Tournament Report: Brighton GUKPT

Sat 19/May/07
Grosvenor Brighton, England,
by Jen Mason
Submitted by: jen on Tue, 29/05/2007 - 11:56pm
Game Type:No Limit
Buy-in:£1,000
Entries:309
Rebuys:none

The last £1,000 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour leg before the near-rhyming Vegas hiatus over June saw another sizeable field settle in for the four days, this time by the seaside.  Right by the seaside – you couldn’t get closer to the beach than the Brighton Grosvenor unless you had the tables set up on the sand.  We were wondering if there would be space inside for nearly 400 players to get round tables, and it turned out that there was, just.  Around 150 runners per start day wedged themselves in for the hour-long-level deepstack early foldathon, but for once Chris ‘NoflopsHomer’ Hall and I weren’t in for too long of a wait before reportable action started.  

This could be to do with the selection of Day 1A players – joining local James ‘Flushy’ Dempsey were Dubai, Jules Adamson, Praz Bansi, JP Kelly, Joe Grech, Barney Boatman, Mohammed Shafiq and Roberto Romanello, among many others.  It does seem, after a lengthy, busy season of updating, that UK fields are a bit like Scrabble sets, the same letters coming up, but in different arrangements.  Praz and James managed to be sat next to each other this time, for example, but the newly-Blue Square-sponsored bracelet winner wasn’t to make the final this time round.  His neighbour didn’t start off so well himself – I reproduce his conversation with Paul ‘Pab’ Foltyn during the break:

"I've flopped two sets and I'm down 2k.  Explain how that happened?"
Pab replies, "It's because you play so bad."
"I even folded set over set," Flushy carries on as if he were the partially deaf one.
"On the turn?"
"No, there I called to hit quads." 

Top class self-analysis from the Horse there, but that report leads me to commend Pab for flying back from halfway round the world in time for this event (his partial deafness occurring from flying too soon after scuba diving – imagine the sympathy we had).  In fact, after a 36 hour travel day, Pab had actually made it for the previous day’s £100 freezeout.  That’s dedication to your sport.  It wasn’t to be his day either, however, in the Main Event (after making a good call all-in preflop with JJ, he found Nines flopping quads), nor that of the four previous winners (Dave Colclough, Praz Bansi, Jerome Bradpiece and Michael Greco) who were all drawn on the first start day. 

The leaders were actually Albert Sapiano and Mad Marty Wilson as the first start day drew to a close, with nearly six-figures apiece – well ahead of the second tier led by Jeff Nathan and Thomas Dunwoodie.  Flushy got into the top ten somehow, as did Shaf, Bambos and Graham Cook.  Interestingly, it was the middling-chipped like Richard Ashby, Katherine Hartree and John Exley who would take Day Two more by storm, but that was after the next batch of runners had taken their turn.  

Among these were Dan Carter (supported by Matt Dale, who wasn’t doing so badly himself in the event, having finished the day with 36k), Dusk Till Dawn’s Paul Zimbler, Roland de Wolfe, Paul King, Luke Patten, Mazhar Nawab, Julian Thew and Marc Goodwin.  The room was fuller than ever, especially as a few people had apparently received instruction that they were playing the second start day, while they’d actually been down on the first (which they’d missed of course).  Not among the runners was Ram Vaswani, who’d arrived ten minutes after the first cards were in the air resulting in the removal of his stack from the table.  The sooner they do away with this archaic in-your-seat-first-hand rule (legality permitting, of course) the better, in my opinion.  And that’s not just because I was late for that week’s £250 freezeout, so had to double park, wait for the first hand, fold it and run out to move my car which by the grace of the poker gods was still there, clampless, hazard lights blinking reassuringly.

Anyway, once Day 1B got started, it outdid the first in terms of early casualties, as we lost Simon Zach, Leon Loukaides and Kevin Daly within half a level.  The latter’s set fell to two flopped flushes, no less, and he was found musing at the bar on how there were worse towns than Brighton to be left in over the weekend.  It must be noted that not a single hostel, hotel or Bed and Breakfast establishment would let Chris and I stay for the whole four days, so we were moving every morning, waiting zombie-like in our new lobby until our next room was ready, and going back to sleep for a couple of desperate hours every afternoon.  The Brighton Festival and it being a generally nice weekend meant that the whole of England seemed to have descended on the town, and never have I left a casino at 5am to find more drunk people happily wandering down every road.  

