29th of Jan. 2008
It took me five hours of driving to get to the NH hotel in the city of Dortmund. At about 4.45 pm I made my way to the Casino Hohensyburg to check for the tournament supposed to start the next day.
The friendly lady at the reception told me in a very nice way: "Mr Koch, you can’t register fort he tournament tomorrow.“ Slightly bewildered I asked her why. Her answer was: It’s simply not possible. So I asked her for a ticket to the gaming area and was told that if I wanted to entert he EPT area I would have to pay € 70,-. Now I was completely baffled. Why would I pay so much money just to watch? No exceptions, the nice lady carried on, no pay no entry. What is it with these German casinos?
30th of Jan.
I arrived early at the casino, roundabout 12 o’clock, to be one of the first in line. I had heard that some players actually cued for more than an hour only to check-in.
I was lucky. My check-in lasted only 25 minutes.
Then I looked up the list to find out where I was seated. Table 16 – Seat 4. The tournament started with a 40 min delay at 3.40 pm. 213 players began on day 1a.
I went up and down in teh first levels, losing with aces, kings and queens. I was down to 5000 chips when I finally woke up with pocket jacks which turned in to a Full House on the turn and helped me get back up to 14000.
Time was fliyng, and when play was stopped after level 8 the field had shrunk to 83 players.
At 1.10 am I put my chips into a bag. It ad been a long day but I still felt hopeful fort he next day.
Second day – 31st of Jan at 3 pm – unfortunately began in the most terrible way. The cards I got were so bad I couldn’t even think of a bluff.
When the blinds had taken me down to 5000 after quite a while I finally found A Q. I tried to take my chance and went all-in. The player to the left of me called with A K., The ace turned up on the flop, but so did the knig so I lost to two pair. And that was it. The dream about winning at the EPT had ended.
Upshot: Apart from € 8000,- buy-in the additional costs were pretty high as well.
I paid € 280,- for four days catering. The cash game rake was up to € 30,-. Hotel costs € 500,-. These additional expenses are ever harder to take for a player.
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