So, London is pretty cool city. First off, I had my birthday on the 29th of September, one of my friends here had a birthday on the 28th of September and yet ANOTHER one just had her birthday as well. Needless to say, there was a lot of going out at night. Unfortunally I'm such a fish at life that I could never fully adjust to the jetlag, so every time we went out to drink, I always ended the night way too tired and falling asleep everywhere. The typical night would be:

1) go out with friends to get dinner

2) go to a bar for a pint of cider w/ friends and start the night

3) finish the night 15 minutes and one pint later deathly tired and ready to go home

Anyways, since I'm such a fish at life I figure I should make up for it by being good at something, so I got 4th in EPT London! The tournament started off on a low note for me: having busted WSOPE before dinner break on Day 1 and going on a MAJOR $400k downswing at 25/50, I started Day 1 of the EPT without too many high hopes. My fears were quickly confirmed as my starting stack dwindled from 10k in chips to about 3k at the 50/100 level for 30bbs. However, I managed to hero it up and won a bunch of small pots and won a crucial 1010 vs AK allin preflop to finish the day with 52k in chips.

On Day 2 I chipped up in a similar manner, and won a very key hand from the big blind against small blind's AA. I won with K3 of diamonds on a Jd109d board, with the 6d falling on the turn and a blank card falling on the river. On Day 3 I was admittedly getting butterflies in my stomach as this is the first time in a very long time I felt like I could score big. I concentrated really hard and I think I played really well on Day 3, making no more than 2 mistakes (mistakes that my tournament stakee Steve and Evan lectured me on). The unfortunate thing was, I could never win an allin preflop as I lost A5 vs KQ, 88 vs KJ, and A9 vs Q10, but things turned around eventually as I won AJ vs JJ allin pre and KK vs A2 allin pre. The last hand of the day was when I knocked out my friend and fellow liquidpoker member Erik Sjodin when he shipped AJo and I woke up with KK on the button. GG buddy :(

Day 4, otherwise known as the Final Table day started off well but ended up pretty crappy. I started off chipping up well again, and had to dodge a sick bullet when i got allin preflop w/ AKo against AK of clubs. The flop came Jc3c3 leaving me absolutely crying. Good thing the turn and river blanked out O_O. The next allin preflop I got into was AQ vs 1010, which I lost. I then proceeded to see a few flops and took some pots that way including flopping 2 pair with 89 and felt very confident. The 2 hands that really broke me were as follows:

1) I raised A10hh on the button 4 handed and the flop came K78 rainbow after getting flatted in the big blind. I checked behind after he checked figuring I could take it on the turn if he checks again. the turn is a Qh bringing 2 hearts and giving me an overcard, gutshot straight draw and nutflush draw. He checked to me and I bet, and he instantly checkraised me allin. Thinking he probably has worse draws here some of the time and I have a ton of outs, I called. He had K10o and played it very well.

2) The blinds were so high at this point that I was second in chips w/ 20 big blinds effective stacks. I reraised allin with A6 of clubs against an open raise trying to win the massive amount of chips in the middle, only to run into the worst possible hand he can call with (AA! :(). Unfortunately I did not win, and a few hands later busted shoving J10o after Michael Martin woke up with A9o in the big blind and finished in 4th.

The winner of this tournament, Michael Martin, at one point was down to 1.2 bbs! In one of the sickest comebacks I've ever seen, he then proceeded to win the next 4 huge pots to instantly gain the chiplead and win the tournament. Definitely one of the best tournament players in the world, Michael has 2 EPT final tables under his belt with this being the 3rd. He definitely deserves the win, as he is a great player. 3rd time's the charm ;).