October 2007 By Julian Thew

Julian Thew is a William Hill sponsored player with a knowledgeable and impressive grasp of the game. With a calm and approachable demeanour, he is highly valued on the UK scene from which he was the clear superstar for one month this year…

After a very flat five months which included yet another dour Vegas performance, the inklings of an upturn made an appearance in August. September got better still and by the time October rolled around I really felt I was in the groove.

I very nearly didn’t travel to Baden; although it’s a very pleasant spot, there really isn’t a great deal to do outside of the poker room and I figured the numbers would probably be down on the other more popular stops on the EPT tour.

Fortunately for me, my good friend Matt Tyler had qualified on PokerStars which meant I knew I’d have a good time, regardless of what happened at the tables.

With so many facets to the game of tournament poker, it is a constant comfort to me that you don’t need to master them all to be a competent player. Sure, there are bits I’m good at, but there are also one or two gaping holes. One reared it’s head on the second hand of the tournament when I failed to release pocket jacks to Barry Greenstein on a 4c,4,10,7c,Qc board, which meant I waved bye-bye to 40% of my stack.

The good news was that this starting table was to be the toughest I would encounter over the four days of play and, once I lucked out with Q-Q vs. K-K all-in pre, there was no looking back.

I finished a hard Day 1 on average chips and proceeded to run real good on days 2, 3 and 4. The biggest pot I won outside of the final table was a classic button vs. small blind confrontation. With about fifteen players remaining, Pascal Perrault had A-Qs on the button and was a little unlucky to find me in the SB with the rockets. We were both doing well, with above average stacks and of course it all went in pre-flop, no nasty surprises.
The final went pretty much to plan, I kept my nose clean until four handed, won the biggest pot of the tournament when I hit my flush vs. a set and from that point on I don’t think it was ever in doubt.

Playing confident poker, coupled with running well and of course with a few years decent experience under my belt (it was my 22nd attempt at an EPT), I finally managed to clinch a major European title.

I’m a great believer in the fact that you don’t need to be a world class player to beat a world class field; competent, with the ability to come over the top every once in a while is probably good enough. In my opinion, it’s all about sample size. I’m lucky (thanks to William Hill), in that I have a great big sample size - if you play enough tournaments, you’re gonna snag one eventually.

Check back tomorrow for the next Year In Review blog