| Game Type: | Limit |
Everyone seems to love the Lido tournament at Holland Casino Amsterdam, and its preceding week of comps. Previous successes and more importantly the relaxed atmosphere and crowd of players (mainly known to each other) draw back people like Julian ‘YoYo' Thew and Keith Hawkins, Dave Colclough, Skalie, Nick Gibson, and were it not for a series of missed flight type hindrances, Tony Kendall, for this yearly festival. Players like the venue (very large, efficiently if bureaucratically run), the laid back atmosphere and most events' structures, including the Lido's.
They are, however, a law unto themselves here and structures varied from comp to comp and included levels found nowhere else, like the 500 – 1,500 level, but, idiosyncrasies aside, Holland Casino was good to the players and at least apologetic to the press, for binding them in red tape. Players like Julian say they make the trip every year because of the fun factor, hard to pin down but expressed by many of the circuit players. So it may have been a slight surprise to some that the €5,000 buy-in event hadn't sold out in advance. Right up until the 3pm start time announcements were taunting the crowds firstly with, “Anyone else for a single table satellite to today's Main Event?” and then, “Who dares to play a one-hand satellite? Only a few seats left!” I have to admit the announcer's enthusiasm was contagious, and I did my best to taunt Tikay into jumping into one of these, to no avail.
While the last few tried to secure their places in this 10,000-chip hour-level tournament, the rest of the familiar faces hovered round the buffet or queued for the draw. Luke Smith, Devilfish, Mel Judah, Juha Helppi, Tim and Pippa Flanders (the latter of whom outlasted both her husband and most of the field) Isabelle Mercier, Joe Beevers, Simon Trumper, John Shipley, John Duthie, and local favourites Rob Hollink, Noah Boeken and of course Marcel Luske were among the throng. Rob Hollink must be given an honourable mention for his just previously having played two comps at once, both finalling in the Omaha and winning the Limit event.
Until our table-wandering privilege was curtailed suddenly for no apparent reason halfway through Day Two, we had pretty free rein to watch the early action from our bar workstation. This was eventually acquired mainly due to Tikay's phenomenal knack with the besuited lady directors who couldn't bring themselves to banish us to the hotel across the road with the rest of the update teams. And when players were knocked out, what could be more natural than for them to head to the bar to have a drink, where we just happened to be lurking to subtly prompt them for their stories? Or just sit and wait for the details, in the case of The Camel, Sverre, Stuart Fox, Gwibbo, Harry Demetriou or Julian Thew.
There were early exits for John Gale, Joe Beevers and Michel Abecassis (who made Jani Sointula one of the early chip leaders), and a good start for Nick Gibson (who came fourth in the Limit event the day before) Patrik Antonius and Johan Storakers. El Blondie nearly tripled his stack during the first three levels, as did Noah Boeken, although the former exited abruptly on Day One, and the latter a little further in. Continuing that theme, Anthony Lellouche, who had 45,000 at the dinner break, sort of evaporated before the money, as did Bruno Fitoussi, who had played splendidly early in Day Two, but abruptly vanished along with his 100k in chips towards the end of the day. It was about this time that we tracked down the popular Malcolm McKinlay (Red Fox) about whom we were inundated with requests, and who survived on a perilously short stack for a very time on a tough table.
The chips gravitated quietly towards Shar Kuomi, Pippa Flanders, John Shipley and less quietly towards Marcel Luske and young hoody aficionado Thomas Middleton. Julian ‘YoYo' Thew and Paul Alterman had clashed a few times on their table; with Paul's relentless raising being occasionally stolen with re-raises by Julian, but Paul exited with a slightly unfortunate pair of Queens. He'd made another preflop raise, Julian had found KhJh and re-raised, reluctantly calling Paul's all-in and hitting a flush to put him in the top ten in chips. His momentum propelled him onto the final table, where he put in a great performance, with a turning point being his double up of Thomas Middleton's A6 with his AJ, arguably the hand which gave Thomas the eventual victory. But that's getting a bit ahead of myself.
With just a few tables to go it was Team Norsemen's Torstein Iversen's turn to accumulate a healthy 100k+ stack and Sverre Sundbo's to nearly catch up, after eliminating Ville Wahlbeck with AA. Sverre also knocked out bubble Ken Gunning, who had qualified on SportingOdds into his first major tournament and was understandably disappointed to have gotten so far and then pushed his short stack in with AJ against A5 only for Sverre, who looked a bit remorseful, to hit a 5. Ken's Dad we found sitting at the bar just a few feet from us, joining the forum's ‘Surprise' (Isabelle's mum) in supporting their poker-playing offspring.
But the Norwegian star of table and screen, Sverre (yes, he does TV too) had his luck fail him as he suffered a succession of outdraws and left having made the money but with a sense of having missed out. Ever in good spirits, he was to be found almost immediately in the bar good-naturedly recounting his stories of good and bad luck to a pile of friends, who rumour has it had a rather exciting night on the dancefloor following the end of Day Two, apart from final tablist team-mate Torstein Iversen.
Day One's chip leader Josef Kollarits had dwindled from an impressive 120k at the start of the day to just 30k with three tables remaining, and exited pre-final, along with Robert Mizrachi (last year's winner) who finished 18 th . Stuart Fox built chips in the same manner as Walsall, eventually finding his AK outdrawn by AQ and then racing (unsuccessfully) sevens against A8 and finishing 13 th .
