed a lower flush (4s 7s I think). The pot was over 300 euros. I stopped playing a few hands later, walked the 3.5 miles back to the hotel and went to sleep as I had to wake early for my flight home.

Though I lost, it was a great experience. Poker Stars treated us very well and I went away with much more confidence in my game. I made some big mistakes, but I understand those mistakes. I want to do this again. I played a sub satellite for the EPT Baden event and won entry to the $380 qualifier this weekend. If I win that I'll be going to my 2nd EPT event in a couple of weeks.

I love this game!

[TomHimself]

i read this on p5's too but i didnt reply. vn report.

edit- i also heard the conditions werent great at the casino as far as capacity and that i heard people were scalping their tickets to those who had not yet registered.

[Exitonly]

very nice report...

[ QUOTE ]
I felt like my pocket Aces had just been busted by 72o at the final table of a major tournament.

[/ QUOTE ]

best quote i've seen in a few days.


and for the QQ play.. i really don't thin kyou're getting away from that, he could be isolating the short stack with quite a few hands that you ahve beat soundly. tough break, but sounds like a fun trip..

I can't wait to qualify for one of those, ,since they're the only events i can play in (turn 20 in november).

[dmk]

[ QUOTE ]
I can't wait to qualify for one of those, ,since they're the only events i can play in (turn 20 in november).

[/ QUOTE ]

fyi, you can play the stars carribean wpt event and the party million wpt event if you so choose. they are both 18+ as well.

[TomHimself]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I can't wait to qualify for one of those, ,since they're the only events i can play in (turn 20 in november).

[/ QUOTE ]

fyi, you can play the stars carribean wpt event and the party million wpt event if you so choose. they are both 18+ as well.

[/ QUOTE ]the party is 21+

[IHateKeithSmart]

Nice report puerto. Barcelona is an awesome city, but it sounds like the airplane reseating deal was rigged.

[tpir90036]

[ QUOTE ]
I then made my fatal mistake.

[/ QUOTE ]
Uh, no. You do not mention what you raised to but I will assume it was to around 3x BBs... so folding and leaving yourself with < 7 BBs in this spot does not seem like a very good idea.

1) You had a long way to go to cash
2) You could get lucky and triple up
3) You will be in bad shape if you fold
4) You might have the best hand!!

If this is not an inflection point I don't know what is. I would have open-pushed and saved myself from having to make any more decisions.

[PuertoKid]

Yes, I raised 3x. In retrospect I think pushing pf is the right play for me there. I wanted some action with my QQ and given that I had a bigger stack than many at the table, and enough to seriously hurt most of the rest. I thought it would likely fold around to a push and I wanted some action. But given that I still had plenty of FE, pushing and winning the blinds is not a bad thing there as I'll have a couple more opportunities to steal on the blinds or immediately after having the blinds.

Either way, pushing or raising and calling a push, it would have wound up the same. Given that I didn't push, and given that I would have been over 90% certain that this particular player was making his move with KK or AA, I'd have preferred to fold than call his all in. For anybody else at the table there is no way I could give 90% chances they were on AA or KK doing that move. But for this particular guy I could, particularly since I (erroneously) started pushing my chips before he said all in and he looked at me, nodded, and smiled as he pushed all in.