Friday, 29th March 2024 12:58
Home / Uncategorized / EPT Barcelona: The life of Brandon
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If you’re going to sub-head a personal blog “The Life of [Insert Name Here]”, you had better make sure you’ve got a life worth blogging about, otherwise there will be issues. Thankfully Brandon Schaefer, of “The Life of Brandon” fame, has the kind of life others might write novels about — only Schaefer probably doesn’t have the time.

In case you’re new to PokerStars blog, let’s give a quick run through of how we know our man Schaefer. Back in the distant, murky years of season one of the EPT (when we looked like this, incidentally), Schaefer was one of the first PokerStars qualifier success stories, winning a satellite to EPT Deauville and taking down the whole shebang.

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Brandon Schaefer (pictured in Dortmund)

That was remarkable for two reasons. Firstly, he made the journey with his friend and room-mate Carl Olson, who also qualified on PokerStars and also made the final table. In fact, they were heads up at the end, with Schaefer taking those particular bragging rights. He also won the bonus added extra of a ticket to the EPT Grand Final (all EPT champions get this as part of their prize) and that’s the second remarkable detail of Schaefer’s triumph: he rode that free buy-in all the way to the final table in Monte Carlo, finishing second to Rob Hollink. That achievement remains the best performance by a returning champion at the season finale.

With this fairly solid base to work on, Schaefer set about living the kind of life most college kids from Seattle can only dream about. With friends and family dotted across the world, and an online poker game good enough to keep the bankroll happily ticking over, Schaefer set about turning up on more doorsteps than are in the average provincial town. Just off the top of my head, I can remember seeing Schaefer in at least seven different international locations, invariably beaming, often boozing, always living the life of Brandon, of which the proverbial Riley remains jealous.

All of this is detailed on that personal blog, including most recently the full intricacies of his trip from Washington state to Catalonia – with added pictures of his stretched-out legs on the plane to boot. There’s also details there of his itinerary for September and October. If you want to catch Schaefer, you should find your way to any of Barcelona, Florence, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Budapest, Frankfurt, London, Stuttgart, Munich (for Oktoberfest), Prague, Wiesbaden, Rhine river cruise, and then a road trip through Cologne, Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris, Luxembourg, and Kaiserslautern. You had better be quick.

Despite all this whistle-stopping, Schaefer clearly intends to hang around Casino Barcelona for a few days. Despite being on a table including David Williams, John Kabbaj, Michael Tulchinskiy and Alain Roy, Schaefer is dominating and is up to more than 80,000. Most recently, he took down a pot of close to 30,000 from Julio Pollan Martinez. Schaefer raised from the button to 1,600 and Martinez called in the big blind. The flop came A♥ 5♦ 7♦ and Schaefer called Martinez’s bet of 1,600. The turn was Jâ™  and Schaefer called Martinez’s 3,000 bet. The river was Q♥ and Martinez now check-called Schaefer’s 8,100 tickle.

Schaefer showed A♦ Q♠ and Martinez furiously mucked A♠ 5♣ , beaten by a better two pair on the river.

That’s the life of Brandon, folks.

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