Jan Heitmann was one of only two members of Team PokerStars Pros who advanced to Day 3. When Andre Akkari was eliminated in 134th place he was then flying solo.
The German, who is looking to better his best ever EPT finish of 16th at EPT Sanremo, had a great Day 3, increasing his start of day stack of 203,000 to end the day on 953,000. That was good for ninth place overnight and before leaving for the night he was only to happy to tell us about his day.
Off to a good start
“The first table I was at was really good,” Heitmann said. “I had two very good players to my right but they didn’t have a huge stack, maybe 45 big blinds each. I was the chip leader at the table with 70 big blinds so I could open a lot. There was not anyone making any trouble by three-betting light or anything like that, so I could chip up.
“Then unfortunately the table broke, it was within the first half hour, so before the bubble burst. We were the highest table number and I knew they were breaking from high to low so it wasn’t a surprise.”
Abusing the bubble
“I did pick up a bunch of chips during the bubble. I had Emil Patel to my left and Timo Pfutzenreuter, who’s a very good German player, also at the table. I moved from 250,000 to around 400,000 at that table. When all the madness of the bubble was going on, when there were six all-ins of whatever it was, I decided to take a bathroom break because I know it’s going to take the TV crew a lot of time to catch up with them all. You’re not going to miss that much and I’ve seen bubbles burst before.”
Google ends with Lundmark getting whacked
“So then I got moved to a table where they had to Google me! They were four players who were looking at me, at my patch, trying to figure out who I was because I’m not that well known outside Germany. Then they found me and I knew when they found me.
“Then I had a very good spot where Kent Lundmark (EPT7 Barcelona champion) opened the button, I had aces so naturally I three-bet, he four-bet small, I click it back, he pushes with jacks and I hold. So that was very nice. That wasn’t a full double up, but it did eliminate him and I went from 400,000 to 700,000.
“I was pretty much cruising now, I opened a lot of hands, I got pushed on a couple of times. I hit a couple of hands. I made a couple of nice calls on the river. So I was pretty much staying at the same stack and then I played this interesting pot that got me to 900,000.
Hand of the day
“A guy limps on the hijack, from about 35 big blinds. I think he’s limped because he’s had some trouble playing against my big blind previously. The guy on the button then raises, but only to two big blinds, so I’m getting great odds in the big blind with king-ten suited. The hijack calls as well. Three-way and we see a flop that’s Kâ™ [9]2â™ . I check, the hijack checks, the button bets smallish, I call and the hijack folds. So now we’re heads-up.
“The turn is a jack, which isn’t a terrible card for me because now I can get some value from ace-jack, but I decide to check, it’s a pretty drawy board, I don’t want to make it a huge pot and if I get raised I don’t know what I’ll do and I have decent showdown value, and he checks behind. So now I’m very sure I have the best hand. He’s not going to check ace-king behind on that board, so I think he might have queens or ace-jack, something like that.
“The river was a jack, so it’s kind of interesting. I look at him and he doesn’t really look anywhere. I bet 35,000 which is a decent sized value bet, it’s around half the pot. He then looks at me, he smiles and he tries to get a smile out of me which is hard to do at the poker table. At every other point in life I’m always smiling but at the poker table I try and stay focused.
“He then makes it 90,000, so now I have to think. He can very well do that with ace-jack, he’s not going to do that with queens or a weak king, which he shouldn’t have anyway. Queens he could have but he’s not going to raise the river. So it was between–was he bluffing or does he have ace-jack? He’s polarised. I thought about it for a very long time and finally I got a live tell, I called and he had ace high.
“The tell isn’t really something I can describe, it’s a whole bunch of things that have happened before and he looked kind of different and he looked at me. That’s vague but that’s what it was. I like to look at the people after I’ve bet to try and pick up something. I don’t mind them looking at me, trying to stare me down. I’m fine with that.
On to Day 4:
“I always try to check out the table draw see what the stacks are, see who my opponents are. I’ll ask friends opinions too. I’m feeling very well, I’ve played very well this tournament and I’ve got a couple of decent runs of cards along the way. On Day 2 I had a really tough table where everyone was flipping out all the time, three-betting, four-betting and such. I had kings, queens and aces on that table so that helped a lot. I’m very much looking forward to Day 4.”
This is the table that awaits Heitmann when he takes his seat, it contains EPT10 London winner Robin Ylitalo and two players – Vojtech Ruzicka and Nicholas Rampone – who held the chip lead during Day 3. For now at least though Heitmann has the biggest stack at the table.
Ramin Hajiyev, Azerbaijan, 191,000
Nicholas Rampone, USA, PokerStars player, 700,000
Vincent Rubianes, USA, PokerStars player, 597,000
Vojtech Ruzicka, Czech Republic, PokerStars player, 722,000
Zoltan Purak, UK, PokerStars qualifier, 83,000
Markku Koplimaa, Estonia, PokerStars player, 105,000
Robin Ylitalo, Sweden, PokerStars qualifier, 338,000
Jan Heitmann, Germany, Team PokerStars Pro, 953,000
Follow all the action from the tournament floor on the main EPT Barcelona page. There’s hand-by-hand coverage in the panel at the top, including chip counts, and feature pieces below. There’s also EPT Live, which is streaming action from Day 4 of the Main Event.
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