| Master Classics of Poker Tournament Report
By Card Player columnist and Poker School Online teacher, Rolf "Ace" Slotboom
EUR 820 No-Limit Hold’em (one optional rebuy)
November 7, 2003:
Action-craving young guns dominate no-limit event
With two tables left in today's event, we had three Dutch players still in action – and they were all playing at the same table. We lost two of them in a hand where three (!) people busted out, while the winner would still have an only slightly better than average stack. Locals Kosta and Arthur were in there with AQ and AJ, Ivo Donev was all-in with AK, but these three short stacks all lost to a player who himself had never been able to accumulate many chips. It was James Vogl, who with 18 players left had been down to only 10,000 in chips, but then busted three players with pocket fives – and didn't even need improvement to win.
The tricky Ivo went out on this hand because a few moments before he had lost a huge pot to "Dutch Flying Fox" Marcel Lüske. When Marcel came over the top of Ivo’s 15,000 raise for 75,000 total, Ivo called him with J7 offsuit – only to see that Marcel had an even worse hand, T6 offsuit. But the Dutchman flopped two pair, and severely crippled Ivo, who would then lose his remaining chips in the hand mentioned. Marcel also busted out Carlo Citrone – this time with pocket aces - and the Fox looked like a solid favorite to capture the trophy, together with 2002 WSOP runner-up Julian Gardner; together, they had almost 50% of the chips in play.
Final table line-up / chip count:
Seat # 1: James Vogl, England, 106,000
Seat # 2: Alexander Tarasenko, Russia, 15,000
Seat # 3: Fari Badimansour, England, 79,500
Seat # 4: Julian Gardner, England, 211,500
Seat # 5: Marcel Lüske, Netherlands, 206,000
Seat # 6: Tanh Nguyen, Vietnam / Germany, 72,500
Seat # 7: Mickey Finn, Ireland / USA, 27,000
Seat # 8: Michael Keiner, Germany, 36,000
Seat # 9: Henrik Gwinner, Denmark, 114,500
Total chips in play: 870,000 (approx.)
We lose players quickly
In addition to Julian and Marcel, there were three other big names in today’s line-up: Mickey Finn, Michael Keiner and Alexander Tarasenko. But they were all short-stacked and we lost them within the first 21 hands. The first victim was small blind Alexander, with K6 vs. the K2 of big blind James, who won by hitting a deuce. The next one was Fari Badimansour. Even though his under the gun 75,000 all-in raise was rather big, Henrik Gwinner wasn’t impressed and called him with AT of clubs; he won against the Englishman’s KJ by making a straight. Then it was Marcel who eliminated the dangerous Michael Keiner with ace-seven versus pocket tens by catching an ace, and James Vogl finished off our Vietnamese friend Tanh Nguyen with KK versus A3. James also sent home the excellent Mickey Finn, calling the Irishman’s 60,000 all-in raise with pocket sixes, to outdraw his queens by flopping a six.
Flying Fox also out
Just when I expected Marcel to take over, he went out himself. First, he raised Julian’s 20,000 blind to 45,000, but couldn’t call the young man when he came over the top. And then the Fox was out for good when James called his 133,000 all-in raise from the 10,000 small blind with a king-ten only. He was right, though, the Dutchman showing Q8, and receiving no help. It was surprising to see the willingness of some players to call large all-in bets, especially considering the size of the event and the amounts of money at stake; especially Henrik and James gave a lot of action. Henrik even made a big raise before the flop and a large bet on the flop with a total bluff (62 offsuit), only to see that James had called him with a Q7 only – and with a queen on the board, this was good enough for a 350,000 pot. Then Julian decided to join the party by calling big raises as well. First, he called an 86,000 raise from his 20,000 big blind with Q8 (and lost against A8), and then he called his final 120,000 with K8 versus Vogl’s A2 (and lost again). We were now heads up with James having a 680,000-190,000 chip lead over Henrik – when, like I said, just a couple of hours before he had been down to only 10,000.
Some more big action in the final stages
The young Henrik Gwinner looked like a big dog against James, who seemed to be on a roll now. But the young Dane doubled up when his JJ flopped an overpair to the board, and James couldn’t get away from his top pair. Then Henrik raised before the flop three times (uncontested) and also came over the top of Vogl’s 95,000 raise (to again make him lay down his hand). Suddenly he had taken over the lead, and with the blinds at 20,000-40,000 it was all over for James. He raised all-in to 240,000, and Henrik called him quickly with an ace-deuce that proved to be good, meaning that within 42 hands our final table was over. We had seen some fast and furious action from the young guns, and on this day it paid off very well for them. It was a young gun from Denmark who captured today’s title, or, to save the best line for last: Gwinner was the winner.
Some final words
Tomorrow will be the final event of this year’s Master Classics, the EUR 320 pot-limit Omaha. As always, I will keep you guys posted. Take care – and good luck.
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