Back to the sober confines of the Brighton Grosvenor – the second batch of players were led by Dave Smith, Mark Johnstone, Nick Goodall, Alan Dean and Willie Tann at the beginning, with only a couple of names scooting up to join these by the second break.  One of these was Lucy Rokach, who went on an all-out aggression mission halfway through the day which got her opponents rattled and her stack up to 40k, while Kevin ‘Lovejoy’ O’Leary had around that after eliminating Richard Rudling-Smith and Richard Redmond in the same hand.  His flopped set of threes stayed more than good against Rudders’ top two and Richard’s top pair top kicker – he eventually finished the day with nearly 50k.  Good though these chip counts were at this stage of the tournament, no one was even close to Dave Smith’s 94k, simply monstrous at the 150/300 level.

Casting less of a shadow, but winning him Climber of the Day, was the chip stack of Steve Jelinek, Monte Carlo finalist and general comeback king.  Down to just 3,000 a level earlier after a dangerous most-of-stack bluff picked off by Lucy Rokach, he was over 30,000 by the final level, and looking very relaxed about it.  Also, smiling in defeat, as he always is however the cards fall, was Chandra Khajuria, (together with his brother the twin scourges of Helsinki tournaments).  He found the perfect flop, A-A-J to pay off Damon D’Cruz’s A-J with his A-Q, but was still in at the end of the day.  

The second day saw the now expected carnage at the beginning level, which we tend to watch with one foot in the door of the press room as so many double ups or, their sadder twin, eliminations occur within half an hour.  It wasn’t just the short stacks getting busy – Lucy Rokach lost a pretty big stack making a large preflop re-raise with A-4 and running it into A-K, while Praz Bansi, starting off by doubling through Roberto Romanello, was out shortly thereafter when his Kings were Aced on the river.  Meanwhile Barny Boatman just kept hold of his pocket Sevens, and they won him at least three decent pots including knocking out Matt Dale’s A-K.

When the tables rebalanced after the first hour it became clear that the early leaders were still leaders (Dave Smith, Albert Sapiano), the early near-leaders had maintained their positions (James Dempsey and Marty Wilson) and a few had risen through the ranks to take them all on (Richard Ashby, Koroush Nikkhahe and Jeff Rogers among others).  Roberto Romanello seemed to have woken up and built a stack while no one was looking (or listening) and he just carried on through Day Two, talking people into making interesting folds or calls, and generally looking like a second final table may be within his grasp.  Meanwhile Flushy found Aces at a crucial time against Greek Jack and an unlucky pair of Kings; on the flip side Jeff Rogers was busted in two quickly-following hands by Dave Smith, firstly getting two-pair at the same time as Dave had a higher two-pair, and then pushing over a button raise with A-Q and finding big blind Dave checking it down with the button until on the river his Fours were still good.  Smith also took care of the last player before the bubble with some nice Kings, but after that we were over an hour until the next elimination. 

The final teething problems of the GUKPT include what to do with the clock on the bubble.  After the mismanaged level-plus bubble at the EPT Dortmund, where around seven hand-for-hand hands were played over a full hour, leaving short stacks powerlessly so and reducing average stacks to the same predicament, the hand-for-hand period in Brighton saw the clock stopped for the whole time.  Inevitably, complaining ensued.  It’s impossible to please everyone, but I am pretty confident that whatever decision is eventually taken on this will take into account the views of the players, and the dictation of common sense, as has been the case with other innovations or changes to structure/rules in the GUKPT.  

In the end, the bubble Philip Alden fell to Katherine Hartree, whose A-Q took out his K-K, leaving the rest of the room sighing with relief – Roberto Romanello especially, as he had already dropped to the point where two double-ups later and he still wasn’t comfortable.  Anthony Romanello had made the money less by the skin of his teeth, although he was later eliminated racing Shaf’s 9-9 with his A-Q (the hand that did the most damage, though: 9-9 vs. J-J).  Also finishing in the money were Manchester winner Dave Colclough, Nik Persaud, Ian Herbert, Karim Louis and Koroush Nikkhahe.

