On Saturday, it will begin! The Helsinki Freezeout 2009 that I have been waiting for like a little boy waiting for Christmas. It is great to get back to the Fennia-room at the casino and play poker. There will be a lot of people that I know and the tournament is always organized well without any problems.

The greatest feeling of expectation I get however from the fact that the last time when I played in Helsinki, it was the final table in the Finnish championships. That is where I got so far my biggest tournament win.

I expect to face in the Freezeout a lot of the same players that I met in the Finnish championships. The difference in the Freezeout compared to the EPT tournaments is that I will have a good read on most of the players. But then again, I bet that many of them will want to get the scalp of the Finnish champion. Therefore I can guarantee that there will be definitely a lot of action and dangerous moments.

I will start my own freezeout already on Saturday with the 200+20 rebuy tournament. It is good that there is a side event prior to the main event so I can get back to the live tournament mode and already get a sense of the atmosphere.

After the warm-up tournament is over, I will start to focus on the main event that starts on Wednesday. There should be a lot of really good opponents on the tables, like the two qualifiers that won their seat online at RedKings. I wish them the best of luck, and maybe they can finish somewhere after me at the final table. Happy new year for everyone and see you in Helsinki!

We wish Toni and his two new teammates in the RedKings shirt good luck!

I have played on the internet more than ever, almost 40 000 hands per week. My objective is to increase my online playing as much as possible during December and hope that I will play better than I have lately. I have dug myself one of the biggest holes in my career even though I feel that I have played well. Hands are just not holding until the river and my draws are not coming and therefore I have had to decrease my game level. So on December I mean to get an upswing again.

Next week I will go to EPT Prague and I am feeling very confident. I dont have any ready made strategy like I dont have for any tournament as I play according to the table. If the table is playing tight, I try to open up the game as much as possible and vice versa, tighten up the game if there are very loose players. Even though there are many good players in the tournament for instance WSOP winner Peter Eastgate, I am not going to look out for or respect any particular player, but just play my own game. My goal is, like always, to play as good poker as I possibly can. In addition to this, if I get some help from Lady Luck, I dare to dream of a good tournament success.

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