Grand Prix final

Thankful that World Series Of Poker organisers were kind enough to avoid the clash and schedule their tournaments for earlier in the year, 54 players rocked up for one of the biggest nights on the global poker calendar, the live final of the Betfair Grand Prix.

The venue was the Big Slick club in Croydon, and a cracking venue it was. Excellent dealers, first class tournament direction and warm hospitality meant the competition crackled with expectation from start to finish. Our good mates Betfair’s provision a free bar didn’t harm things either.

The magnificent PokerPlayer seven were there in full force, looking forward to continuing battle the cream of the freeroll players from over the last six months.

‘HillyFish’ was the sole absentee, but he was ably replaced by ‘mrsambuca’ who swam off the bench to take part.

The PokerPlayer posse were marked men (and woman), sporting branded polo shirts to signify bounty opportunities. Although by the end of the night everyone seemed to wearing the same shirts. The juicy bounty on offer for knocking out a PokerPlayer was a much sought after Betfair chipset.

Ten freerolls provided ten elite winners plus 37 qualifiers from the leaderboard. A total of 54 gunfighters sat down to play for an impressive prize pool, and the potential first prize of a package to the Betfair Asian Poker Tour, set to be played in Singapore next month.

The table draw meant three PokerPlayers, ‘darklord5’, ‘Shafty78’ and ‘Dicey’ were sat on the same table, at the back, in the corner, called Flamingo. And so the Flamingo table was the stage for some dour poker early on.

Play was incredibly tight during the opening stages chez Flamingo with probably only three flops in the first hour. The pre-flop raise was the unilateral weapon, and a powerful weapon at 200 chips, after ‘Dicey’s’ opening 200 chip feeler on the first hand.

The player with the honour of being the first departure from the tournament was ‘djohnson’ – part of a husband and wife team with ‘Roscopiko’. It was the second hand she played, holding Kings against 9-9. The flop provided another 9 and the Cowboys were cracked.

‘djohnson’ was philosophical about her exit, after the 300 mile journey from Newcastle equated to 150 miles per hand. “I don’t mind really, I said on the train down I’d probably go out with Kings or Aces”, she commented. All was not lost however, as she was last spotted clearing up in the side games.

Last year’s winner ‘K-Unknown’ aka magazine editor Dave Woods was the first PokerPlayer to go, just after the first break with blinds at 200/400, when most players were short stacked. He made his stand with a pair of Fives but his adversary had Kings and that was that. Having boasted his destiny was to be mentioned in the same breath as Chan, Ungar etc in retaining his title, the wheels fell off proper.

‘darklord5’ managed to pick on the wrong player, ‘scarface9’ winner of the final Freeroll, for his move. After trading raises and folds, ‘darklord5’ sensed a weakness and pushed with K-9 of hearts, only to run into Aces. Adios PokerPlayer amigo.

‘Dudek’ followed shortly after with his A-Q losing to K-K, and it was down to ‘Tallulah’ ‘Shafty78’, ‘Dicey’ to push on. But it was shortlived as they all fell in succession, ‘Dicey’ in particluar happy with his form after being knocked out by the eventual winner ‘Colch-Kev’s’ flush.

Rookie member of the PokerPlayer posse, ‘mrsambuca’, deputising for ‘HillyFish’, was still in however, mirroring Hilly’s WSOP heroics, but going further. He made the final table with a healthy mix of suck-outs and over-the-top celebrations, finally standing up from the final table to the tune of $800, all of which will be donated to Macmillan Cancer Support. Top work.

As the final table developed, expectation ran high and cut and thrust led onto a heads-up battle between ‘Colch-Kev’ and ‘nowareman’, winner of Freeroll 5. ‘Colch-Kev’ was severely short stacked at one point, but battled back tenaciously to ask all the right questions of his opponent.

With the blinds ratcheting to a steep 2,000/4,000, and clock ticking well past 2am, ‘Colch-Kev’ moved all in with 3-4 of spades against ‘nowareman’s’ 3h-9c. A third spade dropped on the turn for ‘Colch-Kev’s’ flush and it was trophy time.

Big congrats to ‘Colch-Kev’ who was understandably emotional after his win. “I was just thinking, put a spade down, this is the biggest hand of my life. I’ve never won anything this big before, I’m so happy”, he gushed.

Superb sentiments from a fine player who will jet off to the mysterious Orient for his prize. We will of course be bringing you reports direct from Singapore, and look out for the next Grand Prix, which isnt too far, far away.