Grosvenor Walsall had been drawing large numbers all week, and as the weekend drew closer, a lone Beagle’s knees began to quiver, but it wasn’t until Saturday evening that the reality kicked in… 137 players with a total of 13,000 (2 x 6,500) chips each – boy, this was going to be a marathon.Fortunately, and perhaps ultimately sparing me too late a night, the competition kicked off in relatively punctual time and, as I battled to find an agreeing signal, I watched on as those 137 poker warriors ventured into the field of play.
Amongst the rabble was many a recognisable face, most of which will have travelled only a few miles; Ashfag Ahmed, Don Jones, Des Jonas, Peter Evans and Essy Jahanpour to name just a few of those local boys.
And, as always, there were of course many participants flying the blonde flag with the likes of JP ‘Wonderkid’ Kelly, Tom ‘Red-Dog’ McCready, Stu ‘Easy Pickings’ Rutter, Julian ‘Yoyo’ Thew, Nick ‘quantify’ Slade, Pete ‘PeteL’ Linton and the old fella himself, tikay, proudly donning the forum colours.
Throw into the mix ‘name’ players such as Tim Flanders, Bambos Xanthos, Joe Grech and Mickey Wernick and you truly have a class field and one in which the victor would do impressively well to fend off, ultimately fully deserving of that £51,100 pot of gold awaiting at the end of the rainbow.
Still giggling from spotting D Vandyke (a typo, surely?) on the player list, the voice from above announced ‘Shuffle up and deal’ (although Dani sometimes translates this as ‘Shut up and deal!') and we were off.The field may have been 137 players strong and threatening a late night, but the 6,500 double chance structure was causing vast amounts of first level action with many players prepared to gamble early doors. As a result, we weren’t short of early casualties as Roberto Romanello (K-J vs. A-A), Ali Mallu (missed flush draw) and Mick Fletcher (ran into Nick Slade’s quad sixes) all fell at the first hurdle, not to mention Bambos, Brian Welby and Niamh Peters who soon joined them on the rail, the latter of the three fresh off a final table appearance in Blackpool.
Naturally, as players fell, others rose, and one of those men to prosper was Steve Jelinek. Although he gradually lost his momentum, Steve was the early chip leader, predominantly accruing chips from a Q-9 vs. J-T confrontation on a 6-8-T-J board.
Doing similarly well were JP, Stu Rutter, Chris Gavriel and Steve Walmsley, and, whilst it was sometimes difficult to judge whether they’d utilised that rebuy ticket or not, it was clear that Julian was in full Yoyo mode, hitting various monsters and sheepishly grinning after finding two sets of quads. However, it wasn’t until he eliminated Welshman Ian Herbert (flopped full house versus trips) that he started to show any real progress, eventually rising well above that 13k starting stack and drawing closer to the 20k mark.
Speaking of the Welsh, this event was no different to any other in terms of the strong showing from our neighbours and the avid support they garnered from the voyeurs on the forum. Whilst most of that attention was centred around Martyn Cavanagh (left), who was quickly contesting the chip lead with Chris Gavriel and Steve Jelinek, the likes of Iwan Jones, Alan Davies and Ouday Hickary were also receiving their fair share of good luck messages. Another Welshman who deserves a mention is Jamie Fisher, sofa---king on blonde, who was kind enough to highlight my efforts as updater by sending over a case of champagne for me and Mr Raab to dip into. A superb gesture that didn’t go amiss. Unfortunately, Jamie soon joined his fellow countryman, Roberto Romanello, at the bar when his T-5 on a T-T-x Flop ran head first into Mateyboy’s Q-T. “Just one of those things,” commented Fisher nonchalantly.
So, with the Main Event in full swing, the men were starting to separate from the boys. Whilst Martyn Cavanagh extended his stack into a chip leading 68k (mainly due to finding back to back quads), initial strugglers were now starting to find their rhythm – Red-Dog in particular as a nervy flopped set vs. open ended straight flush draw encounter worked out in his favour to shoot him up to a much more manageable 36,000.
