EPT London qualifier $380 at Stars

I just won my second seat into the European Poker Tour London event on a Poker Stars super satellite. I doubled up on the first hand on a very atypical play for me, putting it all in with TP/TK on the first hand, but I had played with the opponent before, and knew him to be a pretty free & easy 'get chips early' kind of guy. He had TP/2ndK, and I was off.

The two supers I have won into this event have been really odd for me. The first one, I was the chip leader for about 4 of the six hours of play (having double anyone else in the field for a solid 90 minutes). In this one, here I was again, top of the table from the first hand on. Usually, I am the one lying in the weeds, middle of the pack, surviving until the time comes to mix it up.

So, after about the first hour of play I was getting brought back down to earth, and by the end of the third hour of play, I was near the bottom in chip count. At one point, I was 37th in chips out of 38 players. I just couldn’t find anything to put it in with, something I’m normally pretty good at. It got to the point where I was going to move in with any two cards UTG, as I had 3 big blinds left. I found 3 5 off, and just couldn’t do it. Turns out the UTG + 2 raised, got re-raised, and his AK suited ran into KK…on a flop of A K A….ouch, check please.

So the next hand. In the BB with less than 2 BB’s behind it. I see 8 4 off. UTG makes it 3BB, gets one caller, and I call figuring the miracle triple up is just what the doctor ordered. Sure enough, the board comes 2 3 K, the turn is a 5, and the river is a 6. Now, through my BB, I have about 8 BB’s, and although terribly short, I don’t have to stick it in with anything.

From there I go on the rush of life, including a couple key bluffs when the following hand comes up. One guy in particular (goldy18k) had been re-raising me all night. I have QQ UTG, I make it 3.5 BB’s to go. He is in the small blind, and comes over one more time. I insta call, and he shows….AA. The flop some 3 5…….Q all diamonds. I look…he doesn’t have the A of diamonds. No reverse two outers, and I am 7th in chips with about 25 left (20-13 get their money back, top 12 go to London).

Rare to pat myself on the back (when it comes to poker, anyway), I must say from there I played pretty well, and with some well timed position plays, I got to the point where I was 2nd or 3rd in chips for the last 90 minutes of the tournament. This one took a little longer (7 ½ hours…the first one I won took 6 hrs 15 mins), but at 10:30, we were done.

Dick that I am, I didn’t realize that Stars pays this out in W$, so now I have $5,500 W$....which I can sell, but I won’t get as much as I should for winning the second seat.

Anyway, off we go on Wednesday morning to play in the first seat, and I am really looking forward to it. I’ll stick around in London for some meetings the following week, as London has become pretty much the center of the online poker business world, with many of the top firms there. I can’t wait to have some first rate Indian food, and see what I can do against Europe’s best. Speak to you on the ground from London.

Schecky