Master Classics of Poker Report Day 5 & 6
November 7 & 8: No-Limit Hold'em, Freeze-out, Buy-in $2000 (5000 guilders)
Two British Grahams rule Main Event
The domination of the British (England, Scotland, Ireland) players had been expected a little bit, but not to the extent of the past couple of days. For the Main Event a lot of British players were expected to be in the money, top players like Ram Vaswani, Barney Boatman, Joe Beevers, Surinder Sunar, Mike Magee and Dave "Devilfish"Ulliott, to name but a few. However, the top favorite was without a doubt Euro King Marcel Luske. When none of the stars above was present at the final stages of the tournament and Marcel had a lot of chips in front of him, it was hard to think of anyone who could stop him. He had build his stack by catching a lucky break with 65s early in the tournament, and built it further by busting out another British champion Julian Gardner in an impressive way. By overbetting the pot on the flop and turn with an ace on the board but no apparent draws, he was able to convince Julian he was trying to steal the pot, and when Julian called his big bet on the turn all-in with A9, he was drawing extremely thin against Marcel's AK. Later on, Marcel caught some big hands that stood up (KK for the high hand of the day and aces twice) and was in very good shape with only 15 players left. However, he was damaged severely when he held AQ and an ace flopped, but his opponent held both the other aces. About one hour later, he was out tenth when he re-raised Graham Hieu's button raise from the big blind with AK. Hieu was stealing but he couldn't (or wouldn't) lay down his K5s. When a five flopped, it was over for the "Dutch Flying Fox", and the final table started with a big chip lead for Mr. Graham Hieu, but without big favorite Dutchman Marcel Luske.
Final table (Players / Country / Chip Count):
Seat # 1: Sigi Stockinger, Austria, 97,300
Seat # 2: Reinhard Bersch, Germany, 113,400
Seat # 3: George Geery, England, 74,300
Seat # 4: Graham Hieu, England, 473,700
Seat # 5: Eddy Kapitonov, Russia, 197,200
Seat # 6: Joseph Noujeim, Lebanon / Germany, 175,800
Seat # 7: Graham Pound, England, 203,900
Seat # 8: Ivo Donev, Austria, 100,300
Seat # 9: Tim Flanders, England, 275,900
Total amount of chips: 1,700,000 (170 entrants, total prize pool 850,000 guilders)
Blinds: 5,000-10,000
Antes: 2,000
A lot of good players, but no stars
A lot of stars were in town for this event: besides the British top players we had former Main Event-winner Steve Liu, WSOP-winner Carlos Mortensen, Freddy Deeb and Jeff Shulman from the U.S.A., Hans Pfister from Switzerland, some of the best tournament players from Austria (Markus Golser, Jin Caillin and high-stakes player Pepe Klinger) and from France we had Pascalle Perrault and pop idol Patrick Bruel. Now, the final table consisted of a few decent, good or even very good players- but no stars. We had a former WSOP bracelet winner (in Omaha) though; the remarkable person and proven tournament champion Ivo Donev.
Twenty-nine hands and still no casualties
In all of the tournaments this week the final table had started off with fast and furious action, and lots of early casualties. Today was different: there were some strategic maneuvers, a few raise-and-take-it situations and even a couple of re-raises, but no victims. Despite the obvious quality of the players, I was surprised to see no one used the technique of always raising the same amount before the flop, as all players (Tim, Ivo, Reinhard, Joseph, both Grahams) varied the amount of their raises during the first hour. The short-stacked George Geery got a lot of respect from his fellow players, no one calling his all-in raises and he built his stack gradually. Ivo Donev, the colorful and capable tournament player from Bregenz, had lots of chips in front of him but was short-stacked basically all of the time; still, he played his stack very well and managed to keep out of trouble for a very long time.
