This is in my opinion one of the best destinations within the EPT circuit, both when it comes to the value in the tournament and the cashgames and the city itself. The tournament is played out in the Hilton hotel where most of the players stay during the week. Unfortunately the tournament didnt last to long on my part this time and I can give you guys a brief of the reason for that.

We start with 30k and blinds 50/100 one hour levels, as usual this season. One of the very first hands i pick up a pair of eights, this elder guy raises to 275 in early position I make the call and so does the player in the big blind. Flop comes down _Jd _9c _8c, the preflop-raiser bets 800, and I make the call and the BB folds. Turn is _Qh, and he quickly checks, I think about it for a while and check behind. River is the _Jc, giving me a full house and puts a possible flush out there. A little surprising the preflop-raiser makes a relatively big bet of 2300, I thougt for a while and came to the conclusion raising had little merit to it, so I made the call. He showed me _9h _9d and higher full house. Not to much happened on this table before i moved to a new table, which was filled with a bunch of French guys playing literally every hand. This is pretty awesome as long as you catch some cards and that the hands you get into turns out well.

There was a old guy on the table which liked to limp a lot from all positions and he was frequently isolated by several players. Once again he limps in from mid position on blinds 150/300, one of the young French guys makes it 750 and I make the call for 450 more from my bb with _7h _8h, so does the limper.
The flop comes down _2c _5s _7d, and we check to the pre-raiser, which bets 1600 , I make the call, and the limper folds. Turn is a _Kh and I check again, he bets 4200, I’m like 90% sure he’s bluffing, my reasoning beeing he seemed like the kind of guy just firing on what he thought was a scarecard which in this case I dont think a king is at all vs a guy like him. I didn’t think he would valuebet turn with less than a king to often and then he have more bluffs then honest hands in his range combined with his timing etc, so I call. The river is a _9c I check and he checks rather quickly and we turn over and he obviously has _Jc _9s FTW.

Even though it’s a good structure this pot was quite important and brought me down to under 20k.
I folded for a few orbits, before this hand occurs: it’s opened to 800 from early mp, the limping guy calls, so does one more player before it’s me on the button and I pick up _Ah _Kd, and I raise it to 3800. Originalraiser folds, before the limping machine decides to call, and the other guy folds.
Flop comes _JC _4h _5d and he checks, I think a bit and decide to continue bet 4500, my reasoning is that he was the kind of guy who could have everything from 22 to 89suited to the same hand as me etc. So even though a check might be better since he’s never folding much better hands and seemed so ultrarecreational, I still could not help myself since checking most of the time loses me the pot.
He obviously check-raises me all-in and I have to fold.

Then I move table again, this time it seemed like a more skillfull table with Luca Pagano and a few others i recognized. I am down to like 14k, and I raise _Ad _9d to 800 from middle position and get a caller on cutoff and the bb. The flop comes down 982 with two hearts, and I bet out 2100, getting called from the cutoff and the bb folds. The turn brings a good card for me the _As, i think for a while and since i was quite sure the player i was up against was a thinking player I tried to represent a bluff (and obv protect my hand is one of the upsides) by moving all-in with a slight overbet of 10k into the 7500 pot. He thinks for a while and makes the call with _6h _7h for a flushdraw and an open-ender.
The river is dealt and its a _3h and the tournament is over for me.

The cash games in Prague is always quite amazing, and I managed to take down a nice profit in a couple of sessions.

The rest of the week was spent partying with my Norwegian and Swedish friends.

Have a nice christmas!

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

Well, the Vegas trip is over for this time! It was fun, even though you are going home with less than you brought here. I played little poker this year, only 4 WSOP events and not a single hand in a live cash game.

I will try to reproduce some interesting / humorous situations from the tournaments I played:

World Championship Pot-Limit Omaha (Event 40)
That was the tournament I was looking forward to the most, since I believe PLO is my best game right now. It was a little annoying that it is played in a full ring since the entire deck is dealt and it is hard to get people heads up in the pots. The tournament was a triple chance; it will say that we got 3x 5k chips that you could get whenever you wanted. I started off with 5k to study the table; I busted one chance with 6897 on the A58 flop, to a gentleman who had called my 3-bet with 2Q88 single suited.
Well, well, not much to do with that, I purchased my last 10k, and played on. I got a lot of good starting hands, played up and got called by the entire table, flopped nothing and had to check and fold, so I could not accumulate lots of chips. I blew most of my chips when I missed with AKQT with two diamonds on the flop J96, with two diamonds. I was up against a naked J9, was crippled and was busted out immediately after. It is slightly irritating to hit nothing, when a good start in such a tournament is a good chance to go deep, since it is many rookies in the field.

The next event was:
No-Limit Hold’em / Six Handed (Event 56)
Here I was seated on a tough table with, among others, Jovial Gent and a couple of young Europeans you only know are good. The table took a little fun twist on the first level when all 6 of the table agreed to run a little humorous semi choice variant where the dealer button decided the specific betting limits on each street before the hand is dealt. We played everything from preflop fixed limit, pot limit on the flop / turn, and fixed limit on the river, etc. in lots of rare combinations. This was very funny and we laughed a lot.

