EMOP Italia!!

Im writing this overlooking lake como on the Italian/swiss border. We are here to play in the EMOP Italy. Unfortunately, this will not be a very long post, or a post about being successfull, because i have failed to make it through day 1.

The tournament had a great starting field of 400 runners. The only downside of that was that over half of them were itallian!! Now Im not racist, or anything like that, but i have yet to meet an Italian who is a good poker player. Im sure they are there, i just havent come across them. On the 2 tables I played on today, I came across about 12/15 of them, and the mind boggles. heres an example;

we start with 20,000 chips. 3rd blind level, blinds are 100/200. Utg raises to 550, 2 callers, C/O reraises to 1400. All 3 who had raised and called the raise called the reraise, putting approx 5.5k in the middle. flop comes A-7-5. UTG shoves for 23,000, all 3 fold after a dwell. UTG proudly turns over A-10 to show he wasnt bluffing!!!
I knew if and when I was going to get stuck in a pot with them, I was going to have to play a big pot. But you want players of that standard on your table whenever you play.

So, on to my own tale of woe. Nothing much happened in the 1st couple of levels, but in the last hand before the break, there was a raise to 250, 2 callers and i called otb with 22. Flop comes 2-4-6, with 2 clubs. Raiser checks, Italian bets 600, i call, oroginal pf raiser folds. turn is 4s. Italian bets 1300, I dwell for a while, hoping he will put me on the flush draw, and call again. River is a 10d. He bets 2,200. I dwell again, and make it 8,000, and he snaps. I show the 22 for the boat, he yells yes and turns over 4-7 for trips. he thinks hes ahead until the dealer shoves the pot to me.
I get moved table, and things are going fine and i have 28,000 when the blinds are 150-300. i raise the c/o with 77 to 750, sb and bb call. Flop is a golded J-J-7, 2 hearts. Checked to me, I bet 1,500. Sb folds, bb makes it 4,600. (he is italian, and im estacic!!). I pause and reluctantly call. Turn is the 4h, and I hate this, because Im scared he might think I now have a flush, and his J might not be any good anymore. He checks, and i fire 6k into the pot. He announces all in for another 13,000, and i have my chips in before him. he proudly flips over A-J for trips, and i show 77 for the boat. Im mnot so happy though when the dealer somehow finds another ace on the river to steal the pot from me. I now have 3.5k when I should have 55k. Its a sick sick game we play.
I climbed back up to 13k in the 400-800 level, when I raised to 2,200 from the c/o, and same player reraises me. This time, I have my best starting hand of the day, and I shove with QQ. He has to call now, and he has AK. Two kings on the flop, and the 4th king on the river seals the deal, so i will have to wait for EMOP Bulgaria to make a name for myself.

patricia ran queens into Aces, and later kings into aces to go out day 1, while teamtom gort very unlucky when he clashed with another big stack and had his aces cracked by 33 late in the day. EMOP champion from Portugal, Timothy Timmotheu, is also gone, as his big crash came when he ran kings into aces.
Dunno if im gonna play the side games, as this is a beautiful area and Im anxious to see a bit of it while im here. I believe george Clooney owns a big property on the lake here,and Im not surprised about that at all. Words dont do it justice, and when i find out how to transfer pics from a mobile onto this site, Ill post uo a few.

Ill try and write another piece for here tomorrowe night, depending on the humour im in. But sure, it cant be any worse than i feel tonite.

Connie