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Home / Uncategorized / EPT12 Malta: Table of potential uncomfortable situations

The start of Day 2 is always an interesting time. If you read the seat draw before you sit down, all your opponents are there to see, unlike the unknown table element of a start of Day 1.

The table dynamics are also interesting. No history (unless they’ve played each other before) has been made so you have to monitor stack sizes and previous results to help you when trying to piece together all that imperfect information when involved in a hand.

We always look at the seat draw before Day 2 begins to see if any interesting tables stand out and if any of them can be classified as a “Table of Death.” If there is one, and it won’t break too early, then the folks over at ETPLive will probably nab it for the live stream that’s started today over on PokerStars.tv.

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Wojciech Lozowski, Kent Lundmark & Peter Eichhardt
Looking through today’s seat draw, Table 11 stood out as interesting one, and not because it’s a “Table of Death,” more for the mixture of characters contained within. Seven different nationalities, six qualifiers, an EPT Main Event champion, an EPT High Roller champion, a WSOP bracelet winner and a Polish rap star could be found in one shape or another. Okay, maybe we (at least) need to define it as a “Table of potential uncomfortable situations.” After watching for much of the opening level, it was certainly uncomfortable for a few, and not necessarily the ones you might expect.

Joao Ribeiro Portugal PokerStars qualifier 31500 11 1
Thomas Denis France 79000 11 2
Valerii Lubenets Ukraine 83100 11 3
Bryn Kenney USA PokerStars qualifier 91100 11 4
Wojciech Lozowski Poland Live satellite winner 22800 11 5
Kent Lundmark Sweden PokerStars qualifier 62300 11 6
Peter Eichhardt Sweden PokerStars qualifier 43500 11 7
Andrew Chen Canada PokerStars qualifier 4900 11 8

For starters, Andrew Chen busted before we arrived, less than 90 seconds into the day. That might be some sort of record. When a really good player like Chen (he was the EPT High Roller champion by the way) busts from a table as tricky as this, you hope no sharks swim into the gap. Not today. Not at this table. Giada Fang from Team PokerStars Pro Online approached, fin (media ID card) sticking out from in between her rack of chips, and took the empty seat. At least, for the sake of the recreational players at the table, she only arrived with around 25,000 chips.

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Lumark and Eichhardt deep in hurdy-gurdy conversation
There were two Swedes at the table in the shape of Kent Ludmark and Peter Eichhardt. The latter made an EPT final table in Baden back in Season 3 but seemed to drift back into the shadows in recent years, before remerging with a bang at EPT Barcelona, just missing out on the Main Event final table with his 10th place finish. Lundmark has happy memories from Barcelona too, after he won the EPT there back in Season 7. Lundmark opened the first hand we witnessed but folded to a three-bet from his more senior countryman.

Bryn Kenney has a fierce reputation in the poker world, both live and online. Natural talent oozes from his pores but it was he who had the most uncomfortable level (bar Chen) and it started when Lundmark three-bet him off the first hand he played. The very next hand, Kenney won those chips back, but off Wojciech Lozowski, the Polish rap star we mentioned earlier. One might put money on him struggling in this company but he proved that theory wrong but being one of the biggest winners.

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Bryn Kenney
The hand after he folded to Kenney’s aggression, he won a decent pot back off the American. They were in the blinds and there was no raise before an A♣ 6♦ 5♥ flop appeared. Kenney led for 1,300 there and 2,700 on the A♥ turn before he checked the 5â™  river. Lozowski called both times and then bet 7,000 on the river. Kenney scratched his head and called but mucked upon seeing A♦ 9♦ .

Lozowski was on a roll after he won the very next pot. Eichhardt raised to 2,000 from under the gun and Eichhardt was the only caller from the small blind. Both players checked the 9♦ 8♣ Q♦ flop before Lozowski led for 3,600 and 4,800 on the 2♦ K♣ turn and river. Eichhardt called both times but Lozowski had turned a set of deduces and happily added more chips to his stack.

Two hands later, Lozowski made quicker work winning his third pot of the day. Diogo Cardoso opened from early position and was called by Joao Ribeiro along with Kenney before Lozowski squeezed to 7,200. All three opponents folded.

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Lozowski rapping to his own tune
Kenney folded there but thing went really badly for him the next two hands as he doubled up Akim Aouine and Cardoso one hand after the other. He raised to 2,000 from mid position and Aouine defended his big blind to see a 2♦ 7♠ 8♦ flop appear. Kenney continued for 1,800 and was check-raised to 4,000. He set Aouine all in for his remaining 12,000 and Frenchman snap called all in with A♦ 7♦ for the nut flush draw. Kenney was in bad shape with Q♦ J♦ for a smaller flush draw and he paid his opponent off after the board ran out A♥ 6♦ .

Thomas Denis opened to 1,700 from under the gun the next hand before Kenney three-bet to 4,600 from a couple of seats along. The action folded around to Cardoso in the big blind and he immediately moved all in for 33,800 after looking at his cards. Denis folded but Kenney called after some thought.

Cardoso: A♦ K♣
Kenney: A♠ Q♥

The board ran 6♥ J♠ 4♥ 6♠ 5♠ to double up Cardoso.

That was when we left the table. Kenney had lost two-thirds of his starting stack so it’ll be interesting if he manages to stop the slide during the second level of the day and will Lozowski continue to mix it well surrounded by pros?

Everything about EPT Malta is on the main EPT Malta page. More specifically, all the side event coverage can be found here.

Begin plotting your own bid for EPT glory by downloading the PokerStars client and having a crack. Follow this EPT event via the EPT app. There you will get all the latest news, chip counts and payouts. You can download it on Android or IOS


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