The most eager guy almost choked on his laughter however, when he finds himself in the following situation: Button says: Pot limit preflop, limit on the flop, no limit on the turn / river.
It is a raise to 525 from a guy, before the eager guy pots to 1650 or something in that size, he calls on the second (well knowing that he may see the turn card for another 200). The flop comes: 4 4 5, the action is 200 from the 3-better and a call as expected. Turn brings a 3, and it is now pot limit and the 3-better makes a bid for 2500 or something like that, before the caller pushes for 10k. Instacall from the 3-better with his two Aces. Unfortunately, his opponent makes a full house on turn with his 33, and he scoops the pot when the river is blank.

After this we returned to the normal game, I got little cards and was playing at start stack all day.
I have no interesting hands in mind, and I was busted on the 400/800/100 level when I pushed for 14k with QJ suited from sb after the button had made it 2k, and he called and won with AK.
After this the stage was set for the Main Event, and my first RedKings sponsored tournament:

World Championship NL Texas Hold’em (Event 57)

I was drawn on a very beneficial table, with just two skilled players, both from Scandinavia. I had quite a bad run the first day and ended up in some situations where I made obvious value bets, and repeatedly it took people hours before they called with better hands. It was sick frustrating. For example, when the table is 88KQ6 and you bet heavy with AK (with a questionable image and against an incompetent opponent that never ever would fold two pairs on that table). He takes one minute before he makes the crying call with KQ. It just makes you sad…

I went on to day 2 with 34,175 chips, which are not very good, but quite playable with the nice structure and the long levels.

On day 2, I also got a good table, the only one I knew was funny “Miami John” Cernuto. He seems like a guy that takes poker too personal and makes unnecessary steer downs and wants to be table captain without fully knowing how to achieve it.

My frustration was big when I had to sit card dead and see him drunk drive over the table (he did everything he could to bust out, but was unable to do so, but did however make his stack grow).
A fun hand he actually managed to lose:

He plays up to 7xbb utg. , call from the sb, on the flop 257 rainbow he bets 6000 into a 4200 pot, before sb takes time and gives the most serious physical tells I have seen in such a big tournament for a long time, and then he limit raises to 12k (lol). Miami-Donk calls instantly only to see an Ace on the turn, the limit raiser bets 8k, before Miami-Donk puts him all in, and he calls of course with his set of fives. Miami-Donk draws dead with his AK.

I played for some hours, in which the only proper hand I had was KK. I reraised after utg had limit raised and another player had called in between, sb flat calls my 5500 (11bb) bet, the other folded, the flop came sweet A92 and he bricks me all in with 4 times the pot bet. I could only laugh and fold and he proudly showed AK.

It was a very tough table when you are card dead since all raises preflop was so big, ranging from 3.5 xbb to 8xbb was standard and it’s not fun to be semi-short and without cards.
I was finally down to 13k at level 400/800/100 and I pushed from the button into the tight blinds with A8, and after 2 minutes BB called, who sat with 88 and no help, and this year’s Main Event was over for me.

It was a lot of party and much fun on the trip, good dinners, and unfortunately some casino games, it is completely unnecessary and only attracts the tilter in me. It ended as a little too expensive trip, so I have to learn from this till next year, and possibly put a bounty on my head if someone sees me gambling.

It was many Norwegians and people I know down there this year also, which lead to some parties, including the “Norwegian dinner” which was a successful and fun evening.

We also spent a lot of time flying around on XS that is decidedly the best nightclub in Vegas now, previously they had other places every day but now has the XS, so to speak, absorbed everything. The place is partly indoors, partly outdoors and it was at times apparently several thousands of people in there some days.

It is sick in Vegas, it seems almost like they do seeding of the ladies, because there are a lot of good looking girls to look at everywhere, and not only at Spear Mint for those who like that stuff.

The only remaining thing is to wish the remaining players in the Main Event good luck, and especially my good friend Thor Hansen who need and deserve a good result now!

Stephan

Hey everyone! First off all I would like to introduce myself for those of you who don’t know me! My name is Stephan Kjerstad i am 22 years old, and I live in Bergen, Norway. I have been playing poker from when I was 15 years old or so, but professionally since 2006. I had my share of success at the tables online both in tournaments and especially in the cashgames during those years. I have been playing under numerous aliases but the most known is probably “stephank”

Recently I had the great pleasure of joining Team RedKings, that means I will represent RedKings in a bunch of great tournaments in the future, starting with the World Series of poker. I will also play a lot online at Redkings.com, in fact I already started to play there (under the alias RedKingsteph). I’m very familiar with the Ongame network, and I always enjoyed to play there. Now it’s getting even better when the new huge software upgrade just has arrived.

As the World Series of poker already have been running for several weeks it’s time to get over there! I just booked tickets and I will leave Norway heading for Vegas this Wednesday. I really look forward to meet up with friends and start playing the World series. I will stay at Wynn Encore which i heard great things about, its actually a totally new hotel and a new tower of the Wynn. Me and some friends where thinking of the option of renting a house this year. There are some benefits by doing that, the biggest ones i would say is that it’s more relaxing and social. Even though hotel life is nice from time to time, its also something you get a lot of when you play live tournaments around the world and you can easily get tired of it, but we changed our mind and went for the hotel this time as well.

I will come back with blogs and updates from the stay and the play in Vegas when I get over there!

Stephan

Team RedKings welcomes Stephan to the team!