A funny thing happened on the way to Edinburgh...
When the PokerStars Blog last caught up with Mickey Petersen in London, he'd hit a lucky break. In the process of packing up his belongings for an impending relocation from London to Edinburgh he found a $5,000 chip from The Rio Casino in Las Vegas. However, life has a funny way sometimes and whilst Petersen's belongings - minus the chip, more on that later - might still be in Rupert Elder's apartment in Edinburgh, he has moved back to London.
""Funny story," starts Petersen with a grin. "So I moved all my stuff up to Edinburgh, to Rupert Elder's, apartment after EPT London. Then I went there and it was a bad time to find an apartment and I wanted to find a nice one so I took my time. Then whilst that was happening I met a girl in London and things got pretty serious and actually just today we found a place to live. So, I'm moving back to London, although all my things are in Edinburgh so I've kinda been homeless for the last three months. No more chips have turned up though!"
But, that's perhaps not a bad thing. "That $5K chip was apparently pretty hard to cash in. I gave it to someone who went to rail Martin (Jacobson - in the WSOP Main Event). And he told me it was harder than you'd imagine to cash in that chip but he managed to do it."
Petersen, who cashed in both EPT London and EPT Prague is happy to be back home and playing another tour in which he's had a decent amount of success. "It's always nice when you go to these live tournaments and have a deep run. I actually busted on Day 3 of the PCA shortly before the money but even though I've won an EPT I'd only cashed in three others (prior to London and Prague) and I've played a substantial amount of them."
It's a different story on the UKIPT. "I've done pretty well in UKIPT events both in the main event and in the high rollers. Whilst I've not had any huge cashes my in the money percentage is a lot higher than in EPT events. I've had a couple of thirds and a fourth in high rollers and a couple of deep runs in main events."
And that brings us to today and the first event of UKIPT Season 5."It's quite nice to play an event of this buy-in with a smaller field size, also the structure in this event is significantly better than most of the UKIPT High Rollers I've played. Almost all of them have been one day tournaments, this one is so big that it's a two day tournament."
The smaller field size in events like these has a knock on effect on the atmosphere according to Petersen. "As it often is with high rollers they're a lot more relaxed than the Main Events. There's more short -handed play (the High Roller is eight max) and you get more play in earlier. It's crazy how big of a difference playing eight handed instead of ten handed pre-antes makes in terms of how much I enjoy a tournament."
But ever the professional Petersen's approach is the same. "I approach a 45 runner tournament the same way I'd approach a 450 runner tournament and just focus on making the right decisions. In this tournament there's a re-entry so you do see a bit looser play."
Whilst not a New Year's resolution, the Dane is planing to cut down on his live poker trips during 2015. "Part of the reason for less live tournaments is the woman in my life but it also to do with the fact that I really miss playing online. I enjoy it more. I just really want to play a lot more online."
If you haven't heard the UKIPT Main Event structure has had a bit of a overhaul. "What I've seen is mostly feedback on the forums and that's largely going to be players who aren't going to be happy with the changes," says Petersen. "The UKIPT is the buy-in level where I'm actually happy that I'm likely to bust Day 1 more often. I know that sounds silly but I want a smaller percentage of the field to make Day 2. I haven't actually looked that closely at the structure but that's my impression of how it's going to be. So for me specifically I like that, but at the same time if they changed the EPT Main Event - which is the bigger buy-in I play - in the same way then I'd be against it. So, I can understand for those for whom the UKIPT is the biggest events they play, why they want the better structure."
But as the break ends Petersen's focus turns back to the tournament in hand. "It's going pretty poorly I've got about 16,500 from a starting stack of 20,000 but at least I'm only in for one bullet! I've got a friend of mine - Oliver Price - at the table and a German guy but other than that it seems like a pretty good table."
PokerStars Blog reporting team at UKIPT5 London: Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May (welcome back Mickey!).