Yorky Pud

It has been quite the twelve months for Mclean Karr who appeared on the live circuit seemingly from nowhere to win more than $1,622,000 during 2010. His monstrous total was helped along the way by winning the 2010 WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event for $878,500 and then he won the £25,000 EPT High Roller Event for more than a quarter of a million pounds. Now he can add the WPT Vienna High Roller to his list of accomplishes.

The WPT Vienna High Roller was the first such event in Austria and Karr admitted that the standard of competition was pretty low considering it was a €10,000 buy-in but he also acknowledged the fact that the final table of six players were all tough opponents and were worthy opposition.

The first player to be eliminated was Ronnie Kaiser who was involved in a three-way all in involving Govert Metaal and Tobias Reinkemeier. Metaal opened to 35,000 from the hijack seat only to see Kaiser move all in then Reinkemeier re-shoved over the top. Metaal made the call and may have been surprised to see his JdJs was actually the best hand because Reinkemeier held AdQs and Kaiser AcJh. They weren't the best hand by the river though as the board ran out 6c-2c-Qc-5d-Ts to bust Kaiser and crippled Metaal.

Twenty minutes later and the Lithuanian Kristijonas Andrulis was heading for the rail to pick up €29,520 for his efforts. Finding himself short stacked he looked down at a pair of nines and opted to move all in but unfortunately for him Karr was sat revving his engines with a pair of kings in his hand. The five community cards fell like so, 8s-4s-4c-Tc-5h and five became four.

Another half hour passed before Metaal, who was left nursing a micro stack in the hand that eliminated Kaiser, was sent packing. Reinkemeier opened to 40,000, Karr called then Metaal moved all in with his Ah6h. Reinkemeier folded but Karr, holding a pair of deuces, called. Both players caught a piece of the As-3s-2s flop but it was Karr who made the best hand with a set. The turn was the Js and the river was the 7c to send to the tie three-handed. Metaal is another man in form, this being his fourth major final table of the year so far. They only played three handed for 10 minutes before Italian Nicolo Caila was eliminated, his ace-three no match for the ace-nine of Karr.

The heads up battle only lasted 30 minutes and it was ended on a trademark coinflip situation, probably a fair way to end matters as both Karr and Reinkemeier are top players. The latter made it 45,000 to play then moved all in when Karr three-bet to 127,000. Karr made the call and it was off the the races as Reinkemeier held 6c6s, which was up against the AcKc of Karr. The 7c-Ad-3h flop put Karr in front and he stayed there as the final two community cards came the Td and 9c to award him another title and an extra €185,120. Despite this win Karr is not taking it easy as he is currently in Bratislava for the next leg of the World Poker Tour! There is no rest for the wicked!

Final table payouts

1.) Mclean Karr: €185,120
2.) Tobias Reinkemeier: €104,560
3.) Nicolo Caila: €57,040
4.) Govert Metaal: €39,020
5.) Kristijonas Andrulis: €29,520
6.) Ronnie Kaiser: €24,760

So you have gone to the Holdem Manager website and downloaded the free 15 day trial but you don't have a clue which statistics you should use for your shiny new Heads-Up Display (HUD). Don't worry as this is a very common problem due to the plethora of statistics now at your finger tips.

Players who are completely new to a HUD would not go far wrong by using the default statistics because this basic information is often enough to help you make a decision. However, once you begin to delve deeper into the dark world of poker statistics then you will want to add more and more of them to your HUD. I will start this piece by saying I only ever use a HUD for short-handed cash games so my HUD is optimised for such games. If you play heads-up cash games, SNG or MTTs then you might want to tweak yours accordingly. Also, any mention of “pop-up” means when you hover your mouse over a specific statistic, another window opens up that displays more information.

My HUD is what is known as a four row HUD, it used to be three but I have recently added a couple of more statistics to it. The very first item I added was “abb name” which stands for abbreviated name and is self explanatory. The only time I have ever needed this displayed is when checking that the statistics are being displayed on the relevant player. The rest of the statistics listed below are how they appear in Holdem manager so you can find them easier.

