A few years ago, when jetting was not yet Easy and before Ryan had taken to the Air, the speculation of a Briton visiting Estonia would was laughed out of the departure lounge. But low-cost air travel has not just allowed stag nights to move rampaging around Europe's medieval old towns, it has also made Tallinn a destination so attractive that two British poker players flew there this week and destroyed the sector on the inaugural PokerStars Baltic Festival.
In truth, I DO NOT know which airline Thomas Partridge and James Keys took en path to Tallinn this week. What I KNOW is they could probably hire a personal jet to take them home. When this tournament reached its climax after about five-and-a-half hours play today, it was Partridge and Keys heads up for the title, and the winner's cheque of €76,750.
Partridge, a 24-year-old player from Teign Valley in Devon, clinched it after a temporary battle against his friend. His king-high flush in spades, versus Keys' two pair, sealed the deal, forcing Keys to accept €48,505. Partridge, meanwhile, is the primary champion of what's probably to become a fixture at the poker calendar. He's also off to the PCA within the Bahamas because the winner of an advantage package submit by PokerStars. Job done.
"I haven't played many live tournaments," Partridge said. "But our friend qualified and encouraged us to come back along to boot. I'm very happy with how it went. Now I'LL attempt to improve my game before going to the Bahamas."
We began day three with 17 players and all eyeing the highest prize. Natasha Ellis, another Briton, was the primary out the door, when her pocket eights couldn't beat Q-J, and that started a hurry of eliminations that took us to our final table of nine in double-quick time. Among those to fall short were Andrius Tapinas, Lithuania's finest, and the local hope Imre Leibold. However the pace have been frantic and the action brutal; few were spared the bloodshed.
Going into the final, the leader was Michael Fardan, from Denmark, who had personally accounted for no less than five of the early eliminations. He had Keys out-chipped by a small handful, with Partridge breathing down their necks. And although we were at a final, the pace didn't slacken one bit. Finland's Antti Kärkkäinen, Johan Nilsson, of Sweden, Jerry Wong, of Holland, and another Finn, Petri Heinanen, were sent packing.
Then it got really ugly. Fardan and Keys were still huge in chips after they got fascinated by a monster pot. The board had a wide variety of possibilities - two fives, an ace and a king - and Keys showed A-K when Fardan called his huge river bet. Muck, and Keys finished Fardan off with pocket tens soon after.
He wasn't even done. Claus Bek Nielsen should have loved finding pocket kings four-handed, and slyly managed to get all of his chips within the middle, called by the dominant Keys. But he was dominant in additional ways than one: he also had pocket aces in a vicious cooler.
Nielsen departed, leaving the Norwegian Kenneth Danielsen to do battle with the Brits.
That didn't last long. He struggled gamely, and pushed Keys off a couple of pots, but then along came another cooler: A-10 versus A-K. Keys was in unstoppable form as Danielsen became our final Nordic representative to depart.
Throughout all this, Partridge were playing it steady. He was taking down anything that was on offer while avoiding the key confrontations, and with Keys on his left - and picking up a lot of these monsters - it was an exercise primarily in damage limitation. Heads up was a unique story, though. Keys won the primary small pot, but after that each pot was big and so they all went to Partridge. In chunks of 200,000-odd each, he reeled within the two-to-one deficit and took the lead.
The winning pot was the type that so often wins major tournaments: it was the primary time two big hands went up against one another and the entire chips went in. Partridge's flush faded Keys' full house outs and the 2 shook hands with customary British understatement and politeness. Even their railbirds didn't know whether to cheer: they honestly didn't mind who won. "I DO NOT need to look too happy because my friend lost," said Partridge.
But soon champagne was in either one of their mitts, and our new champion was crowned.
Read the entire action from today on our level-by-level updates. And Swedish might appear to be utter nonsense, but there's enough of it at our Swedish blog to make you think that someone must understand it.
Introduction to the general dayLevel 16&17 updatesLevel 18&19 updatesLevel 20 updates
There's more from the video blog team at PokerStars.tv. And thanks once again, and for the entire week, to Rene Velli, who has provided some excellent photographs.
The next major event we'll be covering at PokerStars blog would be the World Series final table from Las Vegas. Does EasyJet fly to Nevada?
Good night.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Baltic Poker Festival]
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