After making it to the money in EPT London, I felt myself confident and I really looked forward to EPT Budapest. I had a nice hotel near the casino and the night before the first tournament day, I slept like a baby. On the tournament morning, I was relaxed and focused so everything seemed good.

My starting table was pretty good. I prefer unfamiliar faces in my table and this time there was only one player who I recognised -Johnny Lodden. And luckily, he was on my right side so I had position on him.

The table was very tight and we didn’t see so many flops on first two levels. Only Lodden wanted to see every flop and he was always ready to give action to anyone who wanted it. During the three first levels, I built my stack from 10k to 14k mostly just stealing and restealing pots.

On level 75/150, I lost a big pot to Johnny Lodden. My straight was no good on the river against Johnny’s Flush. I played this hand so poorly that I guess I was little steaming after the hand and lost some smaller pots right after. Soon I was down to 5000 chips and nothing seemed so good anymore.

After the break, I managed to steal some blinds and I had about 7000 chips when following hand came:

The player in first position limps and I limp with pocket deuces. Button behind me limps also and the BB checks and the flop comes K 4 2 with flush draw

Whoa, finally I flopped a set. Flop is checked to me and I decided to check also because button seemed to like this flop and I had feeling that he will bet.
Button bets 1000 and it is folded to me and I raise to 3000. Button thinks a while and goes all-in. I call and button shows K7 and I got my first double up! I was now back to 14 000 chips.
Little later I am preflop all-in with KK against AK. My kings held up and after that hand I had almost 30 000 chips.

Then I played my biggest pot so far in this tournament. Player under the gun limps 600 and everyone folds to Johnny who has the button.
Johnny makes it 1500 and I find pocket ladies from my SB. There is 3900 in the pot with antes and blinds and Johnny’s raise so I reraise it to 5000 total. Everyone fold to Johnny who calls without thinking it too much. I must say that worried me a little.
Flop comes 9 5 2. Good flop for me. If I had best hand before the flop I’m sure I still have it. I bet 6000 and Johnny calls!
Turn is J and I start thinking. Johnny knows that I play tight preflop. He knows I have overpair when I bet 6000 to that flop and still he calls. There is 24k in the pot and I still have 16k behind. I guess normal play would be to go all-in. But somehow I didn’t like this situation, something was just wrong. I decided to check and see what Johnny does. He went all-in.

I knew Johnny didn’t have kings because he just called my reraise preflop. The more I was thinking the more I was convinced that Johnny had me beat. I didn’t worry about set of jacks so much but AA seemed to fit in his play pretty well. I mucked my QQ and Johnny indeed had the pocket rockets.

Some small pots comes and goes and I end the day 1 with 15 700 chips. Average was about 25k.

Second day was just preflop all-ins. I pushed all-in maybe 15 times and only once I got called. And then my tournament was over. I Pushed with KQ suited and villain called with AQ. It was 11th level when I got busted.

So no money from EPT Budapest. Next week I’m going to Master classic of poker Amsterdam and after that to EPT Warsaw.

Toni Ojala