Limits increase and finally some players out
The new level (blinds 5,000-15,000 with a 3,000 ante) meant aggression was almost a necessity, as there was 47,000 point up for grabs every hand. As this was almost 2.5 percent of the total amount of chips, no one could afford to wait and basically everybody could be considered short-stacked. On hand # 29 and 30, we had our first two victims, two of the most solid players (Reinhard Bersch from Munich and Sigi Stockinger from Salzburg). On hand # 43, the calm George Geery was out when he raised all-in with AT from the big blind; his only opponent Tim had called from the small blind with QJs and called George's raise as well, and ended up busting the Englishman out by making a flush. Some of the most solid players were out, and we were ready for some firework now. Graham Pound from Reading raised the young Russian Eddy Kapitonov's blind to 95,000 and Eddy re-raised all-in to 165,000. His pocket fours was in bad shape against Graham's wired eights, but the crowd roared when a four flopped, and Eddy doubled up. The next victim was Tim, who went out on hand # 55. He had been playing well at the first stages of the final table, but after having folded pocket sixes in the big blind against an all-in button raise by the short-stacked Graham Pound, he got into trouble. His opponents noticed he was playing survival poker and started pounding on him; when he finally made a stand by coming over the top of a 75,000 raise by Eddy, it was a coin flip: AKs vs. QQ. Eddy chose heads and won by making a full (final board JJ75Q). The fourth solid player was out and all aggressive players were still in. On hand # 59, the short-stacked Ivo decided to commit from the big blind with J9s against Eddy's AT and received no help. We lost one of our most attractive players and were down to four-handed. I estimated the chips at:
Eddy 720,000
Graham Hieu 600,000
Joseph 230,000
Graham Pound 150,000
You play with fire, you get burned?
We had four players left: the well-respected and capable Mr. Joseph Noujeim for his second final table this week; the young, aggressive Eddy from Moscow and the two British Grahams. Graham Hieu was playing a very dangerous game by going all-in with his entire stack all the time, rather than making a standard raise of 3 or 4 times the big blind. Until now, he had been lucky in heads up confrontations, but it seemed likely someone would eventually chop him off. The other Graham doubled up through him when he woke up with JJ in the blinds, and Mr. Hieu had once again made a massive raise from the button (this time with QTs). But he got his chips back in hand # 81 when Eddy, who had a huge stack after having busted Joseph with AT against A7, limped on the button. Mr. Pound called in the small blind and once again, Hieu raised all-in. The limping Eddy had a big hand (JJ), an even bigger flop (J98 for top set), but a ten on the river gave his opponent's KQs the nuts. Eddy had now lost momentum; he had to give up several pots in a row and Mr. Pound had become the chip leader. We lost Eddy in once again an all-or-nothing move by Mr. Hieu. He first called from the small blind and when Eddy raised 100,000 more from the big blind, Hieu came over the top with Eddy calling. Earlier this evening, the Englishman had shown he was capable of winning as a huge underdog with a dominated hand (K5s vs. KA), and the same thing happened now. A four flopped to give Mr. Hieu's A4 an upset win over Eddy's AJ. Eddy was short-stacked now and in trouble, Mr. Hieu was playing a high-risk game and the other Graham, Mr. Pound, was simply playing very good and solid poker. He tried to stay out of trouble as much as he could and induced bluffs from his opponents on two occasions, when he checked down big hands (aces and aces-up) on the flop, turn and river. Eddy got knocked out on hand # 100, when he and Mr. Hieu repeated hand # 91, with the same result. Eddy big blind, Mr. Hieu just calls, Eddy raises and the Englishman re-raises all-in. Once again, Eddy is the (albeit small) favorite, holding A5s over JT, but again Mr. Hieu takes down the money (two tens appear on the board). We're heads up with two Grahams, two guys from England, having almost equal stacks (857,000 vs. 843,000). So what do we do?
Chop up the money- let's gamble
After having laughed and talked for some time, and played without any serious effort to get the other's chips, the two Grahams decide to push all the chips in the middle without looking, indicating they had probably decided to split the money anyway and playing on therefore would be just a waste of time. Once again, Mr. Hieu is the best in playing all-in before the flop, although this time he is actually a favorite to win: JT vs. 98. The Main Event is decided and we have a fearless and lucky, but also capable winner in Englishman Mr. Graham Hieu.
Final results:
1. Graham Hieu, 336,600 ($135,000)
2. Graham Pound, 168,300 ($67,500)
3. Eddy Kapitonov, 84,150
4. Joseph Noujeim, 54,697
5. Ivo Donev, 42,075
6. Tim Flanders, 29,452
7. George Geery, 21,037
8. Sigi Stockinger, 16,830
9. Reinhard Berch, 12,622
10. Marcel Luske, 10,098
Tomorrow, another no-limit hold'em event will take place, a $620 (1540 guilder) buy-in with one optional rebuy. I'll keep you all posted. Take care, and good luck,
Rolf "Ace"Slotboom.
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