Back from Austria after a very enjoyable weekend. The company was great and the card room friendly.
Friday started well with my flight from Manchester to Frankfurt delayed by an hour causing me to miss the connection to Vienna. I arrived in Frankfurt and was treated very well and they put me on the next available flight which was only an hour later anyway. I was stopped going through Frankfurt security and did have to sign, in triplicate, an "Offensive Weapon" document as they took my cigarette lighter off me. No smoking allowed in the terminal building as expected but they did have a "Camel Booth". This was about the size of an old telephone box and you could smoke in there one at a time.
Arrived in Vienna and got a taxi to the hotel where I was upgraded to a "Executive Suite". Result I hear you say. Well the only difference I could see was that the bed was a wee bit bigger and it had a mini bar. Found out that Don & Phil had gone to the casino so I freshened up and headed down to the lobby to order a taxi when I ran into PaulieD. We had a couple of drinks and headed over to the card room. Didn't play anything but the peculiar "Austrian Aces" which is a version of blackjack with the target being 22 and Aces got you 2/1 and feck all extra for AQ.
Friday was fun later on and what happens in Vienna, stays in Vienna.
Saturday was the day of the tournament and we hit the card room ready for battle. Local interest was high and I must point out at this stage that the profile of APAT was raised significantly in the card room. I started badly with no cards and unbridled aggression at my table. I continued badly with no cards to counteract this aggression, knowing any cute manoeuvre would be useless. After a few hours frustration I hit two pair on the turn and got them all in against a player I knew would call me down with a draw. However I really didn't need them to hit and I was off to the rail. Oh and did I mention Robin Hood, sorry Paul Mc was out first of us and all weekend he thought we were in Venice.
Played a bit of cash and moved up and down the Euro scale as the play was a tad loose and when I lost the original buy in I didn't bother to reload and went to the bar. We railed our contingent as one by one we bit the dust. The experience was great, especially the music that called you back to the tables after a break, we really must get that MP3. The craic at the bar was amazing as our numbers swelled with each knockout and we had a great laugh with the local bar staff. Paul Mc's sign language when attempting to describe places in England was a riot, especially silently doing all the movements of the various positions in a football team whilst trying to find out what the barman's favourite place on a team was.
With all of us out you would think Sunday would be an anti climax. It most certainly was not. We had a sit and go, (did I mention Paul Mc was out first, was a trend developing). We all decided to reg in the local tournament which was a 14 Euro buy in, 5,000 chips and a 20 minute clock. (did I mention that Paul Mc was first out). It got about 130 runners I think. Ran pretty ok in this one and managed to stay out of trouble as the madness continued with 5 people on our table going out during the first level (25/50 FFS).
Short stacked I managed to keep alive until the last 18 then I basically folded to the final table as my stack never went above 10BB and, in my opinion, at that point it's an easy game with only two moves. I made the final table (along with Don & Phil) and we got a free drink, bonus.
"Would you like a free drink" says TD
"Yes, Beer please" says I
"You already have a full one, would you like to wait" says TD
"No" says I
"OK" says she
Priceless
Worked away slowly and with Don & Phil equally low stacked when this hand happened. Phil is first to act, he goes all in. Don looks pained as he has less chips than Phil. Shaking his head he calls. Folds round to me, I have feck all I fold. Villain on my left looks and announces "All in". As he had loads of chips, this effectively isolated the two remaining players.
Phil JJ
Don AQ
Villain KK
Q on flop effectively scuppered Phil, and no more help did for Don. On a chip count Don was 9th and Phil was 8th.
Three hands later in the cut off with blinds 4000/8000/800 and me with 55k I find A9 clubs. I bet 20k (thought they might put me on a stronger hand than I actually had, but was still happy to ship the rest if raised) BB asks what I have back, I politely tell him and he goes all in with a huge amount of chips. I call.
He has AJ.
Two clubs on the flop give me hope, but two red cards later I was out in 7th place for just over 100 Euros. Not too bad for a 14 euro buy in.
The rest of the night we had a few drinks and lots of laughs at the bar and headed in our separate directions at some hour of the morning.
Ash was on the mind Monday morning but I had no real problems and two flights later, with a short delay, I was home.
Conclusions.
After discussions with the barman we can now order beer in 11 different languages.
Great weekend
Great people
Great hospitality
Great exposure for APAT
Hilarious updates
DHL lost the cup and medals
Well worth the trip.
Priceless
