Stephan Kjerstad - Likes Barcelona..
EPT Barcelona 2009 is history and I am back home in Norway. The main event didn’t go to well for me unfortunately, and I busted already at day 1. I will go through some hands that came up during the tournament.
This year all the regular EPT’s will have a 30k starting stack and blinds will start at 50/100 with one hour levels. Not much happened the first two levels on my part, I didn’t catch any hands or situations so I just relaxed and managed to get a good feel of how the table was playing.
When the 150/300 level started I had about 30k where this hand starts:
UTG raises to 800(very passive middle aged guy which seemed very tight and honest in my impression the first levels) I am dealt kings in middle position and make it 2300, everyone folds over to him and he literally says “hmmmm” and makes it 6k straight after a short while. Ok this has developed to a big hand now and I was very unsure what to do right there and then, but i thought for a while and landed
on the call option.
There where several reasons for this:
1. there is a big chance he has a big big hand like aces or in the less likely case kings.
2. I’m quite sure i will be able to get a very good read on this player of his betsizing on the flop, his body language and so on, so that I’m able to make a more accurate decision than just smashing it in thinking I got 100bb with kings if he’s got me, he’s got me (like I would do in a cashgame).
Against a competent aggressive opponent in a game where i don’t have a tight image which was the case here i would just 5bet it all-in and hope for the best or flat call and move in on all none ace flops..
But since i saw the chance of him having aces as fairly big i opted to call and take it from the flop.
Flop was jj5 with two diamonds and he says “hmmm” again than a little shaky throws in two 5k chips.. I don’t know how to explain how clearly i felt that he had aces but i was like 96.7% sure, and since I had a decent stack even if I folded I choose to do so. I was so close to just thinking whatever and just go all-in since it truly is a bad-beat if he has me, but I would feel so stupid when I “knew” he had them and still don’t fold.. The way i played the hand especially the fold part is a way I close to never play that strong of a hand, but it was so obvious with the hm and the physical tells in the heat of the moment. He told me later he had aces, you never know but at least thats what i wanted to hear:)
Then I didn’t get involved in too many pots before the 200/400/50 ante level starts, i have about 20k when the hand starts, I’m on the button with two jacks, UTG goes all-in for 14k which is a huge overbet and since he was a young guy I “always” have a flip or better when they do such a irrational move. So when its folded to me I just have to stick it in and hope someone in the blinds doesn’t pick up some sort of monster. That unfortunately happened and the BB which had me covered makes the call and flips over two aces, UTG shows two tens.
Well, I clearly needed some luck to win this huge pot, and at the flop i wasn’t to far away, since I flopped a gutter and 3 hearts and I was the only one holding hearts, but two blanks sent me
off to the rail.
I also played the 2100 Euro side event where i busted when my aces didn’t hold up against queens.
Barcelona is a very nice city and the rest of the days where spent on nightclubs and playing online with some friends in the lobby, all inn all a fun trip even though it wasn’t any good poker-wise!
I guess it was a good EPT for Team RedKings, when Toni Ojala made the final table and finished in a very nice 6th place, very well done, congratulations!
Over and out
Stephan
