‘El Blondie’ Dave Colclough gets slightly more than he bargained for when he arrives on Scandinavian shores for the EPT
So I made my way over to Copenhagen for the first EPT of the year. Fortunately there was a direct flight from Birmingham, however the plane was of the slightly dodgy propellerdriven variety. Not quite the private jet of the O’Connell & Chubbs (Simon Nowab) poker world.
Last year I arrived 90 minutes late and didn’t last much longer than 90 seconds. This year I arrived a day early, but needless to say the hotel booking was cocked up and they weren’t expecting me. These Scandies try everything to throw you off your game. This aside, at 2pm on Day 1A, I was ready to go. There would be no early exit this time. It was all about Patience, patience and more patience.
For eight hours I hardly saw either a pair or an Ace. What I did see, however, was oceans of press. I remember the first event less than two years ago; Conrad from PokerStars and Tikay from Blondepoker were the entire press contingent back then. This year, the press room had more laptops than a PC World warehouse.
Eyes on the job
So the week turned into a hard slog involving press interviews, posing for photos with girls draped over me and playing cards. It’s debatable which discipline I was worse at. In situations like this you need to retain your focus, and I am a sure disciple of the iPod; it helps me pass all those awkward A-10 type hands that are going to get me into trouble. More importantly, it helps with my concentration.
If Scott Grey (who reached the final table at the 2002 WSOP main event) sees me hunkering down under my headphones, he always tries to catch my eye to start up a conversation. He knows it keeps me from my A-game.
Of course, I don’t always want to play steady. Whilst sitting on a comfortable stack I may listen to Suede’s Sci-FiLullabies or even a drop of Simon & Garfunkel.
However, to help induce a gear change, a few minutes of Joe Strummer belting out some classics from The Clash soon has me pushing my chips into the middle.
By the book
One sarcastic interrogator asked me how I survived in the pre-iPod days? The thought brought a smile to my face as I remembered one particular bar conversation with an old poker lag by the name of Andy Kappel. He offered me some words of wisdom from a book by the name of Zen and the Art of Poker.
I have never actually read this book and have some minor doubts over whether it actually exists [it does Dave, Ed]. However, Andy implanted the basic concept of varying how you fold in some dark side of my grey matter. ‘Pass your cards with the left hand, pass with the right hand, pass left underhanded with a slight spin, pass right-handed, spinning on top of the discards,’ he said. All you rookies beware; this is what 20 years of playing poker does to you.
So there I was, eight levels into Day 1A of the Copenhagen EPT and under the influence of ‘Zen’. Then, in the final hour of the day, the buses arrived and I finished the day on a stack of 19,800 in chips. Day two was to start well for me, but the players were dropping like flies, and as I moved from table to table, each new pasture seemed to be even wilder than the previous. I was just settling into a new seat with a stack of 27,000 when a spotty kid casually threw out 4,000 without even looking up from his huge stack. The play stopped at me whilst I debated how to play my pocket 7s. He glanced up and my instincts told me he wasn’t strong.
If I re-raised, he was likely to call as 27,000 was only just enough to dent his pile of at least 127,000. So I called. The flop came 4-4-2 and he led out with a weak bet of 4,000 into a pot of over 10,000. So like a mug, I moved over the top all-in. He insta-called and smugly rolled over A-4 offsuit. I exited stage left with my tail between my legs.
Dave is a regular columnist for PokerPlayer magazine so why not try a copy HERE
