Excess and extravagance in Estonia

I ended up winning the tournament after having done business heads up with James Keys (http://skolsuper.blogspot.com/). In summary I never really had any especially hard decisions or interesting hands throughout the whole tournament. I only took one beat, and won the chips back on a flip a couple of hands later anyway. I picked up some hands, often picking up pots without showdown. I was pretty happy with how I played, I didn't fall foul of ill-advised cold 4bets etc! I was informed that a couple of calls I made or contemplated against shorties were a bit loose, so this is something to work on.

The final table itself was an absolute bloodbath, Keys was just smashing it to pieces and was on my direct left.. It was a weird situation as the other guys didn't want to allow him to run them over, I felt perhaps they were over compensating and it seemed kind of inevitable he would bust them up. Therefore, it made my decision to play a fairly tight, solid game and coast to the final 3 pretty easy. I found it hard to quantify the strength of the field in terms of ability, I knew they were making definite errors in terms of stuff like hand selection and betsizing but am not sure what kind of edge this translates into. I felt pretty comfortable throughout, although I did have to deal with Lodden on my immediate left on Day 1, and Eastgate 2 to my left deep in the tournament.

I was lucky enough to get heads up with James and run really hot. We did some business and he'll be coming to the Bahamas with me... He played really well whilst I was at his table and definitely seemed to have quite a presence (people moaning about him raising loads etc) Afterwards I had to do a load of interviews and photos etc. Was a shame that the interviewer's first language was not English, as it meant there were limited opportunties to induce much banter. Props to the cardplayer reporter, for being really laid back and polite whilst everyone else bustled about.

It wouldn't have been a stars event without the mandatory part. What a party it was too, free bar, comp'd Dom Perignon etc. The venue was pretty awesome and there were a load of familiar faces from the tournament in the form of staff and players, have never shaken so many hands.

Decided it would only be right to buy the whole plane a G&T on the trip back, but the cheapskate airline only had 25, which suited Keys and Rupert who lost the prop bet on which row the last drink would be consumed and ended up footing the bill. Mongy looked on with a wry smile and the ubiquitous, disapproving headshake; but was soon back in his element behind the wheel and "popping" his car all the way home.