| Game Type: | Limit |
After a series of Festivals in which the big names failed to score, Coral Eurobet's Mike Magee restored some order to the hierarchy when he took down a stunning £13,500 in the Main Event. It had been a marathon performance by all the finalists - it took no less than 19 hours over 2 days, including breaks, before we got a winner. AaronVirchis collected £11,700 for 2nd, & the Pete Kwan earned plenty of cheers for his plucky performance in netting £8,500 for third spot.
A capacity field of 90 runners had sat down on Saturday evening, & by 0300 on Sunday, when the last hand of day one was dealt, there were still 30 players in contention, all of whom returned on Sunday afternoon with the guarantee of at least some money. Charlie Kleanthous, in what was his seventh Festival Final at Luton over the last 4 years, picked up £4,000 for fifth, while Ronnie Debeaulox (Racing Ronnie) made yet another Final to add to his recent haul, netting £2,900 for fifth.
The last UK Festival of 2004 began with the £150 entry 7 Card Stud, an increasingly specialist game these days - not too many internet hotties in THAT one - and it is good to see Grosvenor Luton continue to support this form of our game. Winner Steve Templeman (£7,370) holds a Grand Slam in Poker - he has secured Festival victories in Stud, Hold 'Em, & Omaha, & has in fact won a Festival Final at Luton for the last 5 years in succession - some record, can anyone beat that? R Lynch took home £3,690 for 2nd, with Richard Ashby in 3rd (£2,310). Veteran Alan McLean was 7th, & local hero Paul Alterman took £460 for 9th.
The 81 runner £150 PLHE on Tuesday, like all the Hold 'Em events at this Festival, was a 2 day affair, & A Adda ran out the comfortable winner (£11,520), with runner up S Bovis (£5,750) easing home ahead of J Vaccerela (£3,600). Max Hussain & M Javid, two Sheffield lads who having been hitting plenty of Finals, finished 4th & 6th, while Dennis O' Mahoney pinched the 9th spot & £720.
We saw a statistical rarity in Wednesday's 73 runner £200 NLHE when A Adda won for the second day running - not something you see too often at Festivals. Second went to Richard Sadler (£6,500), with Kevin Twigg 3rd for £5,500. Dave "riverdave" Penly continued his hot streak, with £1,360 for sixth, & the ebullient Graham Pound was bubble boy with £250 for tenth.
The £200 PLHE on Thursday saw a disappointing 52 runner line up, but maybe we saw a star in the making when young Martin Farragher (from Limerick, but now London based) positively ran over the final table, amassing no less than 70% of the chips whilst there were still 6 runners left! Big Micky Jones from Derby continued his sequence of big Finals with £5,000 for 2nd, & seasoned pro Sonny Osman picked up £3,120 for third. Graham Pound had begun the Final as chip leader, but the wheels came off when his pocket 7's ran into Martin's AA on a 5 high board, and it's hard to get away from 77 in those circumstances, he exited in 8th spot for £750.
Friday was the first Freeze out of the week (£300), &, tellingly, it had been sold out for days in advance. Stuart Fox was the actual winner, adding to the near £35,000 he had collected in the Walsall Festival a fortnight earlier. On a roll! Stuart, along with Danny Jordan, the old stager Dave Gardiner, David Lloyd & C Williams chopped the money for top 5 but played for the victory.
Sunday's Finale, the £50 PLHE, saw only 30 runners, but World Team Poker legend Willie Tann made short work of picking up £1,390.
Both the Freeze outs were completely sold out, but entries for the rest of the week were below capacity, perhaps the knowledge of a spend limit in Freeze outs is the answer. Over the week, we saw an aggregate total of 468 entries playing for a total prize pool of £191,000 - so the Poker economy is not doing too bad!
And a word about the Staff & Management at Luton. Customer Friendly, efficient, cheerful, they got it spot on, & it would be remiss if they were not congratulated upon their efforts. They had begun the week by making the decision to "extend" the clock every day to 45 minutes instead of 30. This was the best decision they could have made, was appreciated by almost everyone, & they even reduced the blinds in the Final where appropriate to ensure plenty of real play. It's pretty tough to please all of the folks all of the time, but they made a pretty good effort. Roll on the Grand Challenge in January.
