| Game Type: | No Limit |
| Buy-in: | €5,000 |
| Entries: | 485 |
The Pokerstars EPT season kicked off in Barcelona last week, with eager players flying in from all over the place (especially from Sweden) to take a stab at the first in the series of €5,000 buy-in No-limit Hold’em events. So many of them turned up, in fact, that some were turned away – the Gran Casino Barcelona was literally seething with poker players, some of whom were seething themselves at being refused a seat, or at the rather extraordinary rake in the cash games.
Most, however, with a little forward planning, got to play, and what a great event it was – hardly a whimper of complaint over Thomas Kremser’s tournament direction or the mouthwatering 1hr blind level structure. The EPT is now established as the foremost tour in Europe, and the icing on the international cake was the presence of a handful of big American names like Phil Ivey, Kenna James and Mike Matusow. A self-deprecating Mad Harper (ultra-blogger for Stars, and Barca resident) described the visitation of these Full Tilt legends as it “being like Tiger Woods turning up at my local pitch’n’putt.” Not exactly fair, given the status of the EPT nowadays, but pretty funny.
Aside from these guys, there were the usual collection of the UK’s finest established players – Mickey Wernick, Ian Woodley, Barney Boatman et al. and the more recent headline-grabbers like Stuart Fox, Praz Bansi and JP Kelly. The usual horde of Scandinavians were there too – more than 10% of the field were Swedish, and the Norsemen, along with fellow aggressive Norwegians like Johnny Lodden, Jan Sjavik, Andreas Hagen and Jonas Helness.
I place the blame fully on Easyjet for creating a delay at Gatwick so long that our 6:30am departure time from Hampstead resulted finally in our arriving in Barcelona after 6:30pm, a good level and a half into the tournament. Oh well, there were still seven and a half levels to watch, and that was just day 1A. So a quick lookout first for who was already sinking their metaphorical teeth into the game – Les Kerrigan (right) was off to a flying start, chip leader when we found him with 40k, and Roland de Wolfe and Julian Thew were looking promising (although Julian was out right before the end of play). Those who looked like they were sort of trudging along earlier (JP Kelly, for one) suddenly turned the tables near the end, though, and after two double-throughs for a solidly-playing and focused JP he ended the day with decent chips. And spent much of the next on the TV table next to Johnny Lodden, of all people, who’d made a quite extraordinary climb himself, from something like 400 chips (half a bowl of rice) to 47k by the finish.
The chip leader for Day 1A, however, was Dan Pedersen, who with 118,000 was head and shoulders above all but a couple of players, two of whom were British – Javed Abrahams and Robin Keston. Javed was eagerly railed by some of the most eager railers I have ever met (I have seen video footage of them surrounding Praz Bansi at the World Series on stacks of chairs to get above the crowd) – James Akenhead and Karl Mahrenholz, who themselves fell at an early hurdle, but seem to pop up everywhere.
It was Nick Gibson’s (left) final count of 39,500 which was the most miraculous, as he was one ruling away from being out of the tournament in the first level. He’s not the sort of player who usually courts controversy, or is ever really involved in any, but he managed to get the floor over twice. The first time, he bluffed all-in on the river with a busted flush draw, and his opponent called (with two pair) and then rather surprisingly, mucked his hand. Although Nick’s King high was a good mile behind, a dead hand is a dead hand and Gwibbo was resurrected. Later, a mis-move of a pot which Nick had lost over to him, including both player’s stacks, resulted in more confusion, but it was decided that he had 3,600 remaining, and from that he built his chips up to the reasonable number mentioned above.
Day 1B, which we managed to catch in full (post-rest after an immense struggle to get a cab at 5am which was destined to be repeated over and over) was equally full of recognisable players. It’s such a different sort of world from the American super-festivals like the WSOP – sure it’s a shame that not everyone who wants to play can do due to the limitations of space, but the whole atmosphere of the EPT is more intimate, and ultimately enjoyable. There were early exits for Isabelle Mercier, Simon Nowab and Daveid Pomroy and Nick Slade, while it was the turn of the Irish to get a head start – Peter Roche and Andy Black both comfortably ahead of the pack at the first break. The latter had a rather fortunate encounter with some Aces (he held AK; all in preflop) as two Kings popped out to give him the pot, at which he remarked, “Twenty years playing, and I don't think I've ever done that particular outdraw."
Simon ‘SuffolkPunch’ Young was moved from tricky table to tricky table, but just like in Copenhagen held his own against the field, until a brave re-raise from the big blind with pocket Fours was called by the raiser’s K 10, which hit a straight on the river to send him into the press room, where he spent the next couple of days remarking on how tough updating was… Meanwhile Mickey Wernick (right), who’d built up a decent stack, found a disaster hand with QQ under the gun, running into KK to his left, in the hand of the ultra-aggressive Finnish player Ilari Sahamies. A low flop found all the chips moving in, in a check-call from Mickey, and this more or less spelled the end for him, and left Ilari as second in chips going into Day 2. As for the rest of Day 1A, it saw a slow steal upwards from Henning Granstad, until he finally got caught about an hour from the end and a steady progression for Julian Gardner, too, who wasn’t caught.
When the second day started, the re-draw had managed to position the two chip leaders on the same table, meaning that the room was kind of tilting with the weight of said table’s nearly 400k in chips. The action really seemed to be happening elsewhere, though, as JP Kelly shot up to 86k in the first level, then 120k, before he doubled up Tony Chessa kindly with KJoff when Tony had the Aces. Others hovering around that mark were Johnny Lodden, Ian Woodley, Roland de Wolfe and Abel Meijberg, and it was only a matter of time before some big confrontations occurred. JP created one with the marginal A7 which didn’t look too good against Kings, while Phil Ivey, feature of the feature table, raced his QQ against AK, and though the Ace came on the flop, he hit a Queen on the turn to stay in the tournament. There was a ‘press the red button’ moment from Gus Hansen, too, as he decided that Q 10 offsuit was the right hand to push someone with Kings off a hand preflop with, and as a result busted out and handed over a 200k pot.