In the midst of all this, Simon Zach was putting on an exhibition of bouncebackability, swiftly climbing up from a pitiful looking 700 (Kings vs. Aces took him to the felt) to a much more commendable 9,400 after first doubling through with Queens vs. Malcolm Harwood’s Nines before later surviving a Jacks vs. A-K vs. A-K onslaught.
As the night grew longer, the field began to thin and a quick glance around the room told me that Paul King, Iwan Jones, JP Kelly, Mickey Wernick, Dave Mayall, Stu Rutter, Ed Dawson, and Ash Hussain had all bitten the dust, the last in that list losing a battle of the blinds’ 50-50 to the increasingly threatening Rob Garfield (7-7 vs. A-9). Even the seemingly formidable Julian Thew (right) had the keys in the ignition. A familiar yelp of delight from Ian Woodley signalled that he was the assassin, rising victorious from a Big Slick vs. Tens encounter, a cruel River giving the Londoner the wheel.And as Phil Peters and Nick ‘vodkaredbull’ Hicks joined that motley crew on the rail, a few other big names were falling by the wayside too, one of which was Keith ‘The Camel’ Hawkins, still gleaming from his triumphant final table finish in Amsterdam. This time, however, he was to progress no further than Day 1 as his Ace-King ran into the Pocket Cowboys of Jeff ‘Jaffacake’ Kimber, who had also been enjoying some big bucks success with his 80k plus showing in Singapore.
But, whilst the likes of Jeff, Joe Grech, John Huckle and Rob Garfield were growing small acorns into big oak trees, it was Lucy Rokach who was truly taking the bull by the horns, seemingly forming a mountainous stack with relative ease.
Through her usual streak of aggression and, admittedly, a few dollops of good fortune, the Sporting Odds' team member (left) shot into a commanding lead, eliminating her victims left right and centre. One of those was James Atkin who requested I inputted the details of his exit hand into a poker calculator. And although James was a slight ‘dog with his 9c-6c, I fail to see how he could have escaped from a 2d-7c-8c Flop, even though Lucy held the nut flush draw with Ac-Jc. Anyhow, exit he did, and Lucy marched on to continue to carve up the field by disposing of opponents such as Nigel Turver and Andrew Bradshaw, the Blakpoolian running Pocket Kings into Lucy’s flopped Quads.With eyelids threatening to shut and bums staring to go numb, time was eventually called and it quickly emerged that Lucy Rokach had extended her chip lead to 222,100, almost 100,000 in front of her nearest rival, Luton player Rob Garfield, who had 139,400. Down, but not out and perhaps happy just to witness a plastic bag hit the table, were Toni Dicesare, Tony Kendall, Buddy Ayegun and Mickey’s young lad, Dave Wernick, who were all struggling with less than 20,000.
But of course, a chip and a chair is all you need in these comps, and as the 35 players returned for Day 2, Toni Dicesare doubled up his shortstack with Pocket Fives vs. Ace-King, leaving local player, Essy Jahanpour, only inches away from the felt. Even the shortest of them all (stack wise, not height) doubled through as Buddy Ayegun found his Nines surviving an all-in encounter against Richard Jenking’s Big Slick.
And whilst these shortstackers were either clinging on or doubling up, a huge pot was amassing on Des Jonas’ table. With Ash Pervais and John Huckle (right) holding Aces and Kings between them, Jeff Kimber did well to escape with his A-K (aided by an out of turn re-raise from Huckle), and it’s a good job that he didn’t see a Flop as out flew the King, a card that resulted in Ash losing a monstrous 140k pot and silently storming off in disgust. Sometimes the game is cruel and that was a prime example as Ash, a true gent of the game, was undeservedly sent crashing out.With Toni Dicesare, Essy Jahanpour, Dave Smith, S O’Reilly, Richard Jenking and Mark Yaffe all gone, it was left to Ian Woodley to fly the flag for the short-stackers, which he did in cracking style as his Tens held up against Wilkinson’s K-T and Cavanagh’s A-K on 4-K-T-5-Q board to shoot him up to the 100k mark. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeah!" exclaims Woodley as he bangs the table.
