Hey, I had a hectic day of travel getting to France. I would have guessed it would take about 3-3.5 hours from the time I got out of the plane until the time I step into my hotel room(knew there was a 2h train ride). All told, it took about 7hours because of multiple subways, and multiple trains with a huge connection in between and then difficulty finding the hotel once we got to Dortmund. At this point it was like 4pm, I had been up almost 24 hours and had to play the next day at noon and wanted to try staying up until like 9pm so I could like wake up at 6am and have a reasonable sleep schedule.

There was a 250euro rebuy satellite to the main event starting at 5pm, so we decided that would be a good thing to play to force us to stay up a few hours and even if we win it would be done by 11pm. We get down and the registration process was horrible. We were there at about 4:50 and about 25th-30th in line. We ended up getting to the front of the line at 5:45 or so and they announced that they would be delaying the tournament until 6. The process was so inefficient. After that they announced we would be alternates(250 players, about 50 were alternates) and that was super slow as well. Once I got seated, it was about 6:35. I was having trouble staying awake at the table and just kind of hovered around starting stack(after addon) for a while. Then one or two people spazzed to me and I was about 1.5x average after 2 hours. They announced there would be a 1h dinner break at 9:00 or so. This was pretty upsetting considering the whole tournament should last like 6 hours, its pretty late for dinner and there definitely aren't enough restaurant seats at the casino. I guess this is a lot of complaining, I should have warned you guys in advance.

We didn't end up getting dinner, but after dinner break I came back and hovered around the same for quite some time. Soon it was midnight and there were still plenty players left(maybe 60 with 30 paying). I eventually kind of "woke up" and stopped dozing off for 5-15seconds at a time and wasn't really tired any more. People played the tournament surprisingly well for a live satellite(ie. with 45 left, I jammed 7BB in the CO which was like 60% of average and the SB who had about average folded TT) which worked out decently well for me since I am extremely risk averse in satellites and really don't like the idea of having to try getting it in good... at one point I raise folded KQo getting almost 2.5-1 with about 85 left in a spot where I think almost everyone would underestimate the ICM considerations.

Anyways, soon it was like 1am and there were 40 left, now play really slowed down. Blinds were about 4k/8k, with average ITM stack of about 74k and I had about 40k. It was slightly frustrating since there was quite a bit of minor-collusion going on(one of the few times someone spoke English at the table they were explaining to me how if we all fold around, we'll all get seats) and the lack of understanding of satellite concepts really slowed things downs(so many times someone would walk a guy who was probably folding aces to his shove)

Anyways, at 2am, blinds were 8k/16k avg of 72k or so(31 left), median of like 60k and they just announced that everyone should throw in 175 euros and we'll each get a seat. Everyone agreed(I had like 37k or something, if I had over about 65 I'd have been fairly pissed, but was pretty happy to accept this in my shoes). It took about 30 minutes to sort out giving everyone seats and then me and one other guy had to stick around since we had also won seats online and they had to explain that these are:
-non transferable
-can't be exchanged for cash
-can't be used in cash game play
-cannot be used at other EPT events
-can only be used at Deauville casino events(there is a decent postlim schedule, but if I make it past day 1 of the main and don't play the highroller is almost impossible to play 5300 euros worth of events).

I eventually talked to John Duthie and he managed to sort things out so I can get cash so that relieves some stress.

Anyways, after being awake like 35 hours, I got some sleep then played day 1a and ran pretty good. It was one of those days where given their hands I did the wrong thing in like 4 of my 5 biggest pots but ended the day with 66k(the biggest pot I played, I got it in QJss against K3ss on a T62ss board and won a nearly 60k pot at 300/600). I played one hand pretty awfully during the day, but most of my guessing wrong was just a form of runbad.

Today I grinded online and lost like 2k despite playing a light schedule and final tabling the 109r on Stars, tomorrow should be pretty fun, this tournament is ridiculously soft, gonna go grab some food if I can find anything.