First column

My first row contains VPIP, Preflop Raise, Agg Factor and Hands, these are the core statistics you should be building your HUD around. VPIP is an acronym for Voluntarily Put $ Into Pot and shows how often a player puts money into the pot, ie how tight or loose a player is. Preflop Raise is another obvious one in that it shows how often a player makes a raise before the flop where as Agg Factor (aggression factor) will show you how often a player bets or raises instead of simply checking or calling. Finally, the Hands statistic shows how many hands you have logged for that player, a very important but basic number to know because certain statistics are meaningless in the short term.

Second column

The first row covers the basics where the second column on my HUD adds some extra meat to the preflop bones. Here I display 3-bet, Fold to 3-bet, Four bet and Fold to four bet, statistics that are very useful for short-handed cash games. They are all very straightforward in that they are like Ronseal and do exactly what it says on the tin!

Third row

The first two rows deal with the preflop side of things and help you to paint a picture of your opponent (agg factor is a post-flop statistic) so now we need some help once the flop has been dealt. In the third column I like to have Flop CB, Fold to flop CB, Steal and Fold vs Steal. Flop CB shows, as a percentage, how often the player in question makes a continuation bet so it should be obvious that fold to flop CB shows how often a player folds to a continuation bet. These two statistics are handy for knowing what line to take after you have raised preflop, a player with a high fold to continuation bet should be bet into at will as you will often pick up the pot uncontested where as a player who continuation bets a very high percentage is ripe for check-raising on the majority of board.

I prefer to use the Steal statistic instead of the Steal BTN or Steal CO simply because the pop-up that comes with Steal shows these figures anyway and this saves some space. Like many of the Holdem Manager statistics, this is shows as a percentage and shows how often a player attempts to steal, that is makes a raise when first in, from the cutoff seat or on the button. Again, habitual stealers are great for three-betting light, especially if they have a high fold to three-bet statistic. See how all these numbers work together? Great aren't they? The last figure in this column is Fold to steal, which is again obvious as it shows how often a player gives up their blinds without a fight. Also, the pop-up attached to this is useful as it displays how often they defend by calling and also three-betting.

Fourth row

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article I have recently added two statistics to my repertoire, these are Went to showdown and Won $ at showdown. These two statistics take a long time to actually mean anything but can give you a great insight into players who will either call you off lightly on the river or will always show up with the nuts, or close to, each time they make it to fifth street.

So that is my personal HUD setup and I know there are many people who have the exact same statistics on show. I'll be going through each statistic and showing what a good player and bad player should be aiming for but also how long it takes for the statistics to converge and actually be meaningful. Stay tuned, I'll get this next piece up ASAP.

Like many people in Britain I have struggled to find a dentist that will take NHS patients onto their books. Again, like many people in Britain I point-blank refuse to pay some jumped up 25-year old graduate tons of cash just to look in my gob and patronise me about my dental hygiene when an NHS dentist will do it for a quarter of the price.

With that in mind it should be quite clear why I've only been to the dentist three times in 12 years, the first time to have a manky tooth removed at a private dentist (he wanted £400 to repair or £40 to extract it) and the second time after finding an NHS dentist at the start of March and the third time yesterday. Amazingly I only needed three fillings and the horrible sounding de-scaling of the plaque build up. Sexy.

The dentist gave me a couple of injections, which were uncomfortable rather than painful, then set to work de-scaling. This hurt like crazy and when I rinsed my mouth out it was basically all blood though today my mouth feel uber fresh so it was definitely worth it. She only did two of the required three fillings because she said they don't like to numb all of your mouth at once as you not only can't eat or drink but you can also swallow your tongue. So she set to work on the top-right filling and all was fine but when she came to do the bottom-right one the numbing agent didn't work!

