blonde poker

 

Having done a four day updating session with Jen in Dortmund (Read her report of that here), I was looking forward to Poland. Though a forced early hotel exit, combined with relatively late airplane departure left me trying to entertain the forever sleepy Jen with my amazing depth of Arnie one-liners which she gratefully and undoubtedly appreciated. For our trip over there, and with a day to kill, we went via Krakow, a beautifully old city which has existed for what is reckoned to be over 1500 years, and is well worth visiting if you have the time. Following a train trip to Warsaw, we arrived at the luxurious Hyatt hotel which was doubling as the tournament venue. Unlike Dortmund, the other previous new EPT, a mixture of legal and practical reasons meant that no TV cameras would be present, also the capacity would only be 300 (two starting days of 150 players).

Snoopy flew direct to Warsaw to help with the updating task. Why, you might ask. Well, sneakily, Jen on her one weekend off when she didn't have writings to write or updates to update, managed to win herself a seat on Pokerstars and would now be the centre of Snoopy's and my futile attempts to get a comedy photo worthy enough for a caption competition. Sadly for Jen, she didn't make it passed the first day, her K-8 vs 6-6 coinflip not going her way. However this would allow her to sample some of Warsaw close up, including more than one night of drinking with Scandies.

With the casino and hotel being one place, this meant no more crazy taxi rides which could only be seen as a mixed blessing since the value of a good anecdote is highly underrated, though at least this time, we would not be fearing for our lives. Stories did flow our way though, the most amusing being that of Sverre Sundbo (left), the ever-smiling Norwegian, who was waving for a taxi only for the police to try to arrest him for, would you believe it, begging. So Sverre, pulls out a thick wad of around €10,000 to show that he wasn't begging (or that if he was, he was the greatest beggar of all time in a bit of a purple patch) and this managed to stop the police from arresting him on this charge. Instead, they arrest him for drug-dealing and he ended up stuck in a police jail cell for a couple of hours, before being let out, but he would be let of out of jail in the competition, running Eights into Dortmund winner Andreas Hoivold's A-K on a Q-K-6-Q-6 board.

Other early casualties included Praz Bansi, who rivered a flush only to find that Ramzi Jelassi held the nut-flush leaving the former crippled and ending up exiting shortly thereafter. Also on this table of Dooooooom, was Andy Black who left when he couldn't pass T-T on a J-3-2-7 board when Jim Kerrigan put him all-in on the turn with sneaky non-re-raised-pre-flop-Aces.

 

Speaking of this table of Doom, there was arguably an even more intimidating Scandie table of Death, whose dwellers included Christoffe Stahle, Henning Granstad, Johnny Lodden, Tore Lagerborg, Mads Andersen, Ken Lennaard and Andreas Hoivold. So when Simon 'Suffolk Punch' Young (right) was moved there, and saw all his opponents, you could visibly see his shoulders drop a little, while his mind no doubt went to 'All hands to battlestations' in his head. To his great credit though, Simon hunkered down and fought his way admirably through getting to the second day, whilst sitting next to Henning Grandstad who finished the first day as one of the chip leaders similar to Dortmund.

 

Although Henning didn't make the final table, I did spot him coming over to watch it for a bit, whilst he was still in the Omaha comp, he muttered something about it being a bit of a crapshoot at the moment, though the next time I saw him, in the hotel bar, he was holding a rather large trophy. Yep, he'd only gone and won it.

The second day started with the now familiar 'cascade of casualties running in at around one a minute' phase of play. Possibly the sick twist was the Dave Gregory treble up, pushing with A-3 into A-A and T-T only for the flop to come 2-4-5! As the chaos gradually subsided, the first genuinely huge pot took shape between two fairly comfortable stacks: Thomas Mathiesen raised UTG and Peter Jepsen re-raised from the big blind, Mathiesen moved all-in instantly and Jepsen dwelt for a while and almost folded before calling with A-K, only to find his fellow Scandie attempting to pull a fast one on him with A-7. The A-K held giving Jepsen a 200k pot and the chip lead and leaving Mathiesen with just a few hundred left and a sad look on his face. Jepsen then went on a major rush, first cracking A-T with T-3, then when his opponent moved in a on a T-2-6-3 board with T-T, Jepsen quickly called with 5-4 to add another 100k to stack and give him over 10% of the chips in play with 31 players still remaining.