They thinned down to the final nine fairly rapidly, with Julian being one of the major movers. He'd won a huge pot with JQ, having seen the board come out 10 8 2 4 9 and got it all-in at this point against AA, and sailed into the final with just under 400,000. The sympathetic among the staff (thanks to Caroline and Adele) ferried chip counts for the end of the day to the bewildered reporters, and we were prepared for another information scramble on the final day.
It was not so bad, as it turned out – the spectators, although numerous, were considerate and let those with notepads get up to the makeshift gates which separated the filmed final from the hordes thronging the casino. We weren't sure where this final table footage was heading (there were no hole-card cameras), apart from the plasma screens around the bar. But that was good enough – they captured every flop and presented the whole final to the multitudes in the building, which was heaving all day and all night. There were also many announcements concerning the (admittedly impressive) top prize of over half a million Euro, which included a full World Series prize package, to give the people otherwise engaged in throwing chips of all sorts at Holland Casino something to think about while not actively betting on something.
They do make an effort for their finalists – they got music and a filmed entrance as they took their seats, with the table set up like this:
Marcel Luske, NL, 385,500
Jan Sorensen, DK, 231,500
Thomas Middleton, NW, 505,500
Patrick Bueno, FR, 101,000
Shar Koumi, UK, 155,000
Torsten Iversen, NW, 613,000
Rino Mathis, CH, 84,000
Julian Thew, UK, 380,000
Johan Storakers, SW, 104,500
And so did blonde – the forum went unsurprisingly YoYo-crazy at the end of the previous night's play. Brother Graham was among the usual railbirds and encouraging messages popped up all the way through. Julian didn't need to be told that he was playing a good game, however, and the buzz he felt at being able to bring his top game to the final, with chips, was apparent to everyone. Back to the initial final lineup: it only looked like that for about a minute, as Rino Mathis made an unsuccessful (but understandable) move to double up right away and took the 9 th place prize of €19,800 instead. Patrick Bueno's double up call all-in with AJ fared better against Torstein Iversen's suited KQ, and the Frenchman ended up turning this initial boost of chips into second place overall.
The early stages of the final belonged to the popular figure of Marcel Luske, whose succession of big early hands at one point found Johan Storakers with a smaller big hand (JJ against AA) and sent him out in 8 th . Julian was put to the test for the lot on the big blind at one point, eventually, after a lengthy dwell, putting down AK to Thomas Middleton's all-in re-raise. This sparked off a lively discussion on the forum (as ever) and Tikay was surprised to find that this information was relayed straight from the final by Julian himself via text message. Extraordinary.
YoYo hadn't let the earlier bit of bad fortune dent his game, however, moving his chips around fearlessly after an initial (near-instant) refund of the chips he'd given Thomas with a lucky K9 suited which flushed against Marcel's AK. He even took out the formidable Shar Kuomi in 7 th place with A9 vs. a suited 8 9 move. The lead was now held by Patrick Bueno and Jan Sorensen, who between them had over half the chips in play. But Marcel got his chips back catching trips in the big blind: Julian made up the small blind and they saw a 3 3 4 flop (checked) and the crucial turned 6, which got Julian's chips all-in with a check-raise holding 5 9, but Marcel held 3 5 and no split card came, leaving Julian all-in the next hand and exiting 6 th , winning €46,200. Slightly disappointed as anyone leaving a final generally is, Julian nevertheless presented a pretty happy picture, together with wife Amanda, who had fought her way to the front to keep an eye on him through two full days.
Fifth place finisher (€66,000) was Torstein Iversen, whose suited QK found Thomas Middleton with JJ, and a flopped Jack sealed his fate and started Thomas' rise to chip leadership. Team Norsemen manager Rolf Woods had flown out to support the final team member on yet another final table (remember him from the EPT in Baden?), and must have been pleased with the way his whole team performed in Amsterdam. Marcel Luske finished 4 th , which was perhaps a surprise for those who had tipped him for the top spot, after he lost a pile of chips calling Jan Sorensen down with a Royal Flush draw and then made a move on Jan's big blind with Q3. This time Jan had JJ and took out the local favourite.
There were then murmurs of a deal somewhere on the lines of an agreement that they'd all take €267,000 and play on for €124,000. As ever officially unconfirmed, this sounds likely, and the play was pretty fast in the last half hour, as Jan, who hadn't really put a foot wrong, got it all in with yet another pair of Jacks against Thomas Middleton's second lucky rag Ace which spiked both pairs, quickly losing the rest to Patrick Bueno with AKoff vs. a suited Q 10 which hit the flush to give him official third place.
The heads up lasted longer than one might have imagined judging from the last couple of hands, and the chips slowly headed in Thomas' direction. Eventually Patrick Bueno re-raised with the A5 of diamonds preflop, his all-in was called by Thomas with pocket sevens, and although the 3s 3d 2d flop looked promising, no further help arrived and it was Thomas Middleton who took the top spot, comedy-sized cheque, the bigger share of the real money and the WSOP trip to boot.
Part of the deal with the casino and its regulations involve it shutting by 3:30am, so with the final having stretched til the wee hours, the hoovers were already moving in and the cash games breaking up as we gathered our equipment and struggled to grab the players before they all disappeared in the direction of bars or clubs with more lenient opening hours. The following day had a €100 rebuy event but if you wanted to play that (and this goes for probably all events in years to come, so be warned) it would have needed a bit of advance planning and a piece of paper to be sent off to reserve a seat. I imagine the organised blondeites will be among the first to get in next year, and having watched the Lido this year for the first time, I now understand why.