I mean it took the edge off but Jesus Christ it hurt, like nothing I have ever felt. After moving out of the way like I was having a seizure she asked “can you feel that?” Of course I could feel it dickhead, why do you think I was body popping down your chair? She gave me another injection and said that should sort it. She was wrong. I could still feel it and she informed me I would not get any number! I just told he to get on with it and she said she'd be as quick as she could be. Five minutes later, which felt like an hour, she was done and said “well done” like I was six. Anyway, I have to go back at the start of May for the left filling doing, hopefully she'll buy some better drugs for me.

Straight after the dentist I had to go to the bank because I needed to draw some money out to pay for a car I have just put a deposit down on. I managed to get £670 out and headed back home to do something I've always wanted to do but for one reason or another never had. I wanted to “make it rain” where you throw bundles of cash into the air and watch them rain down. So armed with a load of notes I did this in the living room and it was rather disappointing to say the least so I headed upstairs to stick it in a draw. One last count revealed there was only £600 there. In a panic I phoned the bank and asked them to see if the ATM had short-changed me and they agreed to start an investigation.

About half hour later I was playing with the youngest Pudding in the living room and he pointed to the ceiling and said something about bears. I thought he was just being daft but when I looked up towards the ceiling I saw a number of shadows in the “big light's” lampshade! On closer examination these shadows turned out to be seven £10 notes! Oops! I phoned the bank back and told them of my sad attempt to make it rain and they had a giggle and said they were happy I'd found my money! Bet they think, correctly, that I am a right loser. Oh well. The car isn't anything special, it;s a diesel Citroen Saxo which should mean that we save more than £150 a month just on fuel and car tax, and cutting down our monthly outgoings is a priority at the moment. I'm not overly thrilled about downsizing as I like my Vectra but it's just so thirsty on fuel and costs a bomb to maintain so it needs to go.

I'll update my poker progress, or severe lack of it, in another post because I need to dash now to go pick up the aforementioned motor. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

A week ago Daniel Negreanu played the first of his two 2,500 heads up matches against the enigmatic Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and got owned by both the young Swede and the deck. In fact he was that badly beaten that he became the first of Blom's “SuperStar Showdown” challengers to lose their $150,000 bankroll before the allocated 2,500 hands had been played. However, that did not deter the plucky Canadian and he sat down across four tables of $50/$100 heads up no limit Hold'em tables on Sunday with a fresh $150,000 on the line.

A large percentage of the online poker community thought that Negreanu should have pulled out of this second battle because of how the first encounter went down but he was determined to prove he has what it takes to play the very best players at their own game. Within 1,300 hands it looked as if Negreanu's decision to play was one of the worst of his life as he was down another $120,000 and it looked as if he could go broke even sooner than the 1,439 hands it took in the previous match.

Negreanu cited the main reason for his early demise in the first match was the fact he ran massively under EV, especially in pots of $20,000 or greater. In fact he won only two of the 14 pots of this size. It appeared that he had really angered the poker gods because his horrific run continued into the second 2,500 hand match. He first lost an AsQc versus kings encounter all in preflop then in another hand he raised to $300, Blom made it $1,200 to play and Negreanu put in a further raise to $3,100. Blom called this then shoved on a 5h-4h-2h flop only to find Negreanu making the call with Jh8h for a flopped flush, but the turn and river were both fives, which gave Blom an unlikely full house!

This prompted Negreanu to type, “This is unreal,” in the chat box before adding ,”You run insane against me.” Blom admitted this in his response of ,”Yep its really insane.” Negreanu then continue to run bad first losing with AcJc versus Kd3d with the money going in on a Ad-Jc-6d flop then getting the dreaded kings into aces situation that we all love to hate. Then something happened and Negreanu flopped the nut straight on a two-flushed board and won a substantial pot as he faded Blom's flush draw. This was followed by Negreanu calling Blom's $55,700 shove into a $4,000 pot on a Tc-9c-4d flop in a four-bet pot. Blom held 9h7h to Negreanu's KdKc and the comeback was well and truly on.

