Prague trip report

We arrived on the sunday, ended up staying in a nice hotel, but it was about 15 quid away from the hilton in a taxi, but was a really nice place, cheap, decent pool, nice rooms, restaurant, internet etc. Was rooming with kp as usual and conor broomfield was also staying in our hotel.
Nice set up in the hilton, several cash tables going at all times, the play was in local currency, kroons. Games were effectively €4/8 minimum, up to high levels, and a lot of the locals were adding a fair bit of value.
A good gang of irish over there, although , in the end, no one really did that well.
Some english i knew also, and all in all good craic.
Prague is a lovely city, tons of interesting architecture, and some good places to go, things to see.
It was nippy enough, i had to purchase a wholly hat, but nice place to walk around, we saw the clock tower in wencheslas square, and we also sampled a number of well priced and good quality restaurants.
One evening we decided instead of a taxi, to see more of the city, we would get a tram into town.
Not wanting to do anything dodgy, we made sure we got tickets at the hotel, and jumped on a tram into town, ken knew where to get off, as he was in prague years earlier and hes good when it comes to directions, unlike me. We bumped into a couple of locals coppers, who singled us out. We happily showed them our tickets, and they said we were supposed to validate them in some machine. We claimed ignorance, but at one point it looked like we might be carted off to a slammer til ken produced his passport, which helped somewhat, and we were hit with a 40 quid fine. I had heard the police were a bit corrupt over there, not a nice incident really.
i started the main event on day 1a, had a reasonable table, with no idea who i knew particularly well, but i made a nice steady start, and slowly and steadily gathered chips over the first few levels. Felt very comfortable and relaxed at the table, and was extremely confident of a decent result. Was on about 18k, when i got AA vs QQ and after this, i was in great shape, on about 27k, from 10k starting, with 90 minutes left on day 1. There were 550 runners overall in the tourney, over 2 days, there were 99 players left on day 1A when i had an incident that defined my week.
I had a decent image at the table, and was more than happy to finish in or around 30k overnight, but, with a lot of chips on my table, i knew something big might happen.
A loosish player , opens to 1200, (200/400), the button, playing the same sized stack as me, was reasonably tight and solid, he seemed focused on the hand, checking his cards, and fires out a bet of 3k. Im 90% sure he has KK or AA before i even look at my cards, im just as sure the first raiser has Ax, or KQ or similar, i look down at JJ on the big blind. I decide if i call 3k here, out of my 27k stack, and hit, i will most likely double up, and i genuinely was happy enough with my read to get away from it if i dont hit hard, so i flat call, and the original raiser flats also.
So about 10k in the pot already. I feel my heart race as the flop comes JTT, giving me the house, and i know im ahead. The button confidently bets the pot and now i know im a 2 outer away from a double up, and 56k stack with average 22k as we near the end of the day . Its a dream situation. I pray for a deuce, a king hits, i dont like it, but at this stage, the rest of my stack has to go in, i know as soon as he calls he has KK, and all of a sudden its a nightmare, and im in shock. Dream over.
I played a fair bit of cash over the week, was doing well, the games were soft, theres a lot to be said i think about doing the ept circuit, maybe just trying the super sat for the main event, and playing cash side games for the week. Theres money to be made. I was making 1k-1500 a night without putting in huge hours, kp was crushing the omaha , it was all good.
I also played the 500 rebuy tourney, i had a really tough table, played with some top norweigans, had rolf slotboom beside me with large stack, also had dario minieri at my table early on. However, played real solid, and got down to about 45 out of 300 , with 27 paid, when i was under average, and jammed A9s from the cut off, ran into QQ, but flop came AAx to give me a rush, and think im going to be in decent shape, til the Q hits the turn.............had some chips left as QQ guy was uber shorty, jammed with AJ, same guy calls with A9 and takes me out.
On the wednesday, the lads went to the Slavia Prague vs Sevilla champions league game, i played the 2k tourney. Totally card dead throughout, doubled up with 77, by calling scandie on all street with 3 over cards and being good. Was getting into it, but then flopped a big draw and played in like a muppet, this upset my focus and i felt tilty as i excited.
Jumped into a bigger cash game, €8/16, bought in for €2k, about 10 hands in, i flop a set, on an ultra aggressive table, and lose to a bigger set, then i go on tilt and basically do in the 6k i was up in cash games earlier on the week in about 2 hours !!!...........not so good.
Kp also had a mare on that night, so after this we write off the poker and spent the last night and a half partying and checking out the delights of prague with Marty and Conor.
All in all a fun trip, very dissapointed with the tourneys, as in the main i felt i played well, and whilst i ended up losing about 6k on the trip in total in the live games, i feel theres potential for future epts.