This week, the good folks at Grosvenor and Blue Square treated us to a fessietastic week of fun culminating in the hotly anticipated £1,000 No Limit Hold’Em Main Event. And where better to host that fun-filled week of poker madness than down saaaaaarth in Luton? But fear not, this isn’t the dark, dank Luton that you may have remembered from yesteryear, but the brand spanking new G Casino, a branch of Grosvenors that seem to be spreading across the nation faster than a cheetah on speed.
Players keen to grab a taste of the hot poker action in the new and improved facilities included Dave Colclough, Ram Vaswani, Garry Bush, Lucy Rokach, Keith Hawkins, Surinder Sunar, Simon Trumper and the Tour's latest victor Mazhar Nawab. Oh, and there were some big names there too (cough), James ‘Royal Flush’ Dempsey arriving in a crème suit that would make Jonathan Ross embarrassed to be caught out with him.
What was possibly the most eye catching aspect of this leg was the influx of foreign infestation that swamped the vicinity, Rolf Slotboom, Torstein Iversen and Cristiano Blanco all crossing seas to fly the European flag. One of those non-Brits who faired particularly well, was Jan Magnus Brevik, a young, emotional Blue Square qualifier who performed wonders to reach a final table line-up that looked as such:
Seat 1: Dave Clark -- 378,000
Seat 2: Ian Herbert -- 427,000
Seat 3: Jan Magnus Brevik -- 195,000
Seat 4: Tony Ringe -- 385,000
Seat 5: Alan Vinson -- 595,000
Seat 6: Adam Stoneham -- 351,000
Seat 7: Ben Turnstill -- 167,000
Seat 8: Jonathan Butters -- 97,000
Seat 9: Warren Wooldridge -- 559,000
It took a 14 hour pokathon to lose 7 of these players, but lose them we did, blondeite Ben ‘Rookie’ Turnstill being the first to drop when his J-Ts ran into the Pocket Queens of then chip leader Dave Clark.Not too far down the line, a key hand occurred, Adam Stoneham seeing his coin drop the wrong side, the Pocket Ladies of Jan Magnus enough to see off the youngster’s Big Slick. It was a big hand that gave Jan a stack for the first time, but to no avail as he’d later finish 5th for a highly respectable, but somewhat disappointing £18,850.
The man to take the final pre-heads-up spot would be Jon Butters, who, equipped with his new ‘Toast’ moniker, performed marvellously to earn himself 3rd place and £34,550 when his Jacks failed to fend off Dave Clark’s K-Q.
And with that, Dave Clark stomped to victory by triumphing in a long fought out heads-up battle against WSOP hero Warren Wooldridge, the Poker Verdicterer's untimely Q-5 shove on a K-J-4 being picked off by Dave Clark’s J-9. Two Eights on the Turn and River and it was all over, Dave Clark left to celebrate with his 4 fellow pop stars and wallow in his £97,300 victory as the GUKPT's latest winner.