POTD #196 Getting out of the SHR Bubble in the EPT London Main Event

I try to play like Mike

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Looking back at the year in poker in 2025, there is one tournament performance that stands above the rest— Michael Mizrachi winning the WSOP Main Event. I covered the Punts of the WSOP ME and was generally unimpressed by Michael’s performance, but it did lead me down a path of self-reflection I often have when I look at the winners of big-field Main Events. Do the winners have some main event magic— some “White Magic” that mere mortals like myself cannot access? Sometimes I have enough self-doubt in this arena that I enter a big-field Main Event with a player in mind and try to emulate their play: Today I am going to play like Darren Elias and see how it works out for me.

Thus far, this has not really worked for me. It could be because I am guilty of survivorship bias; I am not noting all the tournaments that Michael Mizrachi did not win. I am aware of the fact that there are hundreds of people who could claim to be exploitative big-field main event specialists, and if just one of them has a deep run, it could cause me to have an existential crisis about my whole poker game. The flip side is, maybe this is like Amadeus, and I am the Salieri who can’t understand the intuitive genius of Mozart, and no studying or practice will ever let me reach that point. The other side of this is, maybe my skill sets just don’t align in a way that I can copy the game of Main Event specialists. Steve Nash is a great basketball player; if he tried dominating in the low post like Shaquille O’Neal, it would not work out for him, and it would not work for Shaq if he tried dribbling through traffic before hitting a pull-up three.

Today’s POTD comes from the Main Event in EPT London, where I entered the day with a simple plan: playing like Michael Addamo. Let’s try opening two pips too wide; three-betting every mix, especially from the BB; and check-raising any hand that can turn flush or straight draws. Let’s try overbetting when the solver wouldn’t, value betting two pips too wide, and forcing people to play defensively, and see what happens. Maybe I don’t have the skills to play Mike’s game like Mike, but hey, sometimes Manute Bol rains in a bunch of three-pointers. Let’s get crazy and see what happens.

EPT London 2022 Main Event £5,300
(400/800/800) (SB/BB/BBA) 30k Starting Stack. Registration is Open.

It folds to me in the LJ (32k) with K♦️Q♥️, I make it 1800; it folds to the BB (covers) who is unknown to me, who calls.

Flop (4800) 9♠️8♠️2♣️: He checks, I check.
Turn (4800) K♥️: He checks, I bet 4800, he calls.
River (14400) 3♣️: He checks, I go all-in for 25.4k he folds.