Bigger Deal

Lee McCreery of The News Of The World writes

I’VE just returned from Barcelona. Turns out it’s a lovely city but this was no sightseeing holiday - I’d won a seat to the opening event of Season Four on the European Poker Tour. The prize came courtesy of PokerStars, who generously put up the $13,000 package for the winner of an event held at the Loose Cannon Club in London to celebrate the launch of Anthony Holden’s new poker book Bigger Deal. [View picture]

The fact I managed to battle my way through the 140 or so celebrities, journalists and poker professionals was a miracle in itself - as Tony points out in Chapter 8 of Bigger Deal that I "don’t really know what I’m doing." That was based on a previous PokerStars event held last year where the first prize was a trip to play in the World Series.

Former world champions Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker and Joe Hachem all played in that event but somehow I made it to the final table as chip leader (fluke?) - and I was still chip leader when three-handed with Nic Szeremeta and Tony himself. On that occasion the poker gods deserted me as Szeremeta came from behind on two all-in coups to heavily damage my stack while Tony, to his great credit, went on to defeat Nic to claim the big prize.

It took me a while to get over that (the box of chips I received for third place was little consolation I can assure you) but the Bigger Deal book launch offered another, albeit slim with so many players, chance and either way it would be a great party with a free bar to boot. Yet after hours of play, and not without one or two beers, I again made it to the final table (fluke?) and eventually ended up three-handed with poker pro Mel Judah and the legendary Al Alvarez.

When Mel went out and left me a big chip leader over Al I started shaking inside and was just praying for a quick finish - and I got my wish when making a straight to defeat the literary poker god. Tony was one of the first to congratulate me though whether he thought I’d won it by "not knowing what I was doing" I never found out!

And so on to the Gran Casino Barcelona, where I’d been drawn to play on Day 1A, and that fateful moment where Tournament Director Thomas Kremser calmly announced "Dealers, please shuffle up and deal" This was it, my debut on the European Poker Tour. No more time to speculate on what might happen, no more time to wonder who might be on my table, no more time debating how I might play pocket 6’s, and no more time for advice from my mate Joe Beevers - this time the cards were going to be dealt for real and it was time to play.

I had a quick look round my table but didn’t recognise any of the really big names so I just settled back and tried to appear as calm as possible. I’d been asked before the tournament whether I would prefer to receive trash hands in the very early stages and as the cards were in the air I’d decided the correct answer was an emphatic YES (although I’d be brave enough to say I wouldn’t have thrown away aces or kings!).

There were 543 players with 10,000 starting chips, blinds at 25-50 and eight one-hour long levels on day one which meant(hopefully) a long slog and no need to panic - so a nice easy fold when I glanced at J-8 for my first hand. Over an hour later though and now in to level two I still hadn’t playe a hand when I glanced down and there they were - two shiny red kings. Raise I thought, then for a split second thought about slowplaying, but the action was on me already - so I made a small raise only to watch in horror as the rest of the table folded almost before they’d looked at their cards.

I’d been too obvious, it didn’t take a genius to have noticed my tight image, and these players were a bit better than that! I was a little annoyed with myself but there was no time to dwell on it and at least I’d won my first ever EPT pot. I calmly stacked the few chips I’d won and glanced at the two cards which were already in front of me - two aces! Perfect I thought, this will confuse them, surely somebody will take me on, so I made another standard raise and everybody quickly folded again. Damn! this is tough, kings and aces on consecutive hands and nothing to show for it - the dinner break came as a welcome relief.

It was somewhere around level six, with my stack dwindling along with my hopes of reaching day two, when I picked up pocket kings again - only this time it was raised in front of me so I pushed in all my remaining chips and was called by the raiser holding pocket queens. Sweet, a king on the flop, a timely double through and suddenly my stack was back around the 8,000 mark.

Now the clock became a huge factor as my initial goal of making it through day one became a real possibility. The next two hours crawled by as I desperately nursed my stack - the most excitement I had was in striking a $200 NFL bet with a San Francisco 49ers fan I’d been chatting to (as a St Louis Rams fan I took my team to have a better season than his) - but eventually, in the early hours, level eight came to a close and I’d made the cut for day two.

It had been one hell of a slog and I was shattered but bagging up my tiny 6,000 chip stack felt great. I had a day off to look forward to and would be back to fight again on day two. The PokerStars qualifiers were staying in a hotel close to the casino so it was no surprise as I entered the lift for day two to be joined my two others who had made the cut. I enquired how they were getting on and one turned out to be chip leader Daniel Stern who informed me he had 101,000 chips while his pal Greg Dyer (who eventually finished third) had around 80,000 - it certainly put my 6,000 into perspective but hey, I was in the right lift.

There were 204 players still in and it was pretty obvious my only move was all-in and it would have to come quickly so when my A-5 was called by A-9 I thought that was it. But the board had different ideas and an innocent little 5 on the flop saw me double through to almost 12,000. Players were being knocked out all over the place but my stack was still very low when I moved all-in with A-10 against an early huge-stack raiser - he was forced to call but I was delighted when his 9-7 hit nothing and moved me up to 15,000.

The dinner break was again a welcome relief as I realised we were approaching the last 100, and with 56 players getting paid, I can’t say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind that I might actually make some money. After the break though things didn’t go my way and with the action getting more and more aggressive I was forced to fold hand after hand as I was dealt a string of rags.

Eventually with around 9,000 chips remaining I found pocket 8’s on the button - the action was folded around to me and with the blinds at 1,000-2,000 I had to push in all my chips. The big blind though had snagged a pair of queens and when another 8 failed to appear on the board my tournament was over.

It was a tough moment and I was emotionally drained as I wished the remaining players good luck and headed for the bar. I’d lasted a day and a half, far more than I had realistically expected, and had finished a creditable 95th of the 543 starters but most importantly I’d enjoyed every minute of it.

For the record a young Dane called Sander Lylloff went on to win the event picking up over a million Euros for his efforts. It was a remarkable tale as runner-up Mark Teltscher was not just a close friend of Sander’s but the two of them were hotel room-mates - the hug they shared after the final hand was a really touching moment.

For now at least that’s something I can only dream of but I’m eternally grateful to both Tony Holden and PokerStars for giving me the chance to experience the buzz of the EPT first hand - now, where did I put that qualifying schedule?

Picture of Lee McCreery - Grub Smith - Michael Greco

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