‘Insane… a sick experience’ – Bobby James on career-best EPT Cyprus run

While he may not have taken the top prize in the EPT Cyprus Main Event, Bobby James’ deep run and fifth-place finish netted him a career-best $271,400 score. That wasn’t the only score James added to his resume in Cyprus, as, prior to the Main Event, he notched three cashes, with one coming in the form of an outright victory in Event #8: $1,100 8-Game. 

PokerOrg caught up with the Brit in the days following EPT Cyprus to hear about his Main Event finish and his new role at CoinPoker.

What was it like making a deep run at EPT Cyprus?

It was quite a painful final table for me; I was super card dead. Every four-bet I made got five-bet, and they just had a good hand every time. I checked the stream back: Oli Weis had jacks the first time I four-bet him and then ace-king the next time. So, it was kind of annoying, but, yeah, the whole experience is insane. The lights, the cameras, the TV table.

It’s a super well-run event, and all the Stars events are run really well. I can’t really complain about anything. Obviously, just lack of time on the final six, that’s probably about it.

Take us through your run, from Day 1 down to the final table. 

Well, the run started way before that. I won the 8-Game, the $1,000 8-Game. And then I played the $1,000 Eureka Main. I had six bullets in the Eureka main. The first five bullets, I never doubled up once. So, it wasn’t looking too great. I made Day 3 of that, busted in 19th out of 2800 players. And then I jumped in the Eureka High Roller and finished 12th in that as well. 

With the [EPT] Main Event itself, I was super hungover when I jumped in. I entered in Level 6, and my eyes were still hurting. I didn’t get in until late. It was the first time I drank on the whole trip and just wanted one night of release. And then I made Day 2 with like 120K, about average, but still around 70 big blinds, which is pretty good. 

I made Day 3 as the chip leader, I believe. I think I had 2.6 million for Day 4, but I went down to around 400K. I lost kings versus aces in a non-all-in pot where I think 90% of people would have just gone all-in. And then I lost flush over flush, which was painful. 

There were so many crazy hands along the way. I was put in for my tournament life several times and I had to make two crazy hero calls. Then there was the hand where I flopped top two against a worse two pair and the nut straight. It was an flop – I had , Santhosh [Suvarna] had , and the other guy had . The turn came the and the river was the to give me the nut flush. It was like a 1.7 million chip pot on Day 3. 

It sounds like a fun ride…

It was insane, just a sick experience. Whenever you go to play a tournament, you want to get as deep as you can, but I never imagined going that deep. I think what changed is that I feel as though I made mistakes in both the Eureka High Rollers, right at the business end – that really pissed me off. Then when I was playing in the Main Event, the structure is so good that you just don’t have to make stupid mistakes. I was so patient, even when I went down to 10 bigs.

Do you play more live or online? What plans do you have for future stops?

I haven’t played a lot of live poker. I think I had $80K in results before this on my Hendon Mob, and that’s from playing £200 tournaments in the UK. If you look at my more recent results, I played my first EPT in Barcelona and got second in the PLO High/Low. I’m not a complete mixed games guy, but I do enjoy them; I think they’re really good events. 

Now I just want to go to all the EPT stops and play the mixed games. At Prague they have a Big Bet Mix tournament on the schedule, a Deuce-to-Seven Single Draw, H.O.R.S.E., and 8-Game. They’ve actually got a 10-Game Main Event, which is going to be so sick. 

Other than that, I’m mostly playing NLHE MTTs on GGPoker or CoinPoker. My niche is small fields; I just seem to do really well in those. 

What can you tell us about your new role at CoinPoker?

Yeah, so I’m the Community Manager for CoinPoker. I’ve been working there for about three or four months now. I run the Discord, all of our social media channels, and a lot of the Twitch streaming. I normally stream twice a week, sometimes three times, mostly MTTs. We do challenges in the Discord channel; one was a heads-up cash game challenge where I staked people to play me and if they won, they got to keep the profits. 

We have a really cool community vibe going and I don’t think anyone else is really doing that. Where we’re at now, it’s just full steam ahead. We’ve got the right focus. We’re all about the players, trying to be a bit better and give more back. 

The bosses are amazing – John Scanlon, Alex Carr – they’re two top, top guys. And the way they treat employees and look after people is just unbelievable. I’ve never worked at a company where I felt so happy and so welcome. 

Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell/Manuel Kovsca/Rational Holdings Limited