blonde poker

The Concord Card Casino in Vienna played excellent host to the Austrian Open over four frosty days last week, and a good handful of British players took the short flight to Wien to participate in this long-structured, efficiently-run no-limit event. Deceptively capacious, the card room is a kind of open plan affair, with corners for lounging over schnitzel, and a small restaurant all around a little but frantically busy bar.

That's where we immediately met up with a whole pile of people, blondes and others, who were drinking the viciously strong coffee (or beer) – Brian ‘The Rookie' Wilson, Joe Grech, Chunky Mick Jones, Julian Thew, RED-DOG and Micky Wernick amongst them. Before they'd even started, support (or at least curiosity) was coming through on the forum for young Stuart Rutter, who'd come from the UK for this event, and also Rob Yong, Simon Nowab, Simon Trumper and tikay himself. Although it tends in the latter case to be the kind of support which comes in the form of, “Is he out yet?”

There was some racing off the starting blocks for a couple of players, like John Hewston whose AJ of hearts hit the nut flush at the same time as someone's littler hearts hit the same flush to make him one of the early leaders. Similarly, Brian sat down to play one hand, and it was a biggie, forcing his opponent off an overpair on a board which had brought him an up-and-down with, er, 3 4.

As for El Blondie, he looked bright in the bumblebee coloured blonde team shirt, as did tikay and RED – and it was actually much easier to keep track of them in a room full of subdued hoodies and logoed T-shirts. Say what you will, the blondeites stand out from the crowd. Patrick ‘Wardonkey' Taylor qualified for Vienna by winning the monthly BlueSquare Sponsorship Freeroll – a one-off sponsored trip to a big comp in Europe, and looked quietly relaxed at the start. A strange hand took a bite out of his stack though – a raiser eventually found to have 6 2 hit a flop with two 2s on it and Patrick sitting on AQ hit the Ace on the river to get lulled into thinking he was ahead.

Mickey Wernick went out with an AQ which hit a Q 9 x board, just not as well as Mateyboy's pocket Nines. Meanwhile the Rookie's A7 suited was no match for a Mr. Raisy's KK, and he was vowing never to play Aces, big or small again in the bar afterwards. Kevin O'Leary had the pleasure of tikay on his left, and Rob Yong on his right for a while. All of them started off pretty steadily, but tikay started to dwindle when he was moved to Stuart Fox and Surinder's table, while Rob's AK was soon busted by a flushing 67 (all in preflop). Foxy just did what he always seems to do, and built a good stack by the end of the day, finishing eighth in chips.

Most blondeites, however, didn't really get the chance to play – either snapped off by draws (like RED-DOG) or just whittled like Wardonkey, who said, “Whenever I want action, they fold, whenever I want them to fold, they raise.” He eventually lost a race with big slick suited against a pair of Tens. Surinder went out on a big bold bluff against one of a good sized handful of Young Americans who'd flopped the nut straight, and tikay hit the old brick wall of KK vs. AA. With no luck for El Blondie, it fell to (confirmed) blondeite Bad Girl Xuyen Pham to carry the torch in style for the first day, shooting up to become, and remain, chip leader overnight. Nearing the end of the day, Simon Nowab (who'd been virtually railed consistently all day) ran AK into Aces, and Nick Gibson, too, exited before play paused for a nap, although he'd played strongly all day.

Also in good shape at the start of the next day were the amiable David Bagheri, whose early (successful) bluff against tikay got him followed cheerfully by blonde, Len Collin and Roman Yitzhaki, who was one of the aggressive early learners whose laptops later littered the bar area behind Snoopy and myself. Less chipped up Bullitpete exited early in the day, while popular local Sigi Stockinger shot up to chip leader in the first few levels. But the downfall of Bad Girl was the most noticeable part of Day Two – she eventually decided to gamble for a re-raise of 20k with AK, but her opponent had the Aces she was worried about, and her stack suffered as a result. Eventually Damir Alidzanovich took her out with her fingers a bit in the till with his pocket pair, and she went off like so many others to refresh for the later comps.

Stuart Fox lost a bundle with AQ against a not-going-anywhere AK on a raggy board, while sights were already being seen around town by Julian Thew, RED-DOG and Matt. Gutshot-dealing hooded whizkid Simon Hennessey never gained a big stack, but played on what he called “the aggressive side of my table” all the way through to his late exit. Similarly, Mike Tse, who accompanied Simon in the back-and-forth 24-hour card playing pilgrimage between the Concord and somewhere called PokerWorld, had no luck in the main comp, but did chop one of the side ones which he said, “got me out of it.”

It fell to James Browning to carry the British flag through to Day Three after we lost Dennis Troake, even after he'd turned up late on Day Two. We were running out of familiar faces and had to resort to the table list cheat sheet when we lost Ian Harris, and then Irish hope Len Collin. The biggest hit to his stack came when Manuela Seliger hit trip Nines on a board on which he was up and down with 10 J – but his aggressive all-in push on the flop was never going to get rid of her – and we were left with a lady chip leader and a sheepish look on Snoopy's face.

The saga of Jim Kerrigan's downfall (which also preceded James Browning's) was long and involved, with his Tens starting off being outdrawn by the excitable Santi's 55 (with all of Barcelona seemingly crowding round to watch). Then it was more drama as he trod that fine table talk line, getting a ruling when his opponent said what his hand was after being prompted by Kerrigan's “do you have sixes?” He gave his name as “Jimmy Vegas” to the disgruntled player, only for Jon Raab to hear the dealer immediately pipe in, “Oi, Jimmy Vegas, where's your ante?” This was all much more entertaining for the onlookers than for Jim, who exited eventually with AJ against Santi's pocket Tens, prompting another wave of enthusiasm from his friends. In fact, when he (Santi, a new blondeite) was knocked out, he looked just as cheerful as when he was winning a hand, if not more so.

The whittling to the final table on Day Three was fast and furious to begin with, as the short stacks took the plunge, among them James Browning, who finally ran AJ into Peter Provaznik's pocket Sixes. The players who would eventually make the final started to show their stuff, such as Mark Bartlog, who I think is an American living in Italy, but it's all so comfusing… He built up his stack steadily and at some points was seen to be playing online with his laptop on a side table at the same time. Multitasking taking to its extreme. The bubble fell to Manuela Seliger after a long day's play, but it was only the Final Bubble, so she left with €18,200 to console her.

It has to be said that, dapper and relaxed anywhere, Thomas Kremser (or Big TK as we call him) looked especially dapper and relaxed on his home turf, and when the inevitable rails came up to keep the spectators at bay, we were still allowed up to the tables to count chips and generally be nosy. Thanks to him for making exception for the humble bloggers. However, the final table was a tricky one – the stage it was perched on was so high that we saw not one card of one flop, and bet size was a guess at best. We only got detail when the all-ins were announced, which got to be rarely as the day wore on. Here was the lineup, as posted by extremely enthusiastic friend of Dutch player Ernst Hermans, which I thought summed up the enthusiasm this particular blonde member felt for the final – good to see after British interest had waned somewhat:

Ernst HERMANS   is the chipleader (oh yeah) with a good 632.922 of the 2.34 million of chips in play. 
Tim KRANK is breathing down his neck with 606.900 in chips
Jonathan PLENS has come up strong, sitting on 393.000 chips
Mark BARTLOG follows suit with 377.600 in chips
Andras KARKUS is looking to double his 221.100 in chips
Sigi STOCKINGER is trailing the pack with 116.800 in chips... 

And the prizes:

(1st) 145,300
(2nd) 79,900
(3rd) 40,900
(4th) 31,700
(5th) 27,300
(6th) 22,700

So after this introduction which we updaters didn't even need to make, the final commenced and soon found Andras Karkus with AK suited up against Tim's pocket Nines. The King fell, but so did a 9, and the full house ended up coming to finish him off. It's worth mentioning that shortstack Sigi Stockinger was known to El Blondie from years previously, and his prediction early on Day Two that Sigi would make the final, but not come first, but fourth, came eerily close to being correct.

Young Jonathan Plens made an all-in reraise preflop on Mark Bartlog, which left the latter deciding to fold and play a short stack, and set Jon up for his ***2 nd place finish***. Mark made his last move with KJ suited, but ran into Tim Miles/Krank's pocket Aces and that was that. Incidentally, Tim's name discrepancy came when it was revealed that ‘Krank' was his online alias and preferred name. So that's what we called him from then on.

The length of the final was belied by the amount of information we actually came across during its course – it was really difficult to get chip counts or see any of the action directly. One big hand Snoopy did catch which could have been decisive to the tournament as a whole involved Ernst raising with KK, finding Jonathan going all in with his A 10 off, and probably assuming when the Ks was the first card out that he was going to be a huge chip leader at any second. But the board came all spades, and that split pot saved Jonathan's bacon. It was actually Tim Krank who fell in 4 th place, with his hand firmly caught in the cookie jar with 8 3 against preflop raiser Sigi Stockinger's KK.

Down to three players and the action really slowed right down, in spite of the fact that Ernst's online buddy confirmed that a deal had been struck with the “remainder” being played for by the last few. This was probably just as well as it was Ernst who took third spot in a KJ vs. 77 race against Sigi Stockinger. The popular local was in fact the eventual winner, but not before they'd played a pretty marathon heads up match, with the quietly focused Jonathan keeping his cool against his experienced opponent until it all went in with A6 against victorious pocket Sixes.

So the faith in Stockinger held by all from Blondeite ‘langboy' to El Blondie himself right from the start proved well placed, and the long day drew to an end. Many blondes, myself included, prepared for the next morning's flight to Nice via London in order to continue the exciting travel loop that is poker in Europe. It had been terrific fun (just ask tikay who went on a three day cash game bender) and the novel approach to accommodation discovered by Julian gave us flatsharers the feel of being on a very weird school trip. Maybe next time we'll fit in some educational sights, but it's more likely that the accommodating Concord Card Casino will be the most popular one.