Vienna trip report

[doubleup]

I know all the high rollers are over in LV and good luck to them.  Me and Jim the Jacket (Scottish players will know him well) have gone over to Vienna to play a few tourneys and have some fun. 

I've been to LV many times and loved Binions in the old days, but really i'm getting bored with it - I've been to Vienna just as many times and still find it the best city in the world.

We departed Glasgow at 5.55am to arrive in Vienna at about 3pm so that we could play the 500€ with one rebuy at 5pm.  We had a 3 hr wait in Amsterdam so I grabbed some cheap fags and headed for the checkout. A woman with 2 kids was ahead of me and had bought an assortment of goodies. As is usual she was asked for her boarding pass - she rather oddly replied "I have a husband" and looked over vaugely towards someone - the checkouter resisted the tempation to say "well done, we didn't think you'd ever find anyone, but I still need your feckin boarding pass" and instead just looked somewhat quizzical and asked again for the boarding pass.  She wandered off and I bought my silk cut, exact money and boarding pass in hand - a true professional smoker....

We arrived in our hotel at about 3.30 ( brilliant sunshine, about 25c) and decided to pass on the tourney and wander about the town.  We had a couple of beers in the open air bar in the Volkspark and went back to the hotel for a sleep agreeing to go for a meal about 7.30.

Jim got the directions to a restaurant from reception and we headed off.  Before long we heard the unmistakeable "99 red balloons" being belted out at about a million watts and turned the corner to see about 500 pafthfinders and weiner pafthfinders (scouts and guides) and various hangers on going bonkers to this and various other 80s classics...... only in central Europe!

We had a good meal and headed backed to the Volkspark where the dj was playing a sort of progressive-rock-jazz thing- who knows - but it was ok.  He then suddenly stops and says he can't continue because the thumping base from the distant boogying pafthfinders is ruining his art and goes in the huff for about half an hour.   He eventually resumes when he realises his absence has been largely ignored.

Oh dear looks like the first day was "two Scots get on a plane to somewhere foreign and get pissed" - ok, but Vienna in the summer is a pretty good place to get pissed - try it and I'm sure you'll agree.

We'll play some poker tomorrow and I'll update this thread.   

[Linux]

Nice report, looking forward to the update

[madasahatstand]

Sounds like the fun has started and the poker has not even began. I hope you are very luck and may all your hole cards be 

[Dewi_cool]

very good, more please

[GlasgowBandit]

Best of luck with the poker to you and Jim.  Good post Davie, hurry up and get it updated!

[doubleup]

Went down to the Concorde yesterday and noticed a couple of changes.  First, the Casino and the "sauna" next door have gone through what marketing ppl call a rebrand in the form of 2 large murals.  One depicts several young ladies in various states of undress and the other shows ppl playing cards.  I can only imagine that this exercise had become necessary due to customer confusion about what went on in the two establishments leading to dissapointment and embarrassment to both the said customers and staff.

The other change is that the Concorde has 2 blackjack tables, but it is not permitted to offer blackjack so they have cunning changed the rules so that the target number is 22, with a natural 22 being pocket aces.  I could spend sometime trying to work out a basic strategy for the game but on hearing that you get paid 2-1 for a natural 22 to compensate for the fact that it comes up 90% less than a blackjack, I don't think I'll bother somehow.

As far as the €200 rebuy goes I went with my recent form of being eliminated in my first race (88 vs AQ)with about 3 tables left of the 107 starters, although if truth be known I should have suffered more variance were it not for some astonishing folds from my opponents, the most remarkable being a small blind big blind confrontation where I raised with AhJh adding 2000 to my 300 small blind, the BB who had marginally more chips than me made it 5000 and I pushed for 10.5k.  He dwelt for some time before folding 66....

Its the €750 freezeout tonight where I am technically the defending champion I suppose (although it was only 500 last year and I won in a 4 way chop as chip leader) so off to get a taxi now.

[tikay]

Keep these coming please Doubleup, & Good Luck.

[doubleup]

Back home so I’ll finish up the trip report.

The weather on Tuesday was great again, we did a tour of the Hofburg Palace.  There was an exhibition about Elisabeth of Austria – some interesting parallels with Princess Diana, not least the canonisation by the media of the time, after her death.  Had a lunch of sardines and vegetables roasted in olive oil - so healthy that, on its own I’m pretty sure it’s added about ten years to my life expectancy!  We met a retired couple who told us that the boat trip to Bratislava we had planned for Wednesday was getting busy (the boat back was already full so they had to take the bus) so we headed down to buy tickets.

Then on to the Concorde for the €750 Freezeout.  Structure was ok with 5000 chips and gradual increasing blinds starting at 25/25 and a 35 minute clock.  As I’ve said it before I much prefer a structure with a slightly faster clock and small increases to a slow clock and bigger jumps.  I didn’t really get much going and only took out a small stack with AJ vs A4 to compensate for missing flops or being re-raised and folding.  I eventually decided to make a stand with TT, an attitude that found favour with the gentleman holding AA and I busted out just before the dinner break.  At the Concorde they are now handing out tickets for the buffet to players eliminating the enormous queue that used to form.  The buffet is pretty good as well in comparison to the general standard of these “free” meals.  I made a half-hearted attempt to get a cash game but eventually decided against it. 

On Wednesday we took the boat down the Danube to Bratislava.  It takes less than an hour and fairly pelts along.  You can go out on the deck and it feels like a 80mph wind.  If you stick your head out you get the full benefit of this and a bit of spray.  When the temperature is around 90 its actually just what you need!  The banks of the river are lined with fishing huts on stilts with big square nets at the front.  Bratislava is nice enough, but seems to be all cafes, bars and restaurants with not much else although we didn’t do much research before going so I might be doing it an injustice.  There is a castle on top of a hill that we climbed up – with a couple of getting breath back stops to look at the view.  When we got there it was a bit of an anticlimax with the castle itself being a bit featureless and much newer than the walls and gates around it.  There was a museum but it was shutting so we didn’t get the chance to see it.  We had a refreshing beer outside a restaurant when we got back down and it appeared a bit cheaper than the main tourist trap.

We headed down for the bus back to Vienna and met the retired couple who were quite pleased to see us as it wasn’t really very clear where the bus left.  Mary was from Ireland and she told me that “they had written me off” a few years ago when a trapped nerve had given her mobility problems, but she had found a Chinese doctor who relieved the problem with acupuncture – she was making the most of life after this.  They were off to Salzburg for a few days after Vienna.  The bus was air conditioned and comfortable enough but it’s a pretty boring journey as the land is very flat. 

We arrived back too late for the PLO rebuy, but I wasn’t that keen on it anyway.  Someone managed 12 buyins in the HE rebuy so it was likely to be fairly crazy.  So it was a meal and few beers then back to the hotel and back to Glasgow next day.