A capacity field of 90 runners had sat down on Saturday evening, & by 0300 on Sunday, when the last hand of day one was dealt, there were still 30 players in contention, all of whom returned on Sunday afternoon with the guarantee of at least some money. Charlie Kleanthous, in what was his seventh Festival Final at Luton over the last 4 years, picked up £4,000 for fifth, while Ronnie Debeaulox (Racing Ronnie) made yet another Final to add to his recent haul, netting £2,900 for fifth.
The last UK Festival of 2004 began with the £150 entry 7 Card Stud, an increasingly specialist game these days - not too many internet hotties in THAT one - and it is good to see Grosvenor Luton continue to support this form of our game. Winner Steve Templeman (£7,370) holds a Grand Slam in Poker - he has secured Festival victories in Stud, Hold 'Em, & Omaha, & has in fact won a Festival Final at Luton for the last 5 years in succession - some record, can anyone beat that? R Lynch took home £3,690 for 2nd, with Richard Ashby in 3rd (£2,310). Veteran Alan McLean was 7th, & local hero Paul Alterman took £460 for 9th.
The 81 runner £150 PLHE on Tuesday, like all the Hold 'Em events at this Festival, was a 2 day affair, & A Adda ran out the comfortable winner (£11,520), with runner up S Bovis (£5,750) easing home ahead of J Vaccerela (£3,600). Max Hussain & M Javid, two Sheffield lads who having been hitting plenty of Finals, finished 4th & 6th, while Dennis O' Mahoney pinched the 9th spot & £720.
We saw a statistical rarity in Wednesday's 73 runner £200 NLHE when A Adda won for the second day running - not something you see too often at Festivals. Second went to Richard Sadler (£6,500), with Kevin Twigg 3rd for £5,500. Dave "riverdave" Penly continued his hot streak, with £1,360 for sixth, & the ebullient Graham Pound was bubble boy with £250 for tenth.
The £200 PLHE on Thursday saw a disappointing 52 runner line up, but maybe we saw a star in the making when young Martin Farragher (from Limerick, but now London based) positively ran over the final table, amassing no less than 70% of the chips whilst there were still 6 runners left! Big Micky Jones from Derby continued his sequence of big Finals with £5,000 for 2nd, & seasoned pro Sonny Osman picked up £3,120 for third. Graham Pound had begun the Final as chip leader, but the wheels came off when his pocket 7's ran into Martin's AA on a 5 high board, and it's hard to get away from 77 in those circumstances, he exited in 8th spot for £750.
Friday was the first Freeze out of the week (£300), &, tellingly, it had been sold out for days in advance. Stuart Fox was the actual winner, adding to the near £35,000 he had collected in the Walsall Festival a fortnight earlier. On a roll! Stuart, along with Danny Jordan, the old stager Dave Gardiner, David Lloyd & C Williams chopped the money for top 5 but played for the victory.
Sunday's Finale, the £50 PLHE, saw only 30 runners, but World Team Poker legend Willie Tann made short work of picking up £1,390.
Both the Freeze outs were completely sold out, but entries for the rest of the week were below capacity, perhaps the knowledge of a spend limit in Freeze outs is the answer. Over the week, we saw an aggregate total of 468 entries playing for a total prize pool of £191,000 - so the Poker economy is not doing too bad!
And a word about the Staff & Management at Luton. Customer Friendly, efficient, cheerful, they got it spot on, & it would be remiss if they were not congratulated upon their efforts. They had begun the week by making the decision to "extend" the clock every day to 45 minutes instead of 30. This was the best decision they could have made, was appreciated by almost everyone, & they even reduced the blinds in the Final where appropriate to ensure plenty of real play. It's pretty tough to please all of the folks all of the time, but they made a pretty good effort. Roll on the Grand Challenge in January.