The outspoken Canadian then scooped a $56,300 pot when his aces held against QdJh on a Js-6c-5c flop and then 350 hands from the end he actually nudged in front when his Ah8h bested the 8d7d of Blom when the final board ran out As-7c-5s-6h-8c. With 38 hands to go there was an impromptu pause during which Negreanu admitted to going on tilt saying that he had “broke lots of stuff” in his room and that he had “smashed everything.” In the last 38 hands there was only one all in encounter and Negreanu won that, his aces beating Blom's fours all in preflop. When the challenge came to an end they had actually played 2,502 hands and Negreanu, despite being down $120,000 at one stage, had actually won with a profit of $26,500. An epic comeback.

At the end of the match Negreanu was full of praise for Blom calling him “incredible” and saying that he hopes to be able to have some lessons from the 20-year old Swede as he “is the best.” Blom takes on Scott “urnotindangr” Palmer this coming Sunday in another two 2,500 hands battles. Many believe Palmer will be Blom's toughest opponent since he began his so-called SuperStar Showdown challenge. This writer is of that train of thought too, it should be one of the true online battles.

At the start of the fifth and final day of play (six if you include the two Day 1s) all the talk surrounding the European Poker Tour Snowfest final table was the fact there were three Belgian nationals out of the eight players, all with a great chance of becoming the very first Belgian EPT Champion.

By the time play had some to an end, some ten hours after it had begun, the Belgian's were forgotten and it was Russian Vladimir Geshkenbein who was being held aloft by his army of fans in scenes that would not look out of place at a football match back in his homeland of Russian (though he was raised in Switzerland and now resides in Malta.)

Geshkenbein, known as “Beyne” when he is plying his trade online, managed to turn his 30,000 starting stack into a field leading 235,000 during Day 1b and manage to keep this massive stack all the way to the final table, where he started fourth out of eight, with a stack of 1,678,000. Whilst the majority of the final table were content with drinking water, fruit juices and energy drinks, Geshkenbein sat down with a vodka and lemon with a small stuffed monkey and donning a snakeskin cowboy hat and he continued to drink throughout the day and night of the final table!

The Russian, famed for his extremely loose-aggressive style, saw his stack fluctuate wildly but once he had all but eliminated Cristian Dragomir when five handed he never looked back. In that particular hand the flop read Jd-2d-6h and Geshkenbein check-raised Dragomir's 255,000 bet all in. After almost five minutes Dragomir called and turned over 8s8d and was up against the KhTh of Geshkenbein. The eights stayed in front as the 4s fell on the turn but the 9h was one of Geshkenbein's outs and it left his Romanian opponent, who was once berated by Phil Hellmuth at the WSOP, with less than two big blind.

That hand gave Geshkenbein over 5,000,000 chips and the ammunition to make life very difficult for his opponents, who were having a hard time putting him on a hand at any point of the tournament. He got extremely lucky in a hand with fourth place finisher Giacomo Maisto when he found himself calling an all in bet with Qd4d on a 9s-8c-Qc flop to find himself up against QsTc. The 2s on the turn kept him behind but the 4h on the river was the three outer he was looking for.

Half hour later and he called a 20 big blind shove from Koen De Visscher, one of the two Belgian's in the top three, with JsJc, which held against Ac7c to set up a heads up encounter with Kevin Vandersmissen, a very takented player who was superb from start to finish in this tournament. Heads-up only last a few hands, much to the disappointment of the rail who were expecting an epic encounter. In the final hand Geshkenbein raised, Vandermissen three-bet then called when the Russian moved all-in. Geshkenbein held a less than stellar Ah9d but it was still ahead of the KdTs of his Belgian opponent. The flop came down As-9h-8d, almost locking the hand up for Geshkenbein but even he looked worried when the turn brought the Ks into play. However, any thoughts of a major suckout were soon dismissed as the river came down 5s to deny Belgium their first-ever EPT Champion, though Vandersmissen did pick up €260,000 for his efforts over the week.