But the greatest wince-for-an-exit must be for Richard Ashby, who raised on the button, found a re-raise from Mad Marty Wilson in the blinds, and instantly pushed with K-K, called by Marty’s A-8.  Marty shouted, “Ace!” as every card was turned over, and the river brought exactly that, eliminating Richard who managed a, “Good luck, all,” at the table, and a simple, “Sick,” off it.  Marty was the first out of the 14 players who returned for the Final Day, however, with Shaf, Craig Own, Steve Jelinek and Terry Burke coming 13th to 10th, and just missing that TV table.

Two players in the final Nine had been on that TV table before – Dave Smith and Roberto Romanello had both finalled in Cardiff, and were looking to best their finishes there – fifth and third respectively.  At the other end of the live tournament experience spectrum was Neil Carr, who had apparently been bought in to this one by his brother as a birthday present.  We are unsure as to whether percentages were involved…

The final table line-up in full:

Albert Sapiano -- 739k
Neil Carr -- 726k
James Dempsey -- 227k
John Exley -- 150k
Barney Boatman -- 138k
Dave Smith -- 262k
Roberto Romanello -- 323k
Raj Modha -- 367k
Maz Nawab -- 135k 

And the prizes they were playing for:

1st -- £95,100
2nd -- £50,300
3rd -- £33,600
4th -- £24,000
5th -- £18,300
6th -- £15,200
7th -- £12,200
8th -- £9,200
9th -- £6,100

Just as in the Manchester leg, two players started the final in control of about half the chips in play, but it wasn’t a plain sail to the top spots for both of them.  It started out that way, however, with Albert Sapiano quickly calling down Barny Boatman with A-K (preflop, on the Jack-high flop and on the turn) and knocking the most seasoned player out in 9th.   He then took out John Exley in 8th place (A-K again, vs. J-J all in preflop), making it a hat-trick by soon thereafter eliminating James ‘Flushy’ Dempsey in 7th, who’d lost a few to Dave Smith before finding Tens on the button and moving in over the top of Sapiano’s preflop raise.  He’d run into Queens, however, and now Sapiano looked like he may be unassailable, with around a third of the chips in play. 

Roberto Romanello, who’d provided us with some phenomenal speech play prior to the TV table, now looked to be opening up too, small raising on the button with 6-8 and hitting two pair which enticed Maz Nawab all-in with his top pair of Jacks, so he finished in 6th

Albert’s predilection for calling proved to be his downfall, as we saw him first double up already decent-stacked Neil Carr calling him all in on the turn with AK (Ace-high) when Neil had K-T, top pair of Tens.  Previously calling with AK, at this point in a hand had eliminated Barny Boatman, but this time it knocked the first noticeable chunk from his stack.  But Roberto gave it back to Albert, making a preflop move (re-raising Albert all-in with 8-3off) which the player most likely to call, called - with pocket Sixes.  Short stacked, he was eventually taken out by Neil Carr, who had quietly built his chips over two days, and was now splitting most of the remaining ones with Dave Smith.  

Rajesh Modha took third place, having performed a spectacular short-stack grind for what seemed like the full 20 levels.  This left Neil Carr and Dave Smith heads up for the top spots, and it wasn’t a quick, aggressive match – there was no word of any deal, and their even stacks stayed that way for a good while.  Finally Dave Smith got the momentum and the chip lead to secure the victory, although it was still two big stacks in the middle as Neil’s flopped flush (his hand only 6-high, though) was outdrawn on the turn by Daves 9d-Th (the Td was one of the flop cards) as a fourth diamond brought the tournament to an end at the relatively early time of half-past midnight.  By this time the reporters had their eye on some interesting looking bars, Flushy had disappeared long ago to play, according to rumour, the £50 rebuy down the road, and Dave Smith had been logged at the top of the Tour leaderboard, where he’ll be resting until August at least, when the next one kicks off.