| Game Type: | Limit |
| Buy-in: | £1,000 |
| Prize Pool: | £158,000 |
| Entries: | 158 |
A mere whisper from Hampstead (well, four hours on three trains) lies the lovely Grosvenor Blackpool cardroom, extended, I am told, from a smaller version of itself but still proving so popular for this last week’s festival that every table was in use, and the words ‘sold out’ hovered menacingly in the air on Sunday.
This meant a rather interesting corridor placement for the update team of Snoopy and myself, but full and free rein of the tournament was provided by the gracious Yogi (card room manager) and, later, cream cakes too… But upon arrival it did look a bit like we were going to have only an hour’s worth of reporting on the Main Event before our laptops hibernated from want of power, so it was lucky that the event, freezeout though it was, started off nice and dramatically.
It wasn’t all that surprising, considering that Ali Mallu, Julian Thew and tikay were sat in a row, that some big hands cropped up right at the start. Julian took an early lead flopping a set of Sevens against Ali Mallu, and then finishing him off spiking a Ten to match his wired pair after Ali got the rest of his chips in with AQ (having flopped the Ace). Saved by the turn; as so often is the case, YoYo started the tournament with a healthy stack, and it took him pretty far, as you’ll see. Tikay also took an early chunk of chips from Mark Hawkins, who picked a moment when tikay’s Q 10 had housed up on the river to try to push him off the hand and got himself short stacked in the process.
But as soon as the dust settled on this table, which happened to be the closest one to the rail and therefore just so convenient to watch from the comfort of our chairs (don’t let anyone tell you Snoopy isn’t lazy), attention turned to the large array of blondeites present in the room.
Maria ‘Chili Pepper’ Demetriou had won her seat online (again) and joined eleven other Bluesquare qualifiers, including tikay, in the Bonanza – suffering a dwindly start to the tournament, finding top pair four-flushed and losing a QQ vs. AK race to knock her down to just 2,000. Supported by Glen in the bar with Mrs. RED-DOG, it must be mentioned that RED himself was present, in bright blonde shirt, with the most incredible likeness of himself in mug form you could imagine. No, I meant ‘mug’ like the cup – complete with bouffant hair and marvellous moustache. Has to be seen to be believed:
Elsewhere ‘Big Armo’ and the Nun were being vocally supported, and the usual faces of Mickey Wernick (how does the man make final after final…), Rob Yong, ChunkyMick, Burnley John, Simon Trumper, Carlo Citrone, Malcolm Muskett, Bambos (and Mrs. Bambos) and Ash Hussain peeped out from every corner. I also spotted Henning Granstad rather quickly taking sneaky cig breaks and decided that I would support one of the only two Scandies I could see in the tournament, and a truly nice chap at that. He did try to convince me on our recent trip to the remote holiday village of Grebbestad that it was the capital of Sweden, but I won’t hold that against him. A great player too – as testified to by the early-exiting JP Kelly. He said that he’d “played Aces really badly,” not finding out where he was (actually facing Henning’s set of 8s) and clinging to them for all his chips.
Finishing on either side of JP were Dave O’Callaghan (out before) and Nick Gibson (out after) whose Aces looked poor against the garrulous Paul Parker’s Nines when he hit a gutshot Eight, apparently. And up near the top of the chips after a couple of levels were Bambos, Johnny ‘Texas’ Hewston (soon to lose with KK vs. Rob Yong’s AK which rather shook him up) and young peroxide fan Julian Adamson (‘hartwith’ on blonde). We also located ‘badpab’ just as he was suffering a rather cruel beat to knock him out: holding pocket Jacks on the button, he raised and then called when the big blind put him all in – with 44. A Four popped out though and we lost him as soon as we’d found him.
About halfway through Day One and the field was rapidly consuming itself. The shortest stacks were making their stands, among them the faintly ridiculous but very amusing triple up for Des Jonas, who moved in with 92 and found calls from both blinds, one with 78 and one with 73. Ahead all the way, he spiked the Deuce and kept himself in for a little longer, while Marc Goodwin’s Jacks were promptly annihilated by Julian’s KK one table over. Chili, having ground her way back to over the starting stack, made a good call with pocket Tens against someone putting a move on her with A8off, but was outdrawn and was soon eliminated, by Bambos’ KK. A little frustrated by working at her small stack until she got all-in in such a favourable position, but she soon settled into the cash game.
It was about this time that we realised that the Welsh contingent was doing rather well, with Iwan Jones, Carl Thomas and Martyn Cavanagh (especially) sitting on decent stacks. The latter looked to have annoyed Thomas Middelthon with a big old re-raise with a seven-high flush draw plus open ended, and bluffed Henning out of a pot, and was in this fashion outlasting many of the earlier big stacks. Meanwhile those who hadn’t taken an early lead were creeping up – Dave ‘doubleup’ McGeachie for one, and Mickey Wernick, Tim Flanders, Rory Matthews and Mike Lacey. A popular lad on blonde that Luckyblind, it appears, and a worthy eliminator of tikay painfully close to the close of Day One play (sorry, Sir) with his Surprise Straight (holding AK) which rivered tikay’s flopped set of Tens. All-in preflop, though.
The erratic force which is Rob Yong took out Maureen, the Nun, with J9 vs. her 99, and then an equally dramatic beat befell Tom Crawford Clark at the hands of Johnny Texas – he small-raised in a disconcerting manner in early position, and Texas “tried to get him off it” with 5c 6c – finding Tom only too happy to call with his KK. But the 56 formed a full house rather abruptly, and Texas had chips once more. Rob was out pretty soon thereafter, running his 62 into Trevor Reardon’s Rockets, while Texas made Day Two, but not quite the money.
Overnight chip leader was Henning Granstad followed by Chris Johnson, and there were a couple more nearing the 100k mark too, like Paul Johnstone, Mickey and Julian Adamson (John Hewston was actually on it). Short stacks like Paul Parker took the plunge early – good attempt to create a saver for all remaining players notwithstanding – and soon there were only two tables left, with the money beckoning like so (and a nice structure too!)
1 £47,530
2 £31,600
3 £19,750
4 £14,220
5 £10,270
6 £7,900
7 £6,320
8 £4,700
9 £3,200
10 £2,370
11 £2,060
12-14 £1,740
15-16 £1,430
Paul Johnstone’s KK finished off Hewston’s AK, while Martyn Cavanagh called Carl Thomas’ all-in with 88 blind – and found pocket Queens! Joe Grech’s shortstack grinding came to an end, too, after a lot of hanging on, but he took defeat graciously as ever. 19th place fell to Julian Thew, after pushing from the small blind with 77 and finding original small-raiser Mickey Wernick with the Ladies.
Mick McCloskey, having never been one of the out-in-front leaders, showed that he wasn’t going anywhere during the battle for the Final Table, unlike unlucky Doubleup, who got it all in with KK against Henning’s 10 10 on a Seven-high flop, only to be eliminated by the Ten falling on the turn. But by far the most dramatic development of Day Two was Iwan Jones’ remarkable turn of his 20k-odd into a Final Table stack. Definitely wins the Climber of the Day award, if not the Month.
Nigel Turver finished in 14th, Mike Lacey finally in 13th (after a bit of wondering how Mick McCloskey could call his move all-in with KQ with his small blind AQ). Martyn Cavanagh had dwindled ever so slightly, and must have been pleased his all-in reraise with AK was eventually called by Henning’s suited 6 8 in a bid to knock him out, but didn’t hit and sent Martyn back to 130k. Jules Adamson was 12th, eliminated by John Exley (remaining online qualifier destined to take the final by storm) and Chris Johnson came 11th with the final bubble being burst by Rory Matthews, another victim of Iwan Jones’ rise to chip domination.
So the final consisted of:
1 Mick McCloskey 153,000
2 Martyn Cavanagh 126,000
3 Mickey Wernick 236,500
4 Trevor Reardon 113,000
5 Iwan Jones 286,000
6 Paul Johnstone 179,000
7 John Exley 164,500
8 Reyaaz Mulla 237,000
9 Henning Granstad 88,000
Not a lot has been said up until now about quiet player Reyaaz Mulla, who eliminated Trevor Reardon in 9th place autocalling the very short Trevor and spiking both his cards, but by the end of the lengthy Final battle it looked like a host of people were on the rail supporting him and he’s definitely become quite a familiar face to us updaters, going deep in many a competition. Almost unnoticed, he built his stack until he looked to be a definite contender for the top spot (and in fact ended up getting the better share of the chip-based money split which came later) – even though at this point it was still Iwan on top. He knocked out Henning Granstad in 8th place, racing his victorious Tens against Henning’s AK. But the same Tens doubled up John Exley about an hour later, and signalled the downfall of the Welsh favourite (apart from Martyn, of course).
Even though Mickey Wernick was the next one to go, making a brave big blind reraise against Martyn Cavanagh (who held 33) with A7suited (the flop came KK3), he still gained enough points to propel him back to the top of the European Rankings, which must have been some consolation. Martyn was in any case the next player to go (after a good long time) racing his AK against Mulla’s JJ. This left Mulla with a dominating chip lead, which led to his favourable split of the money, in spite of the eventual result.
Paul Johnstone finished 5th, almost immediately followed by Iwan whose luck ran out late in the day and whose 22 were in bad shape against Mulla’s AQ after he flopped the Broadway straight. AQ was the downfall for third place finisher Mick McCloskey (who has had quite a run recently) – as the unbeatable Mulla’s Kjoff hit sending him out.
There then followed a rather strange heads up match between ‘Honest’ John Exley and Reyaaz Mulla – we were informed that even the money left to be played for originally had now been split, and so it appeared that the couple of heads up hours played were over who got the bigger trophy. Extraordinary, considering that they were both looking a little tired by this point (who can blame them?) and as the small hours of the morning ticked by we were wondering if it would ever come to an end. Mulla made an initial bid to knock John out with the 104diamonds, but John’s pocket Tens doubled him up to 600k and we knew it wouldn’t be a quick one.
John Exley’s perseverance paid off, naming him Blackpool Bonanza Champion in the end, even though he won £26,500 to Reyaaz Mulla’s £34,500. But such is the nature of deals, and they certainly couldn’t be accused of not playing seriously once the money had been determined.
It just leaves me to finish with a quick review of the secondary attraction held for me personally by Blackpool – The Pepsi Max Big One (rollercoaster; longest drop in Europe). Worth the four hours just to watch Chili, Glen and Snoopy try not to let on that they’d rather not be joining me in the queue, and then scream like a banshee for 90 seconds. Awesome.
