PokerStars EPT - London

Fri 30/Sep/05 - Sun 02/Oct/05
Victoria Casino, London, England,
by Jen Mason
Submitted on Mon, 03/10/2005 - 10:47pm
Game Type:Limit

The EPT came to the Vic last week, along with a tremendous number of people I recognised floating between bar and poker areas: blondeites, Scandinavians, the odd American or two, and a pretty good representation of the UK as a whole, from globetrotters Willie Tann, El Blondie and Lawrence Gosney to the popular Dave Shallow, Richard Gryko and Paul King. What with the starting field being split into two day ones, it was a little easier to track them all, as they were whittled first into two batches of 12, then to the final televised eight, and on to the winner.

The fairly international crowd queued around the table games to receive their ticket and either take their seat, or a back seat until Saturday. The tables were, as usual, sprinkled throughout the casino (some upstairs, some down, some in the bar, some in the card room) and there was a hard line taken with the rules: when they said that any player found to be swapping his day would be disqualified, they weren't kidding – two were out before they'd sat down.

From the remaining players, one table was selected for the TV treatment – in the final table room, on the stage, just like at the World Series. Not a huge surprise that the first feature table contained none other than Greg Raymer, who set about ferociously collecting chips and was soon responsible for three early exits, and sitting on the leading stack. Early exits included the Barcelona EPT winner Jan Boubli and Barny Boatman, but British favourites Dave Colclough and Kevin O'Connell started off well, though their luck was not destined to hold. It was good to see the charming Sverre Sundbo back in London after his sterling performance at the last Main Event here, and Team Norsemen was there in full to support the Norwegian entrants.

The lack of wireless access meant for a few frustrated updaters (among them Rolf Woods, manager of the Norsemen) queuing for a turn with the blonde data-card things, but we all managed to keep track of our players, with a general atmosphere of information sharing. This was good, as each day one got off to a busy start, with players falling and tables being rearranged in the blink of an eye. A certain Mike Lacey had qualified for the event, and so it was left to Antesup's Tom Murphy to keep the Irish contingent informed. Sadly, Mike met with an accident fairly early on (after being moved from the interesting table featuring Dave Colclough, Simon Trumper and Stuart Nash) and it was down to Frank Callaghan and Paul Roper to keep them vicariously amused.

When Greg Raymer finally moved from the camera-filled room (giving the limelight to Dave Colclough's table) to a regular one, he took with him 45,000 in chips (starting stack was 10,000) and a formidable image, soon making it to chip leader with over 90,000. The Pokerstars superstar didn't make the final twelve, however, losing a huge pot with QQ to AK at a critical moment. Among those who did get there were an 18-year-old Swede named Jonas Helness, Kiril Gerasimov from Russia and the UK's Ram Vaswani. So did Dave Shallow (aka Dubaii Millenium, I was informed) whose vocal online supporters were delighted with his progress.

The bubble of day one was Dave ‘El Blondie' Colclough, whose A6 hit trip sixes on the flop, only to find, once all-in, Kiril's flush draw come in to bring the day to an end. The early favourites (John Gale, Mikael Thuritz, ‘Bad Girl' Xuyen Pham among others) had been lost and the chip leader was a man who claimed to only play recreationally, every couple of months. More about Mark Teltscher later.

So joining the twelve from day one were Henning Granstad, Tony Bloom, Noah Jefferson, and Daniel Smits among others, after a second, slightly less gruelling day on Saturday. In fact, they finished a level behind the first start day, and the blinds were reduced to compensate. Chris Moneymaker, Tony G, Noah Boeken, Carlo Citrone, Neil ‘Bad Beat' Channing, Kathy Liebert, Isabelle Mercier and Luca Pagano were present but met with no fortune (at least of the good sort), the latter two taking a turn on the televised final as Guest Commentators, however. This was a nice change – Greg Raymer especially took to the role with aplomb, a clear, concise and amusing speaker (very handy for those of us tantalizingly out of sight of the table).

So to the last two dozen on Sunday: The 24 remaining on day three were guaranteed at least £4,000 for their efforts, and with the blinds fairly hefty (3,000 – 6,000) they quickly whittled themselves down to eight – the magic TV number. Among those who put up a brave effort but got unlucky at the end were the aggressive but very personable Henning Granstad (who lost a huge race to the eventual tournament winner), American Jeffrey Bensinger (AA cracked by KK) and Tony Bloom (who finished 11 th after losing with KK to AQ). The ninth place finisher was Frank Callaghan, whose bubble exit upset the Irish update team considerably. They sort of lost the will to pay full attention. But some of us managed to sneak in to the Final Area, despite the best efforts of an army of ladies with clipboards and mic headsets to dislodge us.

This is the trouble with televised finals in small spaces. The table itself is a large and complicated bit of kit – I saw inside it as they were dismantling everything at the end of the day and it looked like a nest of small, multicoloured snakes. Then the TV cameras and their operators need room, and around them sit the couple of rows of spectators, who understandably include any friends and relatives of the players, and the occasional reporter. At the Vic, every effort was made to accommodate those recording the action by the managers, but it was still a tight squeeze with just two rows of seats for the eight players' entourage and a handful of journalists.

Problems overcome, the final began with the chip leader (722,000) being the reserved Jonas Helness (who suddenly had on a black Pokerstars shirt), followed by Londoner Mark Teltscher. The beneficiary of the race which more or less finished off Henning Granstad, Mark had accumulated chips voraciously throughout the two days he'd played. Next in chips, (after a gap of some 200k) came American Noah Jefferson, then on about equal stacks the UK's own Paul King and Graham Clarkson and Hungarian Istvan Novak. Short stacked of the final eight was quiet yet dangerous Russian Kiril Gerasimov, who after a storming first day had gone down to about 60,000 in chips.

Early on, Paul King made several moves, picking up hefty blinds and calls, and taking out Istvan. Graham Clarkson fell before him, however, and Dale Greenleaf followed. The remaining British player, Paul King, who'd come through some nail-biting moments to reach the final (supported by a vocal crowd) got into trouble when Kiril Gerasimov beat his pocket tens with A10, spiking the Ace, only to see his chip-taker go out almost immediately with Aces to Jonas Helness' flopped straight. Paul made 4 th , taking over £40,000.

Now with three left, Noah Jefferson made a strong move with AQ on a Jack-high flop. Jonas Helness, quiet and thoughtful as ever, eventually called with his pocket sixes and took Noah out in third (£72,870), as well as the chip lead. It was a relatively short heads up battle; after Mark Teltscher took the slight chip advantage it all came down to one huge hand (as so often happens). When Mark turned a set of Jacks, Jonas decided to go for the flush draw to win the thing and instead had to settle for the £145,740 second prize. Without exception thoughtful and calm, for such a young player he showed remarkable stamina, and an even temperament of which seasoned players must be in envy. If he's only just old enough to get in to the Vic, wait until he turns 21.

As for the winner, Mark Teltscher, who cited poker during his end-of-tournament interview as “addictive” and “something I'll do two or three times a year” having won the huge £280,000 first prize showed up almost immediately in Baden at the following EPT event. I wonder if Dublin will be the last time this year we'll see him, or if his friends like Noah Boeken (who cheered him on through the final) can convince him to play more regularly.


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