I had a great trip to Prague in December, once again joined by my father. Also, Gustav decided to join me, and I want you to guess whether he's the type that books a hotel three months in advance or when he's standing in the hotel lobby. When he told me in Copenhagen Airport five minutes before boarding, I started frantically checking if I could get him a room at the Hilton in Prague. Because I'm fully aware that this is a guy who wouldn't settle for living anywhere else, when it is at Hilton it goes down. So I'd imagined the horror scenario if we couldn't get the guy a room. A school camp trip for three with an extra bed in our room, which obviously turned into reality two hours later. I took the middle bed, my dad started browsing the tourney schedule, and we were off.
It wa surprisingly pleasant and gave no problems whatsoever. We didn't see anything of my dad because of the continually running tourneys at the €200-300€ level, which he played. He got far in almost every single one he played, but he's the type that latches on to the table with his teeth and refuse to let go. Nobody can get him to leave a table just because he's down to 10 big blinds. He can easily manage to stretch 20 BB for several hours, where I'd either be bust or have doubled within a couple of hands.
The tourneys were no success for me. In the Main, my last 23K went all in holding 67 on a 588 board, where I faced 22. In the High Roller, the first buy-in went in a coin flip, while the second disappeared on a two-outer. Those two-outers are difficult to get used to, and you have happily enough forgotten all about them the many times you bust someone from the other side of the equation. All the money had gone in on the turn, and now I just needed to avoid the two jacks left in the deck, which I didn't. Now I was looking for a flight home, while I cursed and bemoaned that I never had that kind of luck. I found a morning flight home, which meant I had approximately five hours before I had to leave for the airport.
As I can't sleep, I played some cash game PLO, when suddenly they announce a NL game. 6-max with blinds of 5,000-10,000 koruna, which is about $250-500...not something you will normally ever see me play with five pros. I actually don't remember the last time I played a game of NL that wasn't a part of a 6-8 game, but this was with a casino owner who is notorious for being game, which drew me to play.
I can see now on the lineup that I wasn't the only one who went outside my comfort zone. While I'm probably not the world's best NL-player, I have no problems playing those blinds, which might have turned into a minor problem for some of the other players. We also played short, meaning that everybody only brought 50BB, which again meant I avoided the difficult decisions. All in all it seemed like a brilliant idea to grab the last seat.
A very surreal game was about to begin. In the very first hand, the casino owner doubles up by going all-in after a preflop raise. His AQ stood its ground, and that marked the start of the action. On the next hand he straddled to 20K ($1,000), and I'm in the big blind. Everybody folded to me, and I'm looking at AA, which adds to the surreal feel of the game.
Call me old-fashioned, but with a hand like that, I decided to raise to 50K. I'm less worried about whether my opponent folds, as he likes to see flops, so the only question is whether he calls or raises. He called, and we get a flop of 2-9-10 with two diamonds.
I bet half the pot and called immediately when he went all in. Twenty seconds later, I headed to the cashier, as two pairs also beat one pair in Prague. And as he had 2-T, I had to take the walk to the cashier.
Our friend begins to win every all-in and knocks out a couple of players. I'm already a bit paranoid and constantly watching the cards as they are being dealt, because he hit the craziest hands. On a Q-5-4 flop he obviously got Q-4 against K-Q, which I escaped from, as the last man, who also has Q with an expected A kicker, went all-in.
Then the casino owner won an all-in where the board showed A-K-7-10-8. The young German with 8-8 thought he had a chance and went for it. But no! Of course our friend was sitting with J-9. All the money was all-in before the flop, by the way.
Anyway, the game went back and forth, and the guy starts losing a couple of hands. I've now doubled my second deposit, so I now have 1 mill ($50K), when we get this hand:
A fairly dry Greek opened up for 35K, which our friend in the small blind calls. I made it 135K with J-J. The Greek guy folded and our friend called. The flop showed 4-10-Q. and we both checked. Turn is another Q, and our friend checked. Here experience tells me that I'll get called twice if he has either a 4 or a ten and the board doesn't improve significantly.
Additionally, he could easily raise or go all-in with an underpair, so I bet and had no intention of folding if he got aggressive.
I get an "all-in" to the face and quickly paid the million I had in front of me. We didn't show our cards, so when river came as a jack, I was very sure I was ahead. I figured I had only needed to avoid him hitting one of his underpairs. So I showed my hand and expected him to muck. He did muck, but not before showing me his Q-7 for three of a kind.
So now, at least, I can remember a two-outer that went my way for $100K...at least until the next time I lose to a two-outer. Then I'll probably have conveniently forgotten about this. ;)
Feel free to remind me next time I'm on EPT Live
Theo Jorgensen is a member of Team PokerStars Pro
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