The €390,000 Geshkenbein picked up represents the largest cash of his career, his previous best being his first live cash when he won the 2009 APPT Macau High Roller event for $266,705 after beating Johnny Chan heads up. He may not be a household name just yet but his skills and personality in this particular event would make me think that there is much more to come from this young man in the future. Mark my words!

1st place: Vladimir Geshkenbein - €390,000
2nd place: Kevin Vandersmissen - €260,000
3rd place: Koen De Visscher - €147,000
4th place: Giacomo Maisto - €100,000
5th place: Cristian Dragomir - €81,000
6th place: Philip Meulyzer - €65,000
7th place: Denis Murphy - €49,000
8th place: Morten Mortensen - €35,000

If somebody asked you to name a country that is synonymous with the game of poker you would probably answer the United States of America and one of the last countries you would think of would probably be Belgium but that could be all set to change after EPT Snowfest gets completed later today.

Over the course of four long days of poker the 482 players have been whittled down to the final table of eight and of those eight, three of them are from Belgium! Leading the way is Kevin Vandersmissen who has somehow manage to turn his 30,000 starting stack from Day 1 into a staggering 4,512,000 chips, which is almost double of his nearest rival, Cristian Dragomir and means that if the bottom four stacks combined he would still be leading!

He obviously ran good during the last couple of days but he has also been playing extremely well and will be the odds on favourite when play resumes at 1400 local time at the Alpine Palace Hotel in Saalbach-Hinterglemm. He already has over $440,000 winnings from live poker tournaments and is guaranteed to take home no less than €35,000 today though I think he would be bitterly disappointed with anything less than the €390,000 first place prize.

The other two Belgian players who will be seated with him, Philip Meulyzer and Koen De Visscher each have 1,758,000 and 1,543,000 respectively, meaning that the Belgian contingent hold 7,813,000 of the 14,460,000 chips in play, a quite amazing statistic.

Although it is highly likely that Vandersmissen will walk away with the lion's share of the spoils my personal favourite for the title is Vladimir Geshkenbein, a talented Russian player better known as “Beyne” in online poker circles. Geshkenbein is a hyper-aggressive player who is almost impossible to put on a hand and the fact that he sits drinking vodka and lemon or Jagermeister and Red Bull all day long makes him a hero in my book! His best live tournament result was a couple of years ago when he won the APPT High Roller event for $266,705 after defeating 10-time WSOP bracelet winner Johnny Chan heads up.

When play resumes at 1400 local time they will play out the remainder of Level 24 which means the blinds will be 15,000/30,000/3,000a. There will be no re-draw for seats as they did this when the final nine players were consolidated onto one table towards the end of play yesterday.

Final table seating plan complete with official chip counts

Seat 1: Kevin Vadersmissen – 4,512,000
Seat 2: Giacomo Maisto – 986,000
Seat 3: Vladimir Geshkenbein – 1,678,000
Seat 4: Philip Meulyzer – 1,758,000
Seat 5: Denis Murphy – 997,000
Seat 6: Morten Mortensen – 740,000
Seat 7: Cristian Dragomir – 2,293,000
Seat 8: Koen De Visscher – 1,543,000

First of allow me to apologise for the lack of updates on this latest trip abroad but I have basically been so busy that I simply haven't had time to sit down and write anything even remotely interesting. The past couple of nights have seen us working until 0130 in the morning and if you think I'm going to sit writing blog posts after an 18 hour day writing about poker then sorry but you have me mistaken for someone else!

Of all the jobs I have ever done in my life none of them, surprisingly, have been any fun whilst nursing a huge hangover. And to be honest of all the jobs I have done whilst hungover this one is by far the worst of the lot due to the fact you are on your feet for most of the day, having to count tiny little chips and try to make very uninteresting goings on interesting.

