Qualifier to EPT in Deauville

I was about to go to bed Xmas evening before I went to have a look if there was any interesting promotions on Pokerstars. Well I noticed they were coming up to the billionth hand dealt so decided to play 7 low limit tables just to see if I could be one of the lucky people who would get $5000 for being in that hand with $50000 for the winner. Just missed out on that one. How lucky was the guy who won $50000. He was playing in a $0.10/0.20 NL Holdem cash game. A good night for him is probably a $20 win. Instead he won $55000. He must feel like he won the lottery. I had to feel sorry for the two players on the table who were sitting out the hand as they get a big fat zero $.

I also noticed there was an EPT qualifier to Deauville which was $360 to enter and there were 4 seats up for grabs so thought I’d give that a shot. Played good poker throughout only really in danger once early when I needed QQ to stand up against AK or I was out. After about 3 hours I was on the final table with 15000 chips which at the time was ranked about 3rd out of 8. The two players directly to the left of me had 25000 chips and all the others were between 5000-8000.

I decided I wasn’t going to get involved in any hands against the chip leaders unless I had KK or AA before the flop. I was in a good position to qualify as the blinds were still reasonably low. It was a case of targeting the small stacks. I knocked one of them out when my KK stood up against their QQ and with 6 people left I felt I was pretty much assured of my seat as I had 25000 chips and only two of the remaining three short stacks needed to be knocked out for me to qualify. I noticed the two other big stacks were getting involved in hands against each other which I just thought was ridiculous. Like me there is no point getting involved. It was like they were playing to win a tournament or something. Then an amazing hand happened when the two big stacks got involved against each other and one went for a big bluff of 18000 chips all in and got called with two pair. That one idiot had gone from 27000 chips and being almost assured of a seat at one stage down to 3000 and was shortly knocked out leaving us with 5 players.

I won another hand when with AA in the big blind I just called the other big stack down without raising at all as I wasn’t going to risk the fact he may have made two pairs. I was chip leader on 40000 chips and the last player to go took a while but eventually I won my seat plus expenses to Deauville which is worth $3600.

It’s amazing how bad some people can play. I think if the chip leader had set himself to away and gone and watched a film he would have won a seat. Instead he played like a lunatic and got himself knocked out.

So Deauville here I come. It was a nice way to end my poker year.