The $5,200 buy-in tournament we're about to cover took place on November 17th and attracted 41 entries, just barely making it into the guaranteed prize pool. So while the replay starts at the final table, two of the finalists will end up empty-handed, and we get to watch MTT superstars play with their cards up just before the money.
Prizes:
1. $72,065.41
2. $49,341.45
3. $33,782.91
4. $23,130.35
5. $15,836.80
6. $10,843.08
7. 0
8. 0
The final table composition and stacks:
Samuel "€urop€an" Vousden (Finland) – 86.6 bb
Pascal "Pass_72" Lefrancois (Canada) – 77.9 bb
Roberto "DavyJones922" Perez (United Kingdom) – 54.9 bb
Ottomar "DingeBrinker" Ladva (Estonia) – 51.6 bb
Niklas "Lena900" Østedt (Sweden) – 42.4 bb
Leonard "Grozzorg" Maue (Austria) – 35.5 bb
Adrián "Amadi_017" Mateos (United Kingdom) – 31.7 bb
Juan "Malaka$tyle" Pardo (Andorra) – 27 bb
The seating arrangement:
Try to predict the preflop action in the following hand:
Juan Pardo made the call. This move from the shortest stack seemed convincing enough to Sam Vousden, and the Finnish chip leader folded AJo. Leonard Maue in the BB made the call with AQo, and three players saw the flop. Congratulations to anyone who got our first question right.
Flop (7.5bb):
Interesting flop. After two checks, Pardo bets 1.5bb. Maue calls. Ladwa takes the timebank and reraises to 4.8bb. Can you find a fold in Malaka$tyle's spot?
He folds, barely thinking. Maue calls.
Turn (18.6 bb):
Check to BB. Ladva continues his small bets – 4.65 bb. Maue, realizing that he might not win the stack this way, comes out of ambush – almost flat check-raise 9.5 bb! Ladva calls.
The river is frankly, quite disappointing.
River (37.6bb, effective stack 18.9bb):
After some intense thought, the German goes all-in, and the Estonian grandmaster seriously – for about twenty seconds! – ponders his decision. But he calls.
Adrián Mateos Diaz defends the big blind against a top cash game player, DavyJones922. The flop comes again:
Mateos calls. The turn comes . They both check, and on the river comes . Mateos has a flush. There are 11bb in the pot and 26.5bb behind. Which line should you play?
He chooses a small bet – 2.75bb. His opponent goes all-in. And – Adrián folds.
Let's remember what we need to learn from top players. First of all, the ability to make surprising moves!
Chipleader poker in one of the following hands: Vousden has A8o on UTG, why not open (the BB is the third stack)? He raises – and everyone folds.
On the next lap, Sam tries the same trick again, but his blocker is worse, and Inspector Pardo keeps him honest:
Folding with K9o here is very simple.
Ostedt defends a small pair against an early raise and catches a set. What's more, the Estonian grandmaster insists on his own not only on the flop, but also on the turn:
And here is the river:
It seems like there is no better card for bluffing, but look at the stacks! To get into the money, you need to outlast two. To push or not?
Ladva chooses a compromise solution and bets 15 bb.
Ostedt thinks for about a minute. Outlasting two – that also applies to him. And... he folds. It was hard to imagine such a denouement on the flop.
Vousden opens from UTG with 87s but gets 3-bet by a short stack and has to decide if 8-high is good enough to play postflop with an SPR of 1.
The top Finnishreg decides what's good enough.
Flop (14bb):
Pardo makes a sneaky 2.8bb continuation bet, followed by an all-in and a lightning call.
The turn brings Vousden a flush, the river is a blank. Juan Pardo is eliminated two places short of the money.
The bubble begins. Mateos is the shortest stack (17.5bb), followed by Maue with 34bb. Soon they are heads-up and see a juicy flop:
Mateos bets about half the pot. Maue calls.
Turn (10.9bb, effective stack 12.6bb):
Maue checks, Mateos sneakily checks back, and the river comes – one of those cards that a German high roller might not pay!
Leonard, however, performs a completely inexplicable action:
Mateos simply calls and the short stacks switch places on the board.
Another riddle from the "guess the preflop action" series:
This one is probably simpler: both players in the blinds calmly call, no reraises. Flop check, on the turn Lefrancois takes the pot without incident at a stake of 75%.
Vousden makes another raise, and Maue resteals him from the button with 12 big blinds. The small blind ends up with a middle pair...
The Estonian player decides to call, apparently preparing to fold all-in and be left with a nice working stack of 30 blinds. Vousden, of course, folds, and the coin falls in Ottomar's favor. Leonard Maue is eliminated on the bubble.
