POTD #109 I Go For An Early Dinner in Paris

Can I play two black nines as well as Phil Hellmuth?

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In the introduction to POTD #93 I wrote about my love for the EPT Three Day Super High Roller, but if you don’t have $100k or $50k to spend on a tournament, may I recommend the end of trip EPT Three Day High Roller? It’s one of the best structured tournaments on the calendar; you start off 250bbs deep and play hour-long levels. It’s not just a great tournament because it’s deep stacked; I also love the rhythm of the tournament. Registration closes at the end of day one, and you get in the money around dinner break of day two. If you’re lucky enough to cash, you play long enough on day two that reaching day three feels like an accomplishment beyond just cashing the tournament, and usually so few people make day three that if you do make it, the final table feels tantalizingly close. My only gripe with the structure is that at some of the more popular stops the field size is so large that they shorten the blind levels; unfortunately, I haven’t made day three in awhile so the sped-up blind levels are not something I have gotten to experience recently.

One other relatively unique thing about this format that I like is that the tournaments are all single re-entry. I am not one of the people who think unlimited re-entry tournaments represent some sort of moral failing or cheating, but I do think it’s pretty clear at this point in time that, on average, the people firing third, fourth, fifth bullets are for the most part not whales who need to be in the action, but pros firing the max to capture as much as EV as possible. I think it’s nice to have a variety of different tournaments, including freezeouts, limited re-entry and unlimited re-entry tournaments, but given that 95% of tournaments I play are unlimited re-entry, anything else is a breath of fresh air.

In the tournament where today’s hand took place, I quickly busted my first bullet to Bert Stevens in a relatively normal hand, where we both were a little too loose and I had the best hand until I did not. I had one life remaining, but still started with 80bbs in a slow tournament. I have previously joked about having dinner break plans with someone, usually Isaac Haxton or Justin Bonomo, only for them to bust two bullets before dinner break and cancel our plans now that their night and the following afternoon had freed up. Today’s hand was played by someone who really wanted to have a night off in Paris to avoid eating chicken breast with roasted vegetables from the poker room again.

EPT Paris €10k High Roller - Day 1
(SB/BB/BBA) (300/600/600), Starting Stack 50k

It folds to the button who covers me and makes it 1500, I (49.4k) make it 7200 in the BB with 9♣️9♠️, he calls.

Flop (15.3k) J♦️8♥️6♦️: I bet 9k, he calls.
Turn (32.3k) 2♥️: I check, he checks.
River (32.3k) 5♣️: I bet 32.9k of my remaining 33.2k, he calls with K♣️J♠️.