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Showing posts from March, 2010

Swiss roll, kings cracked: Day two of EPT Berlin

I start day two with a healthy stack of 91,700. I’m in third position at the table in chips and with a table of complete unknowns, save for German pro Florian Langmann who has a big stack. Elsewhere at the table we have big glasses wearing Rasmus Vogt (who actually turns out to be a very good player), Slobodan Bjelbork (who sounds like a character from Star Trek) and the other big stack Simon Boss (who looks like classical conductor Simon Rattle with a shock of unkempt grey hair and plays like this is his first ever poker tournament) Day two is a struggle for me. I never manage to increase my stack and it hovers between 60,000 and 90,000 for most of the day. If day one was one of the best days of poker of my life, then day two was one of the hardest. Seated on table 31 out of 50, I knew my table wouldn’t break for several hours as they split the tables in reverse order, so I dig in and try and get some reads as I know I will be playing with these people for a while. However, the table

Pocket rockets uber alles

The European Poker Tour recently visited the city of Berlin. As the city has become my de facto second home, I felt duty bound to enter. I took some money from my previous winnings, won about 1,000 euros in satellites and sold 30% of the rest of my action to get together the 5,300 euro entry fee for the tournament. It was by far the biggest tournament I’ve ever played, but I thought there would be value. A million euros for first would surely gather a large field. The clash with the end of the Los Angeles Poker Classic and the NBC Heads Up Championships in Las Vegas would also ensure that some of the top players in the world would not be playing. My friend Nick bought 5% of my action and I also stayed at his apartment. Nick had promised that if I busted on the first day I would be subjected to his copy of UB40’s greatest hits. It was quite an incentive to perform. Nick is a true poker player and on the way to the Hyatt in Potsdamer Platz we discussed the pot odds of buying a train tic

Famous poker players I've urinated next to

The list is updated! The rules are thus. I cannot expressly follow a poker player into the bathroom to urinate next to them, but if they are in there, even if it is a huge toilet and it is empty, I will always pick the urinal next to them, no matter how awkward this is! Neil Channing John Duthie Ben Roberts Freddie Deeb 'Downtown' Chad Brown I cannot confirm or deny if Chad lives up to his nickname...