European Poker Classics 2004

I decided that I was going to enter all the tournaments in the Festival especially as it was on my home turf. I wasn't exactly full of confidence going into it as I had suffered a few really horrific beats in a big cash game a few days earlier. Sure enough for the first three tournaments I hardly saw any cards. Especially in the £750 NL Hold em freezeout on the Tuesday on the 5th October. I managed to play for 3 hours and the best hand I saw was AJ... what garbage. I was bemoaning my luck. I also seemed to be losing any coin flip that I was involved in. I decided that for the £300 freezeout on Thursday I was going to play more aggressively and see some flops. I was on a table with Joe “the elegance” Beevers and he soon found a few cards and tripled his stack. I was seeing alot of flops and hitting a few cards and getting beat a few times but at least I was having fun again after my torturous Tuesday. I got into a healthy chip position and made the final two tables to return the next day.

On day two of the tournament I continued to play aggressively and felt that I had good reads on a few of my opponents from either previous tournaments or cash games. I was feeling confident again and soon i had made the final table. The blinds were high and the majority of pots were won without seeing the flop. Slowly the table dwindled down to 5 and blinds were 3000/6000. I had 55000 chips and although i had the shortest stack i felt good about my chances due to the inexperience of the players remaining. I found A2 suited in position on the box and moved all in to steal the blinds and ante's. The big blind called and i though fair enough he must have a big hand. He turned over KJ. I hit my A on the flop and he hit a K. Of course he hit a K on the river to send me packing. I still think it was a bad call by him because he was behind to any A and he risked most of his chips on a very marginal hand. Especially as whenever i moved all in before that hand I had shown an A at least.

I finished 5th out of 198 runners which was a good result all in all and set me up nicely for the EPT £3000 event the following day.