“It depends how I’ve done online. If I’ve had a good couple of months then I’ll take a shot,” Dan ‘”judgedredd13″ Charlton tells the PokerStars Blog on the first break in play on Day 1A of the EPT11 Deauville Main Event.
Doing well is a little bit of modesty on Charlton’s part. The Macclesfield lad got the year off to a flying start on January 6th. When everyone else was busy taking Christmas decorations down, he got a huge present as he took down the biggest weekly tournament on PokerStars – The Super Tuesday – for the second time in his career.
After a three-way deal the win was worth $92,628.86, although Charlton is honest enough to admit he didn’t get to see all of that. “I’m definitely not rolled to play the Super Tuesday,” he says. “I’ve started playing in most weeks now, because I’ve started getting into selling. I’m basically selling about half my action in it. I’ll be honest I usually just spam it on my Facebook.”
We’ve seen some lengthy deal negotiations at EPT final tables, involving both players and backers, so when the talk gets ‘deal’ online, as it did in the Super Tuesday, is Charlton duty bound to contact those who have a piece?
“When I sell pieces to people they’re buying into my decisions period,” he says. “I’ll always do what I think right, a lot of the time I’ll have 20-30 investors so it’d impractical to contact them all to ask about a deal.”
The move of the Super Tuesday to an earlier start time of 7pm has suited Charlton and despite the high buy-in he says it’s not the super tough tournament that most make it out to be. “There’s a lot of satellite players in there and a lot of people like to play it,” he says. “It’s a really fun tournament to play though as its deep stacked. Also, everyone likes to play a bit higher now and then. I look forward to it every week.”
There’s a lot of hidden luck in poker tournaments, one of which is which seat you get at the final table.
“I got pretty really lucky with the seat draw at the final table,” Charlton says. “I had position on “ISILDRooN” (Leo Nordin) who’s really good and the two guys who had me covered were both satellite qualifiers who hadn’t had any big scores and were both trying to ladder.”
It’s one thing knowing that and another taking advantage of it but Charlton wasn’t going to be found wanting in that respect. “I was in a great position to steal a lot of pots and all the stronger players – in my opinion – had 20-30 big blind stacks and had ICM to consider. So I had the dream seat.”
While Charlton had the dream seat in that situation, with typical self-effacing northern humour he paints everyday life as a little bleaker. “I’ve gone broke a bunch of times since the first time I won the Super Tuesday (six years ago). I used to live with other poker players but am back living with my parents. Back living the dream, absolutely ballin!”
It’s a refreshing change of pace from the usual depiction of a poker player’s lifestyle but Charlton doesn’t mind flying solo.
“I usually like to grind on my own to be honest,” he says. “They’d be times when we’d be playing in the same room and someone would start tilting and negative vibes would get thrown around a bit and I prefer being on my own.”
But he admits there are benefits to living with fellow poker players. “As a tournament grinder you’re always on a ridiculous body clock schedule and so if you live with other players there’s always people around,” he says. “Where I live now there aren’t really any other poker players – well there’s one but he’s more of a live grinder – so all my mates in Macclesfield have all got normal jobs so my day kind of starts as theirs ends. So if they want to go out drinking they all want to do Saturday nights and I’ve got to grind Sunday, so it’s just awkward. So on my days off I end doing almost nothing, just messing around on YouTube or something.”
While his dalliance in Deauville marks a rare EPT appearance for Charlton, he’s a familiar face at UK tournaments including the UKIPT.
“I’ve always found the UKIPTs to have a lot of good players and have a higher quality field than some of the other UK tours,” he says. “I think there’s a lot of online players who qualify to it on PokerStars…I had one run in Edinburgh (12th in Season 4) but apart from that it’s not happened for me on that tour.”
It’s going well so far on this tour. Just before the break he won a big pot against Daniel Lannermark. David Vamplew raised to 400 from the cut off, Charlton called on the button and Lannermark did likewise from the big blind. On the 8â™ 7♦ 9♣ flop it checked to Charlton, he bet 400 and only Lannermark called. The K♥ fell on the turn, Lannermark check-called a bet of 1,500 and the K♦ completed the board.
This is where Charlton takes up the story. “The guy had faced a few big bets on the river and folded. I thought he might be getting a little tilted so I decided to bet really big on the river. I felt this time he might pay it off.”
So Charlton bet 5,000 into the pot of 5,275 and Lannermark went into the tank, eventually emerging with a call. Charlton immediately rolled over J♣ 10♦ for the flopped straight and took the pot.
There’s a long way to go but after two levels it’s going well for Charlton who’ll be hoping a super Sunday can be a springboard to further success here in Deauville.
Back to Top