After the shenanigans from Saturday night it should be quite obvious that Sunday was a complete write-off, don't get me wrong I still worked hard but I was in recovery mode. Throughout the day I drank almost six litres of water and I only went to the toilet once during that time and when I got back to my room I slept like a baby. I woke up Monday morning full of beans a full six hours before the tournament started, had breakfast, did some work and felt really good. It's a good job I felt good because 302 players came through the doors (compared to the 180 on Sunday) which meant it was extremely busy and I didn't get into my bed until 0200 after getting up at 0800 the previous morning. That is dedication. Obviously I was extremely tired so went straight to my room, had a glass of wine and went to sleep, , that is after listening to the room upstairs having some extremely athletic sex that I impressed me with the ferocity and length of time it went on for. I almost felt compelled to give them a round of applause.

Yesterday saw 266 or so players get whittled down to just 81 and they will return today knowing nine of them will walk home empty handed. There are still four PokerStars Team Pros in the mix and a couple of known faces from the European circuit but overall it has been a rather subdued tournament, pretty nondescript in all honesty. It feels more like a job for me this time round for some reason, I'm still enjoying it but it seems more serious here in Austria. One highlight of my trip so far has been talking to the Dutch PokerNews guys, Frank Op de Woerd and Remko Rinkema. I briefly worked with them at EPT London during my trial and again in Barcelona but this time we are working opposite each other and they have been a right laugh. The Dutch have a unique sense of humour and its right up my street and hopefully it won't be the last time we get to work together, even if they do take the piss out of my accent, ironic if you think about it!

Before I go I need to mention the most important thing at a poker event and that is the food. Usually I have a bitch about the fact they have raw meat everywhere but the food her is nothing short of amazing and it is all completely free! My only gripe is they still don't know how to make bacon, instead they get the thinnest bit of pig possible and cremate it. It tastes nice but I like a nice thick rasher as a general rule. Austria is also sausage made, they do some crazy stuff with pigs I can tell you. My favourite so far is the “pigs in blankets” that have been injected, yes injected, with can only be described as DairyLea. They sound rank, don't look entirely amazing either but Jesus they are tasty and I have been stuffing my fat face with them all week!

Oh that reminds me, on the way to breakfast yesterday morning I literally bumped into one of my German pals from the Goat Stall. He muttered something to me in German and then realised who I was and looked at the floor. I told him in no uncertain terms that he was a female's genitals that starts with a “c” and rhymes with punt and he went bright red and quickly made off. ****.

Anyway, I'll leave it there as I need a poo and I am going to get myself a €3.50 cup of coffee. This is like any other £0.25 vending machine tripe you get at home except they stick it in a fancy cup and give you a little chocolate with it. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Daniel Negreanu has never made it a secret that he admires Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and his unique style that has baffled opponents and anyone who has tried to study him. Ever since it was revealed that Blom would take part in a regular online poker battle called the SuperStar Showdown Negreanu has said he would love to take him on. On Sunday he did just that but with disastrous consequences.

The SuperStar Showdown sees Blom take on a challenger over 2,500 hands of heads up no limit Hold'em, or pot limit Omaha with blinds of $50/$100. Both Blom and his opponent have to set aside $150,000 and if either player loses this amount the challenge is brought to a close. Until Sunday Blom had gone the distance with the likes of Isaac Haxton, Daniel Cates, and Tony G but for the first time ever his last match, against Negreanu, was ended prematurely.

Negreanu openly admitted that he was no well versed in playing online heads up cash games and he certainly was no expert when it came to playing multiple tables of this particular discipline so he set out to learn against some of the best players in the business. Over the past couple of months he booked winning sessions against Rany “nanonoko” Lew and Justin “Zee Justin” Bonomo, albeit at $5/$10 instead of $5/10 and when he did step up and play “Sauce123”  at the stakes he would play Blom at he got destroyed. He should have taken that as a sign.

