Although the camera never lies, it also doesn't always tell the whole story. And although you will want to head an excessively great distance to search out a more professional, more extensive and more excellent live European poker webcast than our EPT Live (and that i think, in fact, you'll never find one) there are a few things that even it doesn't see.
Not goodbye ago, a hand brewed at the secondary feature table that Joe Stapleton, at the EPT Live commentary, described pretty accurately as "weird". But there have been a few elements to it that either made it more weird or, weirdly, explained it somewhat. I'm genuinely unsure which.
It began when Ji Zhang, who had recently taken over the chip lead, opened to 275,000 from under the gun. He had a stack of greater than 8 million and was cruising. On this hand, the action folded around to Bram Haenraets within the small blind and last night's dominant chip leader three bet to 500,000. After a brief while, Ji decided to call.
This bit was all pretty standard, however the weirdness kicked off with a faucet at the table from Haenraets. He did this before the dealer fanned the flop. It was the lesser-seen-these-days sign in the dark.
The wisdom or otherwise of this move has long been debated and its relative scarcity in top level competition probably speaks volumes for the way well regarded it has become. However, I certainly appear to remember seeing Marcel Luske sign in the dark more frequently than most players, and one suspects Haenraets, who's from the Netherlands, will likely have seen Luske achieve this too.
The flop came 7♥T♣T♥ and with Haenraets' check now binding, the action moved to Ji. The German player took a short time to weigh up his options, before checking right back.
The Q♦ came at the turn and both players checked again. The J♦ at the river seemed sure to change the passive line, however. This kind of guys (even perhaps both) could easily have ace-king of their range. If so, they might both have rivered a straight.
Haenraets, first to behave again, cut out a raffle of 550,000 -- and all six other players on the table will likely have noticed his hand shaking as he felt for the chips. It was, given the pre-flop three bet, the check-in-the-dark and the second one check at the turn, plus this quivering hand, pretty likely now that he had the ace king. No less than that's the way it appeared.
At this point, the EPT Live cameras, which had swept over the table to hide the pot brewing, needed to return to the feature table as a player there had moved all in and was called. That is where they missed another important aspect of this hand.
Ji, within the seat immediately to the dealer's left, asked the dealer what number of chips were in Haenraets' stack. The dealer interpreted the question within the only way he was permitted and asked Haenraets if he can make his stacks visible at the felt. Haenraets actually already had all his highest value chips on the front of his small pile, but obligingly hoicked out a few towers of blues hidden behind his golds and blacks. He was playing about 3m.
Ji pondered his decision some more, then asked the dealer again how much was in Haenraets' stack. "About two point five million?" Ji said, phrasing it clearly as a question.
The dealer seemed somewhat perplexed, but patiently told Ji that his duties didn't allow him to truly count another player's stack in the course of a hand. Ji nodded his head, and went back to his decision-making. "I BELIEVE you don't have anything or nuts," Ji said. "With nothing, if I raise you can fold."
The thing that was now abundantly clear to anybody watching this go down at close quarters -- but which can not have made the transition to webcast land -- was that these two players were pretty new to the business end of multi-million euro poker tournaments.
This is a part of the wonderful thing about the ecu Poker Tour. Although these tournaments invariably attract the easiest players within the world, and they're orchestrated, administrated and broadcast to the very highest standards, it's always the case that the players eyeing the largest prizes aren't superstars. They are often rookies playing the games in their lives, recreational players on a super beano.
There have been a few moments earlier in today's play that had also belied Ji's greenness. He had twice found aces when other players had moved all in. Dwelling over ones decision on this particular circumstance is regarded as to be some of the worst crimes in poker, but both times Ji had not immediately called and showed his hand.
There was simmering animosity on the table for the obvious repeated "slow-rolls", but Ji told German reporters that he has seen aces cracked again and again before. Within the first instance, he was facing a choice for his tournament life and desired to make sure about committing all of his chips. (IT IS NOT really excusable, but there are mitigating circumstances.)
Anyway, back to the hand in question and as Ji thought on, Pawel Brzeski, one seat to Ji's left, asked for the clock. It's in every player's right to request a clock if an opponent has taken an unnecessary length of time to make a decision, but on this instance the tournament floor person ruled that Ji could think on a short while longer before she would count down one minute.
Ji, unperturbed, eventually opted for the choice that suggested he wasn't quite sure in regards to the situation. He called.
As it happened, this was a brilliantly shrewd play. Haenraets tabled 7♣7♠ for a flopped full house, and Ji couldn't help but reveal his A♠K♣. We'll never really understand how he got clear of that one, but you'll only admire some pretty special opponent-reading skills. He won't have the entire experience, but he had looked as if it would smell a rat throughout.
As for Haenraets, back to Stapleton. "IN THE EVENT YOU could make a habit of that [checking at nighttime and flopping a boat], then you definately should play poker for the remainder of your life," he said.
Follow all of the action from the tournament floor at the main EPT Barcelona page. There's hand-by-hand coverage within the panel on the top, including chip counts, and have pieces below. Follow the action from the High Roller at the High Roller page. There's also EPT Live, that's streaming action from Day 5 of the principle Event.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: European Poker Tour]
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