If you followed the progress of the EPT London last month you might remember the heroic adventure of Cypriot Phidias Georgiou, the civil engineer and PokerStars qualifier who narrowly missed out on a final table finish at The Vic.

Phidias Georgiou

Phidias is a rugged looking man who has swapped his open shirt and stubble of London for a superman shirt. A more relaxed approach perhaps. Or maybe not...

“I’m telling you, I’m going back to civil engineering! This is too stressful! Back to bridges, back to bridges...”

He’s out of his chair but it’s clear from the size and colour of his stack that it’s not all tension and misery. He’s up to 35k with an average close to 18k.

“I was playing the best poker of my life in London” he says, hoping to pick up where he left off. We’ll wait and see.”

The confidence is there. It may just be a matter of cards.

***

There’s little doubt among railbirds that the make-or-break table in these early stages is table three, a vicious looking scrap that features Rob Hollink, Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand Grospellier, Andy Black, PokerStars Qualifier Thierry van den Berg and Marcel Baran.

It’s difficult to tell which player the crowds are craning their neck to see but Andy Black does have a knack of grabbing the attention, which he does here by ordering a bag of food, brought to him by a friend. It features among other things sliced cheese and roughly half of the fruit sold in a small supermarket. But if anyone knows the importance of a healthy body and mind it’s Black, and it’s showing -his stack looks good.

As Black tucks in Thierry van den Berg gets a massage. A tense table requires some intense relaxation and van den Berg is locked in.

After a few levels the shape of things hasn’t changed much. The only differences are that Rob Hollink has gone and ElkY’s stack has lost some of its distinguishing features. Gone of the brown chips (5k) and most of the blue ones (1k). All that’s left is a rag-tag handful of reds and greens.




But it’s how you use it that counts.

First he moved all-in with A-3, doubling up when an ace hit the turn. The only analogy to describe the cameras and railbirds around the table is the vulture one, closing in on the wounded supernova elite. I suppose that included me. His double up did help but it was not long before he was looking for a hand to move in with.

Just minutes before the dinner break he found it, pushing for 2,800. Thierry van den Berg, himself flying the flag for PokerStars as a qualifier, made the call with K-Q. ElkY was ahead with A-J which stood the test of flop turn and river. ElkY doubles up again and as the bell goes he faces a dinner break much easier to digest.