Bloggers / Dave Allan / 05 October 2009 / Leave a comment

When you have an aggressive style of play it is quite likely that you will suffer large swings in your chip stack during a tournament. Nobody knows this more than The Queen of Poker, Annette Obrestad.

Annette, like 738 others, paid £5,000 to take part in the EPT London Main Event creating a prize pool of £3,540,500. During Day 1 421 of those players lost all their chips and had to settle for a place on the rail whilst 318 players returned for Day 2, all with a legitimate chance of taking the title and the £850,000 first prize.

Early into proceedings, Annette busted last year's runner-up, Michael Tureniec when her Ace-Ten was very fortunate against her opponent's pair of Jacks on a board that read Jx9x8xX7 to make a straight. Every tournament player needs a bit of luck now and again!

One player out of luck was the WSOPE Main Event Champion Barry Shulman. After losing a massive portion of his stack moving all in with pocket sixes on a Qh3c2h only to run into a pair of Aces, which held, Shulman once again found himself all in, this time with 5d6d on a 7d2c8c flop. His opponent, James Tomlin made the call with AcQc, spiked a queen on the turn and flushed on the river. Shulman quickly left the table, not even waiting to shake Tomlin's hand.

Meanwhile, Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliot was having some fun at his table. Having moved all-in preflop he told his solitary opponent, "I have the best hand, otherwise you'd already be in there. Just try and do something before the blinds go up to 4,000/8,000." The Fish then asked if his opponent had a pair, "Yes" was the reply. "Oh then, don't call" said Ulliot, slanting his sunglasses across his face telling the table this was his impression of Van Gogh at the beach. After more dwelling his opponent folded and showed Jacks whilst Ulliot turned over pocket tens. "I'm glad you folded" said Ulliot, "Now I might win the tournament!" Unfortunately he busted not long after, though at least he still has his own hair!

Annette's chip stack was rising and falling like there was no tomorrow and she managed to double up to over 200,000 when she flopped the nut flush against an opponent who bluffed his stack off on the river. He limped in middle position and Annette checked her Big Blind with Qh7h. The flop was a beautiful AhKhJh and she check-called a bet and again on the turn. She had an easy decision to call on the river and her opponent showed 7d6d for an audacious bluff!

The chips she won in this hand were quickly lost to Andrew Chen when she called his all-in bet preflop with AsJd to find she was in a coinflip against a pair of eights. The flop came 4cKd2d but the turn was an ugly eight of diamonds, the river was 2s, locking up the hand for Chen.

Always a fighter, Annette then doubled up herself to go past the 160,000 mark when she shoved over the top of Michael 'Beppe' Greco's late position raise. Greco called with AcJs only to find he was dominated by Annette's AhQh. No help from the board for either player and Annette's queen kicker claimed the pot.

As action drew to a close Annette amazingly doubled up again when she re-raised an early position raiser wth AhKh. The initial raiser then set her all-in and she made the call. Her hand was well in front of the KdQs of her opponent, even more so when it was announced two other players had a Queen in their hand. The JdAcJh gave him an extra couple of outs but an 8c turn and 4s river saw him eliminated and Anntte soar past the 300,000 mark.

Play resumes at 1200 UK Time where 111 players will return to the felt with seven of them going home empty handed as only 104 places are being paid. Annette 'Annette_15" Obrestad will sit down with 312,000 chips, with the average stack being 190,000. Stay tuned to see if Annette can add an EPT title to her already impressive resume.