On Sunday Negreanu and Blom faced off over the four tables set out in the challenge terms, each of them putting $150,000 aside and neither expecting to use it all. Within the first 150 hands Negreanu found himself down by more than $30,000 and it just got worse and worse as the night went on. Although Blom was completely outplaying Negreanu he was also running incredibly well admitting in the chatbox that he was on a “pretty sick run” and that he “hit the nuts all session long.”

After around 1,200 hands Negreanu was down by more than $130,000 and had to sit out on all of his tables so that he could consolidate his stacks and continue with the challenge. Finally, on the 1,439th hand Negreanu finally lost all of his money! Down to his last $10,100 he re-raised Blom's $300 open to $1,000 only to see Blom move all in. Negreanu typed “Meh. Let's gamble” and made the call, turning over KsJc which was up against the AcKh of the hot-running Blom. The Jd-Ts-7d flop put Negreanu in front but the Qc on the turn gave Blom the Broadway straight and when the 4c fell on the river it was game over for Negreanu who will now be known as the first player to go broke in the SuperStar Showdown!

Negreanu had agreed to play a second 2,500 session this coming Sunday but this hammering put that in doubt. However, a couple of hours after losing $150,000 in just four hours  Negreanu tweeted on his Twitter account, “Ok, officially shook off the loss. Back to the grind this week and a rematch with a fresh 150k next week.” Can he turn it around or will he be demolished once again? I think the latter but I wish him the best of luck, at the very least it should be extremely entertaining.

Although it may not have been as epic as Chris Moneymaker turning a $38 online satellite win into $2,500,000 when he won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event but Alan Sternberg's win at the Bay 101 Shooting Star World Poker Tour event will go down as one of the great success stories.

The Bay 101 Shooting Star Main Event is one of the toughest fields on the WPT circuit due to the heavy presence of well-known and respected professional players taking part but that did not seem to bother Sternberg who handled himself impeccably throughout the tournament despite finding himself on the end of a horrible bad beat early at the final table.

The six handed final table played for just under an hour, during which time 27 hands were played, before it lost its first player. With blinds at 12,000/24,000/4,000a Mike Matusow raised to 55,000 from the button and then called when Mike Sexton moved all in for 200,000 from the big blind. Sexton's KcQs was dominating the KhJd of Matuswo but by the river the board read Ah-8d-4s-2h-Jc and Sexton was sent to the rail to pick up $148,000.

Casey McCarrel followed him just three hands later, his AhQh losing to the JcTs of World Series of Poker bracelet winner Steven Kelly. The money went in preflop and Kelly spiked a ten on the flop, which held, to eliminate McCarrel in fifth place, worth $221,800.

Then on the 45th hand of the final table disaster struck for Sternberg. On a board reading As-6c-5h-Qd-Qc he called an all in bet from Vivek “Psyduck” Rajkumar whilst holding 6d6s for a full house, only for Rajkumar to flip over QhQs for rivered quads! Losing a 1,800,000 chip pot  would be enough to tilt most players but Sternberg kept his cool, did not panic and sat patiently choosing his spots to accumulate chips

Whilst he was doing so Rajkumar was busy losing the chips he had won from Sternberg, though it took another 100 hands for him to do so. On hand #131 with blinds now at 30,000/60,000/10,000a Rajkumar found himself with just 750,000 chips and these found their way into the middle when he open shoved from the button. Kelly re-shoved and Matusow showed king-queen before folding. This didn't please Kelly as he also held king-queen and Matusow had two of his outs but Rajkumar had made the play with KdJc and was badly dominated. The final board ran out Ac-3c-2h-7d-Th and Rajkumar was eliminated in fourth place, worth $295,800.

Matusow followed suit another hour later as his dream of a first WPT title lay in ruins. The blinds had increased to 40,000/80,000/10,000a and when Sternberg raised to 180,000 on the button, Matusow moved all in for 1,380,000 from the big blind. Sternberg made the call and turned over KhQh, nicely in front of the lowly 9d2s of Matusow. A Qd-Tc-6d-4d-2h board was enough to bust Matusow in third place which netted him $369,800.

