POTD #12 Blind vs Blind Bluff in Barcelona

Even the best sometimes punt and miss in Barcelona

The first EPT High Roller I ever played was the 2013 Barcelona 10k. It was, at the time, a record-breaking tournament. 180 people for an EPT 10k! Can you believe it? Since 2013 EPT High Rollers have grown. Last year this equivalent tourney got 512 entries in Paris, 431 in Barcelona, 456 in Cyprus, and a measly 289 in Prague, which was competing with WSOP and WPT series running concurrently.

In 2013, I was nervous about playing a high roller with a tough field full of European pros, but had a fortunate day 1 where I ended up third in chips and turned one starting stack into almost seven starting stacks. I remember excitedly walking from the poker room back to my hotel room, recapping the hands I played to friends, and I was so amped up that I am sure I was annoying everyone around me, but I did not care.

Day 2 did not go as planned. Nothing eventful happened until Jonathan Duhamel won a big pot vs my AK. (Yes, that hand is reported correctly: He had T9o. I can still remember 12 years later.)

This year in Barcelona, I had a similar experience. Day 1 went as smoothly as possible; I kept making the nuts, and when I didn’t have the nuts, I won some highlight-reel pots. Day 2 with a chip lead can be a weird experience: You want to keep the pressure on and utilize your big stack, but you also have a stack so large that you could almost fold into the money. I’ve cashed a lot of poker tournaments and always try to play my best poker, but years of experience has not fully quieted the voice in my head that says “Don’t be an idiot and you will have 20,000 Euros by dinner break”. Today I talk about a hand where I failed to heed the advice of my inner monologue, “don’t be an idiot”.

2024 EPT Barcelona #52 €10,300 High Roller

Level 12: 1.5k/3k/3k (SB/BB/BBA) 50k Starting Stack. Four levels into day 2. I have ~400k my opponent has around 300k.

It folds to my opponent in the SB who makes it 9k, I call T♥️6♠️ in the BB.

Flop (21k) K♣️9♣️8♦️ he checks, i check

Turn (21k) 9♥️ He checks, I bet 17k

River (55k) 4♦️ He checks, I bet 55k, he calls with K♠️4♠️