The chip leader for most of the day was Jeff Lisandro, who’d built up a staggering 465k and wasn’t thinking about the bubble (45 got paid). Nick Gibson was, however, being eliminated almost on it. This meant cashes, however, for the inimitable Paul Parker, Noah Boeken, Julian Gardner and Stephen Pearce, who was eliminated by Ian Woodley - in a rare outspoken moment interrupting Stephen’s attention-grabbing “It’s my all-in moment!” with his own, “We know about his moment, what about my moment - I'm all in!"
And here’s what the money looked like, up until the final table:
10-12th €25,400
13-15th €20,750
16-18th €16,250
19-27th €11,500
28-36th €9,200
37-45th €6,900
Paul Parker’s (left) final hand was 88, which as a short stack looked pretty good in the small blind. Big blind Noah Boeken found the even more appealing hand of AA, however, and the marvellous prospect of Paul on the final televised table was squashed. Still, a cash is a cash. Happy days. Unlike the night we decided to walk back to our hotel in a little mob headed by Mr. Parker who assured us pretty much continually that we were “25% of the way there,” and got into the most extraordinary exchange with a drunk guy who spoke only Spanish in an attempt to ‘confirm’ his directions. He might be able to play the day after he takes a two hour detour at 6am, but we were struggling.
Nearing the end of Day 2, and a series of unfortunate events meant Roland was out, having played a pretty top game, to be fair, and getting outdrawn more than once on the way. An equally surprising late elimination was in store for Johnny Lodden, who’d moved in with the nut flush draw against Bjorn-Erik Glenne’s pocket Kings. Norway vs. Norway, and the winner of that pot was destined to go a lot further…
Two short-handed tables returned for the final day’s play, and they quickly whittled themselves to nine, which was good, as the press couldn’t see a thing from behind the ropes with the rows of spectators. Bearing in mind that only eight players make the Televised Final, the last nine were moved to the special table anyway, and awaited the ‘second bubble.’ They were:
Seat 1: Dave Gregory (UK)-- 560,000
Seat 2: Kristian Ulriksen (NOR)-- 116,000
Seat 3: Jon Dull (US)--79,000
Seat 4: Phil Ivey (US)-- 1,323,000
Seat 5: Bjorn-Erik Glenne (NOR)-- 1,209,000
Seat 6: Robin Keston (UK)--81,000
Seat 7: Jeff Lisandro (ITA)-- 888,000
Seat 8: Joakim Geigert (SWE)-- 268,000
Seat 9: David Daneshgar – (US)275,000
And their prizes:
1st -- €691,000
2nd --€ 371,000
3rd -- €184,300
4th -- €161,300
5th -- €138,200
6th -- €115,200
7th -- €92,200
8th -- €69,100
9th -- €46,100
It was Kristian Ulriksen who missed out on that extra filming, but the remaining nine were to create so much action that this ended up being one of the most exciting final tables I’ve ever watched. Snoopy and I could barely swap places from ringside to press room in time to catch them knocking one another out and generally playing some marvellously aggressive hold’em. For a start, Robin Keston (right) finished 8th, and John Dull 7th in the same hand, as Bjorn-Erik Glenne performed a double takedown with his QQ against Keston’s A9 and Dull’s 99. A brief delay, and Jeff Lisandro finished 6th, when he hit a bit of a cold flop with his 10 9: 10 9 5. Phil Ivey’s 99 hit it harder, and the pair coming on the turn and river sealed his fate. It now looked like Phil might be headed for the top spot. Again.
With Joakim Geigert taking 5th spot, and David Danesghar being eliminated by Dave Gregory in 4th, play paused for everyone to catch their breath, and have dinner. Ivey’s 2.1 million chips looked healthy compared to Bjorn-Erik Glenne’s 1.7 mil and Gregory’s 925k. But it must be said that the Norwegian had been involved in many a hand which didn’t involve an elimination, and had come out with more chips than he entered them. When the final three returned, it was more of the same, with Glenne calling Ivey’s bluff – a threeway check on an A 4 6 flop, and on the turned three Glenne bet out 70k, Ivey raised to 210k and just Glenne called. The river brought a five and Glenne called again as Ivey bet 300k – his A3 two-pair was more than enough for Ivey’s 10 9.
Then came another couple of knocks to the American superstar’s stack courtesy of David Gregory, who twice took down pots with Ace high. Despite a no-holds-barred attempt at building his stack, Gregory finished third. Somehow the chips, while whizzing round the table, were coming to rest pretty consistently with Bjorn-Erik Glenne, and when it became heads up, a daunting 11 to 1 chip lead gave even Phil Ivey too steep a climb to gain the advantage. A win for the Norwegian, who eventually got the rest of the chips in limping with 10 10 and getting a push from Phil Ivey’s A 5. One call, and the outcome of the Barcelona Open was decided.
The whole final was over by 1am, which is pretty much unheard of. Feeling like it would be a shame to completely miss the city of Barcelona (which despite its totally deserved reputation for being very dodgy to walk around was rather marvellous), I spent our last 6 hours in the country drinking along the beach, sending Snoopy incomprehensible text updates on my whereabouts. Returning to the UK for the next EPT instalment, I am sure the 2006 series of tournaments will be bigger and better than ever, and look forward to covering them for blonde.