| Young Swede's excellent poker too much for hometown favorite
The 2003 Master Classics of Poker have now gone into its third day. As expected, all tournaments so far have been full or almost full, and in addition to that there are a lot more money games than last year, when the cash game action was a little bit slow. In fact, it seems as if quite a few big gunners have come over to Amsterdam almost exclusively for the cash games, which can be considered a great thing for the house. (Casinos usually make their profits from cash games, as tournaments in itself are not - or not always - very profitable to them). As in previous years, the organization of this event is tip-top. Peter Voolstra, Marco Deen, Adèle Bruijn, Marie-Louise Overtoom and specialists Martijn Klein Essink (speaker) and Gérard Aussems (photographer) are all doing an excellent job. In addition to that, it is also the dealers who are doing some great work - which is an achievement in itself, considering the fact that quite a few of them do not deal, or have not dealt, poker very often.
OK, enough about this - let's talk about today's event, the 220 Euros no-limit hold'em. This was a great event to watch, with a highly attractive final table. We had two regular players of our pokerpit still in action (Dutchmen Job van Dommelen and young Noah Boeken) plus the second- and third-place winners at last year's Main Event, Johan Storakers and Rino Mathis. To be precise, the final table looked like this:
Final table line-up / chip counts:
Seat # 1: Elias Brussiamos, Greece, 20,400
Seat # 2: Rino Mathis, Switzerland, 47,900
Seat # 3: Patrice Boudet, France, 38,100
Seat # 4: Lawrence Robjent, England, 17,800
Seat # 5: Noah Boeken, Netherlands, 89,100
Seat # 6: Bob Morley, England, 41,400
Seat # 7: Anthony Chapman, England, 80,900
Seat # 8: Job "Brabo" van Dommelen, Netherlands, 44,700
Seat # 9: Johan Storakers, Sweden, 154,000
Total chips in play: 534,500 (approx.)
Early exit by Swiss favorite
One of the favorites to capture today's trophy was undoubtedly Rino Mathis, who has been rather successful in recent Master Classics history. But he had an unlucky draw. With antes of 1,000 and the blinds at 2,000-4,000, he had to start in the big blind - putting his already marginal stack under even more pressure. When he had to fold to Johan Storaker's raise, and then also lost the immediate next hand (with AK against the short-stacked Lawrence Robjent), he was in serious trouble - and could not recover. When he got the big blind for the second time, he felt obliged to call with ten-four of hearts against Johan's jacks, and was the first one out.
Chip leader maintains the initiative
Our chip leader Johan kept the initiative, and in general played in a manner that I like very much. He was active, but not too active, and he wasn't afraid to call, say, 15 to 20 percent of his stack with a marginal hand in order to knock someone out. Because of his stack, he knew he probably could afford to lose one or even two pots and still be in contention - and if he got lucky he would bust out another opponent and build his chip lead even further. But when he called an all-in raise by Job van Dommelen (99) with king-queen and lost, with Lawrence Robjent also in (KJ), and when on another hand he also called an all-in raise but then had to fold to a big reraise by a third person, this strategy cost him quite a few valuable tournament chips. Lawrence was busted out in the hand mentioned above, and another early casualty was Greek player Elias Brussiamos, who lost with 99 against Patrice Boudet's AK. Patrice then went on to knock out Bob Morley. Holding queens against the Englishman's eights, the first card off the deck was the only one he didn't want to see (an eight), but luckily for him the four other cards were a king, a jack, a ten and an ace to give him a straight. Just when the Frenchman looked like he was going to take over, he was out - and for a large part, he only had himself to blame. Holding the 6,000 big blind, he called Job's 60,000 all-in raise with king-jack of hearts only, and he had no chance against the Dutchman's black kings. And on his next 10,000 blind, he called all-in (for 40,000 more, this time) with once again a hand that was dominated: ace-nine versus Johan's ace-ten.
Slowly on our way to the final
It was around this time that English top player Anthony Chapman decided to steal a few pots here and there, and because of the respect that the others gave him, he hardly ever needed to show a hand. He came over the top of raises by both Johan and Noah, and on both occasions he won the pot there and then. The two hometown players Noah and Job both battled very hard to maintain a decent stack – but especially Noah seemed a bit unlucky to run into resistance time and again. After the hand he had to lay down against Anthony, young Noah had to release on two other occasions as well, having made the initial raise himself. The first time, he raised Job's 6,000 blind to 18,000 from the button, and when Job moved in here, Noah made the right decision to fold - Job showing aces. When just a few hands later Job again came over the top of Noah, and reraised his 35,000 bet to 100,000 (this time from the small blind), I figured this was the time for him to say: "the hell with it, let's gamble" - but again, he folded. With only 45,000 left and the other smelling blood, he was out on hand # 37 when he did decide to gamble. Holding the 10,000 blind, he called about 35,000 more with jack-five against Anthony's ace-jack and received no help. We were down to three-handed, the stacks now about even:
Anthony: 160,000
Job: 200,000
Johan: 170,000
We were slowly on our way to the final, and the game continued in an excellent atmosphere, with no one even considering a deal. The entire evening, player behavior had been exemplary, and especially today's final three were all gentleman players – in fact, it sometimes looked as if there was not a lot of money involved. But they played some serious poker as well, and every one of them battled hard to move into the lead. And they caught some good cards as well: based on the hands they showed (aces, kings, queens, ace-king a couple of times), it looked like maybe the Holland Casinos had decided to add some picture cards to the deck. Then, on hand # 45 Tony moved all-in from the small blind with KQ, and Job called from the big blind with pocket nines. In a coin flip situation that we see so often in no-limit hold'em, Job's nines held up, and he was heads up with Swede Johan Storakers, runner-up at last year's Big One. The chips: 350,000 for Job, about 185,000 for Johan.
Hometown favorite loses momentum
Job had done a great job by battling his way into the lead, and it looked like maybe Johan had lost momentum, having lost the chip lead that he had at the very start. But the Swede had saved his best poker for when it mattered most: for the final. He took advantage of the fact that Job didn't put enough pressure on him, and he picked up some pots to gain ground on the Dutchman again. Job made the mistake of letting his opponent see flops for free, instead of using his chip lead to keep the pressure on. On two of these hands were he flat-called from the small-blind button, Johan got a free play and was able to turn things around. First, after a 642 flop and two checks, Johan bet 22,000 on the turn (with Job calling), and then again 22,000 on the river (with Job releasing). The Dutchman obviously thought that his young opponent may have been putting a play on him - and I thought that, too. Then, when two hands later an almost identical situation occurred (Johan betting 25,000 on the turn against a 5437 board, after once again having gotten a free play), Job decided to raise 75,000 more. But now the young Swede did have the goods, and when he came over the top for his entire stack, Job once again had to release – and it was now Johan who was in front. Johan won yet another pot to gain a 425,000-110,000 chip lead, and then got very lucky on the final hand when his AJ outdrew Job's AQ. But most of all, he had played some excellent poker, and they both had done their best to make today's event a great showing, which was a pleasure to watch. Congratulations to Johan and his lovely girlfriend Izabella Magnusson, and also to Job, Tony, Noah and the others for the good poker they played - and for the excellent atmosphere they helped creating.
Rolf Slotboom
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