The forever smiling and generally always perky Age Spets (left) would end up the bubble, his A-Q being outdrawn by 8-5 on a K-K-8-K-J board. After this, the carnage began again as maniac Dane Frederik Holstrup raised preflop with A-A and saw Michael Westerlund (J-T) and Henning Granstad (Q-Q) both push behind, Holstrup's bullets making short work of the pair of them. Dennis Bejedal was our final table bubbler, his A-5 being outshone by Farid Meraghni's A-Q, giving us a final table that looked a bit like this (blinds started off at 4k/8k with an 800 ante):

Seat 1: Frederik Holstrup Pedersen -- 288k
Seat 2: Peter Jepsen -- 498k
Seat 3: Marius Tobergsen -- 434k
Seat 4: Andrew O'Flaherty -- 167k
Seat 5: Farid Meraghni -- 978k
Seat 6: Katja Thater -- 105k
Seat 7: Patric Martesson -- 305k
Seat 8: John Conroy – 73k

With no TV cameras, Lee Jones commented that this was a very old school final with a rope around the table and spectators and press peering out from all sides. Andy Black made time from his cash game play to come over and do some announcing which was entertaining to say the least, plus with the fact it was St. Patrick's Day, meant he was certainly enjoying himself.

John Conroy got an early triple up with a spiked set of Tens against Peter and Farid, before raising again and betting out on a J-T-7 flop and pushing when he was check-raised by the bearded Marius. Marius held A-J but John's J-T held firm moving him from bottom to 3rd place in chips.

 

Pokerstars' Katja Thater (left) doubled up next, her K-K hitting quads against Farid's Q-T. The shortstack double ups continued too, Andrew O'Flaherty's K-J holding on against Frederik's J-T leaving the crazy Dane short. O'Flaherty would knock him out shortly after holding T-T against the K-T of Frederik for our first exit.

After this slow start we then proceeded to have four hands of extraordinary carnage. Three-time EPT final tabler, and many people's tip, Patric Martesson, would bust with A-K against Farid's A-Q, a cruel queen on the river sending him home.  Next hand, O'Flaherty pushed with Deuces but ran into Farid's Knaves to go out in 6th. The hand after that, saw a raise by Marius, a slightly odd re-raise all-in from Farid with A-J, because John Conroy (right) was sitting behind him with pocket rockets to call all-in and double through yet again on an unthreatening board. Finally, as Snoops and I were catching our collective breaths from this captivating cascade of craziness that was being cultivated into a colossal crescendo, Katja Thater made her final stance with Deuces which again were no good, this time against the A-Q of Peter Jepsen, who had, until now, remained fairly quite on the table.

After a slight downswing in action, which let's face it, was probably inevitable, given the previous rapid exits, eventually Marius made a large bet on a 6-4-5 board and was put in by Jepsen. He dwelt for a while, though both Scandie player expert BA and I both thought he had already put too much in the pot to fold now. He called with his Q-5, but Peter showed 8-7 for the nuts, a Queen came on the turn, but this was false hope when a blank came on the river.

John Conroy, had now managed to come from 8th place to make it into the last three, playing, by his own admission, very solid tight poker. Though, three-handed there are some hands you can't escape from, and such was the case for John who raised with A-K, only to find Peter Jepsen re-raising him. He pushed but Jepsen was holding Aces and there was no escape for the Irishman, though he did manage to become, in his own words, 'a half zlote-aire'. However much that is worth...

I'd like to say the Heads-Up was really exciting, but it wasn't, I think Snoopy might have put in at least four calls to the Samaritans, since with over 150 BB's in play, it became very much a strategic battle which the crowd sensed, was going to take some time with many walks for both players. Eventually, Farid must have got a bit impatient, he re-raised Peter's initial 65k bet to 205k which Peter called. Then both players checked the 2-5-T flop before Farid bet 100k on the 5 turn, Peter made it 300k and Farid moved in. Peter called with 9-5 only to find Farid drawing dead with 3-2 offsuit! This left the Frenchman with just 170k which he pushed with in the next hand, but Peter's instant call with 7-7 made the situation seem ominous, and after spiking his set on the 9-6-7-4-2 board, the Dane took the title. No big grandiose TV table or huge flashing cameras this time, but Peter seemed just as happy with World Cup shaped trophy and giant novelty cheque and was a pleasantly down to Earth champion.

So this brought my short but wonderfully eventful European tour to an end, both titles going to likable young Scandinavians as they continue to dominate the European circuit. Would you back against them winning in Monte Carlo? You'd be a brave man, woman (or beagle) to bet against them...