blonde poker

 
Poker is full of surprises, and if we ever needed a reminder of the luck factor involved, then last weekend's jaunt to Luton for their annual 'Grand Challenge' would be it.

With Mick McCool, Mickey Wernick, Keith Hawkins, JP Kelly, Joe Grech, Ian Woodley, Denis O'Mahoney and Pras Banzi all present and correct, it was by no means a weak field, but that didn't stop visiting Turk, Mehmet Cinar (left), who nonchalantly ploughed through the 100 plus players, from claiming top honours and the 32k first prize.

With over 40 survivors heading into Day 2, it was youngster Mark Lowe who led the field with 60,700. Not too far behind him was Ariel Adda with 52,600, Tony Nicholls on 50k and the delightfully named Billy Quang Ngo with 46,500.

However, moving into the final, only one of those chip leaders, Ariel Adda, would be remaining, his 179,000 now vastly dwarfed by Mehmet Cinar's 367,000. And part of that lead could be credited to unfortunate blondeite, Ben 'RookieITB' Turnstill, whose A-J ran into the Turk's 7-6 suited on a 9-6-5 Flop, subsequently forcing him to accept the unwanted title of 'Bubbleboy'.

With the average age remarkably high, the final table line-up was as follows:

Seat 1: Steve Templeman -- 24,000
Seat 2: Ray Brown -- 66,000
Seat 3: Glenn Ashworth -- 139,000
Seat 4: Mehmet Cinar -- 367,000
Seat 5: Mark Lowe -- 88,000
Seat 6 Ariel Adda -- 179,000
Seat 7: Robert Iley -- 82,000
Seat 8: Tina Jordan -- 124,000
Seat 9: Andrew Giorgiou -- 51,000

With local player Steve Templeman taking 9th (A-8 vs Adda's A-Q), Glenn Ashworth 8th (3-3 vs Cinar's Q-Q) and Ray Brown snapping up 7th (K-K vs Lowe's A-4), it was clear that this was becoming the Cinar, Adda and Lowe (right) show, the former increasing his stack even further when he eliminated Ray Iley in 6th, K-T being no match for Cinar's A-7, an Ace on the Flop emphatically crushing any vague hopes the Englishman may have held.

Although no one can doubt the level of skill that is required to reach these latter stages, it was obvious that on this one occasion, Cinar had made a pact with the Poker Gods, as after Ariel Adda had departed in 5th (4-4 vs Q-Q), the Turk made an inexplicable play, calling Tina Jordon's 194k all-in (157k more) with just A-8s, a hand that would ultimately go on to outdraw the K-K of Jordan (below-left), an Ace on the Turn delivering a cruel blow.

There were brief discussions of a deal, but nothing was agreed, and play continued with Cinar seeing off his remaining two opponents with relative ease - first witnessing his Aces fend off the A-T of Lowe, before finally taking gold when his A-7 was good enough to defeat Andrew Georgiou's T-8, no help required from the board.

And so it was, a man who was admittedly relatively inexperienced at poker had taken down one of January's biggest tournaments. In England to visit friends and family, Cinar wanted to try poker in a different country because he "always plays against the same players and wanted to see what it was like to play others."

As TightEnd commented during the live updates, "His quest to expand his poker horizons has clearly produced successful results!"

Time will tell if he is indeed a man of good fortune, or a deceptively skillful competitor.