Yorky Pud

Today is the final fable of the EPT Tallinn Main Event and it could be one of the best final tables in EPT history. It really is a shame that there are no camera crews filming it because there are some very good players in the final eight including Ronny Kaiser, Jani Sointula, Samil “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro and Erlend “Sir_Winalot9” Melsom. At least I get to watch it!

Unfortunately this looks like it could be my EPT job for a while, which is a shame but I always saw it as a bonus anyway. All the freelance writers / bloggers received an email saying the ramifications of Black Friday have been hard hitting and that PokerNews will be trying to utilise their on-staff writers as bloggers for as many events as they can do. It is a shame but business is business at the end of the day and if budgets have been slashed then there is nothing we can do about it. In more positive news, my work at WPT Slovenia seemed to go down well and it looks like I will be covering The WPT Grand Prix de Paris at the start of September so maybe something will come of that that is more long term. Fingers crossed.

Watching the Main Event unfold and talking to those playing in it and the side events really gave me the urge to play in some online tournaments so I did just that on Friday night once I had finished in the casino. I only played five and didn't exactly set the world alight but I did finish 27/224 in the Betfair Poker $5,000 GTD to make it to the money. I actually played pretty good in this and was unfortunate to three-bet shove ace-jack into a loose player who made the call with ace-queen and that was the end of my tournament. It seemed like a good spot to get my money in and in the cold light of day it still looked +EV so I guess it was fine. I'll probably play some more MTTs once I am back on home soil and maybe even some tonight once the final table is completed.

I've also dabbled with some full ring cash games because I want to play more live poker in the coming months and nearly all live poker is played at a full table. I played 14,000 hands of short-handed cash games last month and won 17 buy-ins so I am pretty happy with the way my game is at the moment, just a few tweaks needed here and there and I should be able to start moving upwards again.

All this talk of rings has made me remember that I decided to pop the question to Mrs P whilst I was over here and she accepted. I guess it's been on the cards for a while, as we have been together for like four years and have out babies together and it seemed the right time to take things to the next stage. Let's see how it goes eh?

I'll stick a report of the final table up for you guys on Monday morning but if you can't wait until then you could always follow Lee Davy, Marc Convey and myself over at the PokerNews Live Reporting page and read about the action as it unfolds. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables.