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Empire Casino, Main Event

I’ve been down in the big smoke this weekend, playing in the Main Event of the festival at the Empire Casino. It’s been a really fun couple of days, with the enjoyment of playing with familiar faces heightened by the fabulous structure and 15,000 starting stack. (more…)

Today was alot of fun at the Broadway. I saw alot of friends for the first time in weeks, had some good banter, and enjoyed the familiar friendly faces of the UK circuit.

Though fiercely contested, the poker left a few more openings to exploit than those ice-cold Scandies would allow in the EPT. Things had started off well to, at least from a decisions point of view. I managed to pass a rivered flush, after my 43 of clubs had made an unwelcome “improvement” to a flush after turning the nut straight on K652. Dave Penly showed the nut flush, and a slight dip to the stack was made up for by a boost to the confidence. (more…)

Disappointment is something you come to get used to in tournament poker, and so familiar becomes the cycle that it takes. I always have a few mintues of feeling shell shocked, quickly get it out of my system, but then a trip to the airport the next day brings a small reminder of the whole coup. The grim weather in snowy Copenhagen didn’t help, and so I am happy to be home. (more…)

Well, here is the update from day one of the EPT in Copenhagen:

0:00 I’m really excited at the start, but the table draw doesn’t bring great news. No really big names, but I’m bizarrely one of the oldest at a table full of young Scandies.

1:15 An unspectacular start sees me still with 10k; Joe Serok has had a bump down to 4.5k, and raises to 250 on the button. The small blind calls, and I find kings in the big blind. I raise to 800, delighted to be representing the squeeze, and Serok moves all-in.

1:16 Everything now seems to happen in a flash. I call, he turns over AcQd, and just as I am thinking “it’s either 5k or 15k,”…. the dealer deals a flop of QQ10. A body blow sees me down to 5,000.

4:00 I go to the dinner break with Roberto and Andrew Feldman, having built up a little to 7k. (more…)

Flashing lights, a wonderful set, a glass fronted table with six comfy chairs, and one of them sitting Annette Obrestad. Everything was perfect in the setup of the TV heat; everything, that is, apart from the structure. (more…)

Dublin, Day two

It had been just as much fun as the first day, and always such an important bonus to play in the friendly Irish atmosphere. Things were going well too, and my stack had steadily increased to 190k. Of course there had been a couple of mistakes, and probably a ton of things that I could have done better, but the tournament seemed to be coming along well. (more…)

I’ll be travelling to destination unknown on Thursday, when I make my way to Utrecht for the Dom Classics of Poker. It’s a 2,500 Euro Main Event, and seems to be some kind of Dutch Poker Tour. Luckily,  Utrecht turns out to be not too far from Amsterdam, and it will be interesting to see a new town in a country I’m very fond of. I’ll be updating on here from Thursday!

I was checking out more precisely how the European Rankings work, and realised that I probably have the wrong game plan! The system seems a good one, as it weights points based on your finishing position(within the final nine), the number of players, and the size of the buy-in. However, their weighting for the buy-in size is very shallow, and makes little difference as you move up the stakes. A 250 Euro event gets a weighting of 2,5, increasing to 2,500 Euros only makes that up to 4.5, and even the biggest events are just 5.5. (more…)

I was asked a question by Micky McCool, that is interesting enough to warrant a whole article. Micky is a good friend who I had been chatting to in Galway, who asked this question to me:

Stuart, we both spoke briefly in Galway on financial issues with regards to the British Pound’s demise. How will this effect the recent poker boom in England, how will effect young players trying to progress and how will it effect British players trying for glory in Europe with the bigger comps? (more…)