IPT Nova Gorica

Rob & I both satted into this €2k main event in Nova Gorica which is in Slovenia but barely across the Italian border. What does a poker tournament on the Italian border mean? Oh yes, loads of Italians! 

Our hotel was a fair trip away from the casino but with a hire car this didn't present a major problem. The hotel itself was quite quaint, old fashioned but clean & comfortable. The drive down from the hotel to the casino was glorious, with the sun splitting the trees, this winding road which ran along side the 'Emerald Trail' offered spectacular views & proved to be an enjoyable & relaxing start to each day.

 I had a tough table including a few pros & truth be told I never actually got going. It was a 20k starting stack so I had plenty of time to wait for a hand, however the problem was I got hands, they just didn't hold up. I lost reasonably large pots with pretty much all of them. My hate affair with JJ continues as I lost 2 large pots with them & I ran A9 soooted into 88 on a A98 flop. Even after a few potential disasters I still had about 70% of starting stack. That was until I got KK which I had to fold on the river when the board double-paired. So I round things off by shipping AK from the blinds over the top of a standard raise & yet again lose. It was at least a quick death in that I was up against JJ & he flopped a set. JJ always ends in disaster whether I have them or am up against them!
/rant


Decided I wasn't in the mood to play live on the Saturday & with the structure of the €1k side event not being fantastic it was a long day spent downstairs in the casino/hotel away from the poker room entertaining myself with silly online games & chatting to people. I also played a few MTTs to pass the time. Got a few small cashes but certainly nothing to make a point of noting.

Rob managed a bit better making it to day 3 and finished in 24th place. He played very well & even though extremely card dead he went incredibly deep, wp to him. The standard was higher than expected, certainly my starting table was a lot tougher than I assumed it would be. In saying that I would deffo recommend these events to anyone, fantastic structure & the casino itself was a great venue.

Rob's exit was just in time for him to also play the €500 side event on the Sunday. In the 2nd level I was dealt AA, made a standard raise UTG only to be 3 & 4 bet, After a lil bit of trying to look uncomfortable I shoved. Initial reraiser called about a long dwell & the other guy folded QQ face up. I was up against KK, with the only guy who actually covered me at the table . . . x x x x K! Wow, just can't make this shit up.

Rob was going well by this stage so it looked like another long night ahead in the casino. So back online I went to play the Sunday final of the RTE Late Night Stars of Poker. A clown had open shipped the first 2 hands I & call him the second time around with AK and lose obviously. He had J9 as it happened and flopped a 9, which obviously kept in line with my running for the weekend.

I was very bored with sitting downstairs & figured I'd give the cash a go as Rob looked like he was going to go fairly deep. I bought into the €2/€4 NLH game for €300 & worked it up to just over €700. I'm very happy with the table at this point, the 2 to my left are quite solid/tight, the few behind them are spewy/fishy and the 2 to my right are quite aggressive but decent, can tell they know what they are doing. Most of my profit has come from the 2 on my right, the guy to my immediate right in particular, who was playing about €2k . . . . :) very happy about that. I had a good rep & was getting as much respect as I could hope for in an Italian setting. Great, things are running a bit better. No of course they're not I just spoke too soon.

I call a late position raise (€22) from the blinds with 77. The flop comes 784 with 2 spades. I check, other 2 callers check, preflop raiser bets €60. I make it €150. To my surprise one of the callers goes all in for ~€200 followed by the preflop raiser who reships ~€1k. I'm obviously never folding at this point, so I call & start praying for no spades. Obviously the spade hits on the river, the initial raiser scoops the lot & I lose a €1,700 pot which certainly would have gone some way towards recovering my disappointment in the side event.

This is all very negative I know, but I feel like I have been running bad for months & I've witheld any serious rant until now. At this stage I think I deserve one. I decided that was enough running bad for a weekend so I decided to call it a night & rail Rob instead.

Rob got very unlucky 2 tables out where he had KK cracked by 88 in a 3 way all in pot. He recovered & managed to come 4th, eventually being knocked out by the guy with the 88 (bit sick huh). Still another cash, another great performance form Rob, and rounded off the trip nicely.

So that was all from Slovenia & we headed home on the Monday night from Venice airport. My next tournament is on Saturday, playing day 1B of the Boyles IPO, where hopefully I will have some sort of result to report. Fingers crossed.