Stacks and prizes for the remaining participants:
Despite the bubble breaking, Vousden min-raises with Q4s and Ostedt simply calls.
The flop has a paralyzing effect on the Finn.
But the opponent doesn’t buy it – check next!
Turn (6.25bb):
Time to cash in! Sam decides to make a big bet of 5bb. The opponent calls.
River (16.3bb, effective stack 18.4bb):
Ostedt hits a flush. It's obvious from the action that the ace of clubs is a big part of his range, so Vousden doesn't make anything up and just goes all-in. An almost instant call leaves five players at the table, and the chip leader's stack is over 100 blinds.
Suddenly Lefrancois becomes active. When you enter the pots once every half hour, you can't throw away the cards if you don't hit the board at all!
A micro-continuation bet is followed by a hefty second barrel. Sam calls.
River (29.4 bb):
Lefrancois, who has a little less than the pot left, bluffs to 20.6bb. And his opponent gives up! Another gangster bluff with a happy ending.
Mateos wins an important bank for himself. His small continuation bet was moved to two opponents, no good turns are visible, no one to sit out – let's go!
Vousden, of course, folds.
A sudden check-raise in a 3-bet pot between Mateos and Lefrancois:
Pascal calls.
Turn (25.7bb, effective stack 17.6bb):
Mateos checks, and his opponent checks back. The river is . Two quick checks. The chips go to the Canadian, in some confusion.
Ladva attacks the chip leader's BB, catches top pair and checks the flop, after which he greedily takes on the turn and river.
Vousden is forced to call. DingeBrinker becomes the new chip leader.
He will soon be re-stealed by the holder of the shortest stack.
The call seems automatic in these circumstances, but Ladva still thinks for a while before calling. Mateos is ahead almost to the very end, but he is destroyed by an eight on the river.
A clever set play by Lefrancois punishes the opponent for subtle draws:
Pascal called preflop (it costs $10,000 to outlast Perez, after all, 3-bets are in your games), paid a small continuation bet on the flop, the turn was check-check, and Pascal checked again on the river to make a big check-raise. Ladwa thought it through almost until the end of the time bank, but made the right decision.
Another hand was reminiscent of three-dollar tournaments in terms of the chaotic action.
On the preflop, Ladva from the small blind went under the raise. On the flop, he led with a small one, continued with the same sizing on the turn, the opponent bravely endured and paid. On the river, the Estonian got a flush, he checked, and then his northern neighbor decided to turn the top pair into a bluff. And again, success! They are clearly not in the mood to reveal complex bluffs in this tournament.
BB Defense with 63s at Davy Jones level:
River of the level of "Pascal Lefrancois":
Sometimes it seems that all this micro poker was invented by gambling addicts just to see more cards.
On the river, of course, there was an all-in and a call.
The first potential cooler in 3-max almost became the last.
Vousden moves all-in, Ladwa calls instantly, Lefrancois folds just as quickly. No one improves, the river is a queen.
Sam starts to build up his micro stack by flopping a set and check-calling.
Thorn – , both check. River – …
Here it is: all the cards are out, there are four to a straight on the board – time to hit the board!
Vousden folds disciplinedly to his opponent's all-in. The reverse is the spin.
Well, he was eliminated by committing the ultimate poker sin of the pre-solver era – calling someone else's all-in with a pair of deuces...
Q4o is a creative hand, but it was enough to win here. Although Ladwa folded a queen, another came on the flop, and by the river Lefrancois had made a straight.
HU stacks: 99.1bb vs 64.9bb.
Ladva immediately turned on the maximum level of aggression, placing, among other things, a 3-bet on Q9o. In the next hand, he once again raised his opponent, who called and paid for the continuation bet on the flop.
Call the turn, the river comes , and Ladva goes all-in (44.6 bb into a 50.3 bb pot). Do we call in the Canadian's place?
Of course we do! Doug Polk once recorded a whole course on HU to convince us to never fold top pairs. Lefrancois probably watched it.
I wonder if isolating 74o with a 20bb stack is also recommended there? The Estonian's limp was followed by a 3.5bb raise with the hand mentioned above, then there was a 2bb flop continuation bet, checks on the turn, and you can see the river for yourself:
A couple of minutes later, Lefrancois doubles:
The temptation to end the tournament with one nice call is too strong, but with such an advantage in the stack, it is much safer to wait for the cooler.
For example, this one:
The four-time Estonian chess champion (peak rating 2543), who has won the 25,000-strong event at EPT Barcelona for two years in a row, is celebrating another success online.
