With most of the focus this weekend on the Dublin EPT in Ireland, not too many were expected to make the trip down South, especially considering the low attendance at Grosvenor Southampton's last festival Main Event. However, we were quite clearly wrong because, even with the likes of Alli Mallu, Marc Goodwin, Jim Reid and Willie Tann pre-occupied with the Scandies and the rest of Europe, a quite credible 67 players prepared for battle, their glare firmly fixed on that £13,600 first prize.And although that 67 strong field was predominantly made up of local players attracted by the more affordable £500 entry fee, there were a few familiar faces in Steve Bovis, Ryan Fronda, previous champion Joe Grech, and former Eastender, Michael Greco, who confirmed his addiction to the wonderful game by playing both the Dublin and Southampton gigs.
And we were blessed with a splatter of blondeites too! TightEnd, Chili, tikay and Irish Dennis were all flying the blonde flag, but unfortunately, with the exception of TightEnd who finaled for £1,700, dropped the flag at relatively early stages.
Top honours, though, went to the wonderfully named Hoss Parhizkar, a local player who became Southern Masters Champion when his flopped flush (8h-5h) held up against Scott Baker’s 2nd pair (Q-2) on an A-Q-4 (3 hearts) Flop. No deals and Hoss was over 13k richer, a deserved win for the overnight chip-leader.
Not too far behind was Jeff Rogers, who became the Welsh Masters champion in Swansea several weeks ago. Jeff won £3,400 for his 3rd place finish when his A-8s ran into the Queens of Hoss.Other names that finalled included Grosvenor Grand Prix finalist, Tony Adderley, Richard ‘TightEnd’ Prew, Fredirick O’Brien, Harish Chandarana and Vu Nguyen who came in 4th to 9th respectively.
But the day belonged to Hoss, not a name familiar within the poker world, but perhaps one to look out for as the poker year draws to a close. Well done to Hoss and all the players who cashed.