One of the highlights of my trip to Vegas was meeting Argyris Argyrou who certainly lived up to his name "Crazy Cypriot" at the Pocketfives Party. This guy is a pleasure to be around any time and always has a big smile on his face, with or without a tasty beverage in hand. That's why I was especially pleased to see him go very deep in the Stars WCOOP Event #2 the $500 NLHE. <READMORE>With twenty left he, CardXfactor, and Micon were all still in and the Pocketfives community was rooting them on in force, despite the late (early?) hour. Crazy Cypriot playing as "polpolpol" was the only one to make the final table, but he made the most of it once there.I watched a good bit of the final table and for the most part Crazy Cypriot just sat back and picked his spots. Even so he somehow managed to accumulate chips nicely, hanging around at second or third in chips most of the way. He lost two big races near the end his 77 vs J10s when they were five handed, but he battled back from that until his AK couldn't outrace the chip leader's 1010, putting him out in third. As usual Lee Jones had a witty remark, which was aimed at Argyris’ Stars avatar of the Wiley Coyote and his calling for an AKAKAKAKAKKA to come on board-
“Lee Jones [PokerRoom Manager]: Pol - you will have to purchase the "Acme ace-king generation unit." They do ship to the American Southwest, I'm told. Well done on your $119K win!”
Lighthearted as always, Crazy Cypriot thought the parting words were very funny and he had this to say about the eventual winner, Rambo5, “Rambo played an excellent game and had position on me for 6 hours..." which I am sure was a tough spot given that he was the chip leader for most of the latter part of the tourney.
Argyris was good enough to spare a moment of his time after his poker marathon and I caught him on IM where his name was displayed as “3rddd! 120 000$ En kales gia ton pono alla thelo Braceletttt”, which I could mostly puzzle out, but wasn’t sure exactly what it meant, so I asked,
Lenny: What does ‘En Kales gia ton pono alla thelo’ mean? It’s all Greek to me ; )
Crazy Cypriot: Haha, it says, 120,000 dollars are good for the pain, but I want a bracelet!!
Lenny: I know it must be bittersweet coming so close and coming up a little short. Do you have any regrets shoving the AK, especially given that they were ready to talk deal just then?
Crazy Cypriot: I would never fold AK in such a spot, and saying yes to the deal was partly to encourage him to push! I wouldn’t accept a deal unless it was very good for me.
Lenny: I noticed you weren't really playing a ton of hands, but the pots you did take down were generally pretty big, not just the blinds. Was that part of your strategy or were you just playing tight?
Crazy Cypriot: I talk to BeL0WaB0Ve all the time, and he and I have very similar styles in these tourneys. I had to adjust, everyone was stealing and everyone becomes aware of the stealer so the open raise steal becomes ineffective. So the re-steal becomes the new steal. I didn’t make a lot of raises, but I maid up for it with re-steals!
Lenny: You played really well, it was fun to watch!
Crazy Cypriot: Thank you very much, a lot of races went my way and that was new to me! It was nice to run good late in a major for once.
Lenny: Well, a little luck never hurt anyone, but I am sure that wasn’t all that got you there. So what’s up for you next, time to crash?
Crazy Cypriot: Actually, I have to go into work for a bit, then to my parent’s house to eat and sleep for a bit. Then in five hours I have to be at a wedding!
Lenny: You are going in to work? What do you do other than poker?
Crazy Cypriot: I am a manager at a recycling firm, it is sort of family owned. Recycling is so new in Cyprus that it is expanding very rapidly!
Lenny: Well congratulations on the win, and I won’t keep you as it sound like you have a busy day, any last thoughts?
Crazy Cypriot: Thank you to Pocketfives for all the support, oh and most importantly I want a bracelet and I will win one soon!
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