Meanwhile, Lisa Scotney, a regular at the small weekend comps here at Walsall, was quietly grinding away, rarely releasing a murmur and seldom involved in a big pot. She was now on 42k and, although nowhere near the likes of Garfield and Rokach, was still in with a shot of finaling.
With Des Jonas seeing off the biggest name present (Maurice Nicholson – 16 letters!), we also saw Red-Dog perform his swan song, running Ace-King into the American Airlines of the suited and booted Brian French. Reyaaz Mulla, Dan Ainsworth, Buddy Ayegun, John Vaccarella, Dave Wernick, Brian
French, Des Jonas and Steve Jelinek also joined Red in the carpark to leave us with 10, and a looming bubble that was lingering over the head of Scotney (left) (55,000) like a dark menacing raincloud.But this Lisa is made of strong stuff as she clung like she’s never clung before, splitting two pots with A-5 vs. A-5 and K-Q vs. K-Q before doubling up with Pocket Deuces versus John Huckle’s A-J. And moments later she found Pocket Rockets, a hand that bubbled an unfortunate Martyn Cavanagh who looked helpless as he revealed his mediocre K-T.
So, with the smoke cleared and the dust settled, the final table looked like thus:
Seat 1: Joe Grech -- 82,000
Seat 2: Lisa Scotney -- 178,000
Seat 3: Lucy Rokach -- 473,000
Seat 4: Dan Carter -- 155,000
Seat 5: Gehan Zaib -- 197,000
Seat 6: Rob Garfield -- 247,000
Seat 7: John Huckle -- 38,000
Seat 8: Ian Woodley -- 192,000
Seat 9: Jeff Kimber -- 254,000
John Huckle inevitable took 9th when his A-J found Dan Carter (right) with A-K, before Carter himself exited next, removed by Ian Woodley, but severely damaged just moments before when Garfield’s A-Q out-flopped Carter’s A-K for what was a humongous pot.Next to go was Joe Grech. After losing a big pot (A-K vs. K-8) earlier on to Ian Woodley, the Londoner finished off his foe by squeezing off Bullets with Grech pushing all-in with his respectable A-Q holding.
And after Ian Woodley (6-6 vs. Rokach’s 8-8) and Jeff Kimber (A-K vs. Zaib’s J-J) snapped up 6th and 5th spots for £5,750 and £7,020 respectively, we were left with 4 Trojans in Scotney, Garfield, Zaib and current chip leader Lucy Rokach.
Talks of a deal were inevitable, but a determined Lucy initially seemed intent on playing it out, but following 90 minutes of apparent stalemate, Lucy finally succumbed to peer pressure and agreed to striking a deal, but one which left her with a lucrative £37,000. With Gehan Zaib taking £17,205, Lisa (she really didn’t want to break a round figure) £20,000 and Rob Garfield delighted with his £28,300 (“It’s more than second,” as he accurately commented himself), the deal was done and dusted and everyone went home with a smile on their face and a fair slice of the bacon.
As per usual, Quentin requested that the tournament be played to a finish, a rather farcical display that saw Rob Garfield (left) outdraw his three opponents with 4-8s vs. K-Q, T-8 vs. Q-2 and Q-9 vs. T-T to be announced as the official Midland Masters’ Champion.But although Rob received the trophy and the winner’s comedy cheque, it was Lucy who prospered the most, leaving Walsall with just £14,100 less than top honours.
Another festival under our belts, and what a cracker it was too, attracting what may well be record numbers for Grosvenor Walsall. Every comp seemed to be packed to the rafters, and rightly so too. But Walsall weren’t without criticism: prize structure, disruptive players, missing levels and so on, but what should be emphasised is that Zak, Dani and the boys worked excellently as a team and have always been firm supporters of blonde. Like all of us, they make mistakes, but sometimes decisions are made that are beyond their control, so whilst we highlight the negatives of this week, we must also praise the positives, to which their remained many.
Stick a fork in me…