Going into heads-up there was only 50,000 chips difference between the two players but Sternberg quickly put some distance between them. On hand #182 he raised to 200,000 preflop, Kellyt made it 560,000 to play and Sternberg made the call. The flop came down Ts-8s-5d, Kelly bet 470,000 and Sternberg smooth called. The turn saw the 5h make an appearance and Kelly upped the ante by betting 1,100,000 and again Sternberg just called. The river was the Td and both players checked, Kelly turning over 9h7h, losing out to the 9c8c of Sternberg, who now lead 8,300,000 to 4,160,000.

Seven hands later and he won another 2,300,000 chips when he forced Kelly to fold on a Td-4h-3h-5c-Kh board to give himself a five-to-one chip lead. Despite the massive advantage it took 46 hands for Sternberg to dispatch of his opponent. Kelly min-raised to 240,000 which prompted Sternberg to move all in. Kelly made the call and looked set for a double up as his AhQh was much stronger than the Ts8c of his opponent. Both players made a pair on the Qd-8h-7h flop and when the turn was the 7s it looked like Kelly was back in business. However the dealer put out the 8c on the river to give Sternberg a full house and the win! $1,039,000 from a small satellite win will be one of the best ROIs ever seen!

Final table payouts

1: Alan Sternberg: $1,039,000
2: Steven Kelly: $595,300
3: Mike Matusow: $369,800
4: Vivek Rajkumar: $295,800
5: Casey McCarrel: $221,800
6: Mike Sexton: $148,000

Howdy campers! I actually made a video blog but it was beyond terrible so I thought I'd revert to what I do best and write the damned thing instead. I'm currently in Austria covering the EPT Snowfest for PokerNews and I am writing this from the media room which has the most amazing view of snow covered mountains ever! MBN as they say on the interwebs.

I am feeling quite dapper at the moment, which is pretty amazing considering the state I was in three or four hours ago. You see it was the welcome party last night in the “Goat Stall,” a bar that had real life goats in it, weirdos. Although the furry four legged creatures kept their distance the free booze most certainly did not. I was a pissed Pudding. It was a really good night in all, plenty of laughs etc but I did manage to offend some German's and almost get into a fight as a result. Everything is a little fuzzy around the edges but I vaguely remember one smug little git telling me he hated the English so I did what any Yorkshireman would do and asked him, “du hast ein enge arschloch?” Google it as I don't think I can write it on here. Obviously this went down really well and resulted in me having to do a runner down a ski slope but hey it was fun.

I awoke this morning fully clothed, face down, still wearing my glasses and feeling like death. Apart from the over indulgence of free ale the hotel decided it would be a great idea to try and boil me to death by turning the heating up full blast. After managing to open my eyes I had a mini panic for a few minutes where I tried, and failed, to recall the goings on of the night and I couldn't find my phone, though I did find it on the bathroom floor when I went for a shower. I'm a fan of baths but hotel showers are immense and I stood there for half hour trying to come round and psyche myself up for breakfast. A few shots of orange juice, several sausages and a vat of coffee sorted me out and I am back with the living again, though still massively dehydrated. Thankfully there is a massive fridge full of free water, Coke and apple juice and I am slowly but surely making my way through it.

The tournament doesn't actually start until 1400 each day I have discovered, which is pretty amazing as it means I get to have a sleep and do my usual work before hand, where as on previous EPTs I have had to get up at 0600-0700 do some work and then do a 12-14 hour shift on the tournament floor, which is a killer. There should only be around 400-500 runners in total, which is nothing really as Barcelona had more than 800 and Prague 600 so this should be a walk in the park. This reminds me that I was talking to James Akenhead (top bloke) and Jack Elwood (another top bloke) last night whilst under the influence, name dropping FTW.

Right, I'll leave it there for now as I need another Apfel Spritzer and I am sure there are some Germans for me to fight too. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables.