It was a chilly, later frosty November night as the friendly Grosvenor Walsall welcomed in the runners for the £1,500 double-chance freezeout. Adam (Snoopy) had found his way into the regular live update corner, his way online and his way around well before I got my mobile connect card to work. Good sign. He had already noted the appearance of Geoff Duvall, Lucy Rokach, Jack the Greek, John Shipley, Pete Singleton, Dave Garderner, Ash 'The Cash'/Realshady Pervaiz, The Camel, Ali Mallu, Mad Marty Wilson, M Z Hussain, Dave ‘El Blondie' Colclough and Matt Tyler before I got a cup of tea.
Of course also playing were blondeites Womble, Burnley John, Greg ‘Junior' Hill, Carlo Citrone and Tikay himself. Of course, this immediately sparked jokes from Red Dog and Robert HM about whether Tikay was still in. Nearly prescient – it was a matter of minutes (or so it seemed) before the original Updater had busted out (his second allotment of chips) holding the 10 J of hearts. He saw a flop for 600 along with three other people: Qd 9h 4h, and when Iwan Jones bet out 1200, the 4200 pot was just too tempting and he pushed all-in for 7,000 with his big old draw. Iwan took a while before calling with his AQ and knocking him out, to his credit calling Tikay's hand exactly before doing so, but that was the end of Tikay, who went back to spend some quality time with his cats.
Before all of that, though, there was time to notice some players who'd had success at other big events up here – Paul Dargon, scourge of the Grand Prix, Kevan Simcock and Dan Samson, who was playing a bunch of hands early on, getting a quick boost with a set of threes, before it all went a bit wrong as his big blind Kings were cracked by AQ which hit the case Ace, leaving him battling valiantly with a short stack for the later stages.
Greg Hill also got off to a good start, while Carlo apparently played just one hand in the first blind level. Happily it was flopped quads with his holding being 33 (they were the hand to have, apparently). Somehow this pot generated four-way action and the guy with Queens in the small blind doubled Carlo up nice and early. Meanwhile, early casualties Michael Greco and Lucy Rokach headed away as the first couple of tables were broken. We were keeping an eye on one area in particular as in it resided Barny Boatman, Mickey Wernick and young poker star James Atkin, whose caffeinated appearance belied a style of play which had already seen him make two final tables, and saw him get pretty far in this comp before losing to Alan Mclean, in a parallel sort of hand to that which knocked out Tikay. He'd been battling the some-time chip leader all night, however, earlier taking 20k off him with 77 vs. Alan's AK, somehow all-in preflop.
Womble blamed his poor start on “complete muppetry,” and Ariston's ruining his game. Steve Bovis owed his good start to a set vs. set occurrence against George Harle, who was soon thereafter spotted at the bar. Anthony Nicholls didn't slow down after the start, and as he was on that Alan Mclean table, it was worth our while just to stand there and wait for the big hands to unfold. Out at this middling stage were IKNOWIT (Craig Wildman), Greek Jack, Iwan Jones, James Fisher and Pascal Perrault, while the chips appeared to be flowing towards Alan, The Magician Howard Plant, Ian Woodley, David Barnes, and Kevin Zarandi.
The timely appearance of the end-of-day chip counts sent us homewards, on which I must note that it is ever so helpful when things like player seating positions and chip counts make their way to the old press area, and Walsall is one of the very best establishments for such provision of information. Thanks to all involved.
So it was way out in front for chip leaders Alan Mclean, Ian Woodley and Anthony Nicholls on Day 2, and they for the most part managed to maintain their stacks. The shorter stacks like Howard Plant hung on, and on, while Ian Frazer decided it just wasn't worth his while coming back to play with his 10k or so. He should have taken heart from Dave's near miss:
El Blondie, despite returning as by far the shortest stack (6,600) managed to storm his way to over 50k. Just shows how he makes that chip'n'chair thing look easy…he made it to the final three tables, moving next to Barny, who eventually took him out after he got demolished by KK when Womble had the Aces. But before him fell Greg Hill (who'd been solidly supported by a group of vocal forum cheerleaders) whose A7 suited looked good against serial limper and chip monster Anthony Nicholls, but when the Ace fell on the flop it was Anthony's AJ which was victorious.
Womble doubled up with AA and looked to be slowly but surely accumulating chips, and so did Barny Boatman, who not only started off doing so but continued his progress all the way to the final table. But while Womble's AK was unlucky to put him in 12 th place after Darren Grosvenor's AQ spiked that river Queen, Barny went from strength to strength, looking as relaxed as can be as they made their way over to the final table.
Mickey Wernick was unlucky not to make it, especially as he'd just doubled up off chip leader Anthony. He too found the KK not doing their job against Paul Traynor's AQoff, and was the bubble. And as for Alan Mclean, who went out in 11 th place, he'd not taken his foot off the gas for two days, and was either going to get to the final table with a truckload of chips, or not at all. This time it was the latter.
So joining Barny Boatman and earlier leaders Ian Woodley and Anthony Nicholls on the final were short stack Dave Barnes, Stephen Wilsdon, David Clark, Luke Patten, Darren Grosvenor and chip leader Paul Traynor, who had qualified online at Bluesquare for $30, and much to Jonathan Raab's delight had a hefty 400,000 at the start of the final. Overall the table looked like this:
1 Dave Barnes 69,000
2 Ian Woodley 111,000
3 Barny Boatman 328,000
4 Stephen Wilsdon 174,000
5 David Clark 47,000
6 Luke Patten 157,000
7 Paul Traynor 400,000
8 Darren Grosvenor 89,000
9 Anthony Nicholls 276,000
Although we waited for Daniversace's stimulating commentary, none was forthcoming, so we waited tableside trying to dodge the cameramen who were apparently collecting footage for a DVD. The hole-card-cam table had been constructed by Q and his team of magic pixies and worked a treat, while looking nothing like the wire-monsters some of the others I've seen have been. First out was short stack David Clark, who found a suited Ace just when Darren Grosvenor found JJ and took £4,100. Then a bigger pair (AA for Paul Traynor) took out Ian Woodley's AK in 8 th netting him £5,000.
Then Barny Boatman started getting involved in a number of hands, some of them posing interesting questions, like the one where on a flop of 4h 7c Jh he was heads up against Paul Traynor, and checked, raising all in to Paul's 45k bet. A great big pause, before Paul folded, showing the Js. Barny says, "I promise you you've made a good pass - but it was close." Tikay tried the old, “you know the hole card cameras? We can see them on the little screens” bluff to get him to elaborate, but he was having none of it.
So slowly Barny evened up the lead with Paul Traynor and Anthony Nicholls, until Luke Patten was eliminated in 7 th (£5,800) as similarly medium-stacked Darren Grosvenor called his all-in bet (he held A6 off) with a suited K10, hitting two pair. After about an hour of back and forth play, Snoopy remarked, “they're like buses!” as Steve Wilsdon and Dave Barnes were out in quick succession in 6 th and 5 th respectively (prizes: £7,400 and £9,100). So with no real short stacks left after this flurry of action, there were quite a few flops played, with a general movement of chips towards Barny Boatman and Anthony Nicholls, until this hand which spelled the end for Anthony. After some preflop action, he ended up taking KK against Darren Grosvenor's AK and, you guessed it, the Ace appeared on the turn. Anthony finished in 4 th place, winning £14,000.
With the blinds at 10k – 20k Paul Traynor got it all in on an 8 9 J flop holding a reasonable 9 10, but Darren had flopped the straight with 10 Q and with Paul taking 3 rd (£19,000) Darren and Barny were the eventual heads up match – which probably couldn't have been predicted at the start of the day (that seemed an age ago). The heads up lasted but a few minutes, with most of those being taken up with Darren moving all-in preflop whenever it was his turn to act. When Barny spotted a spot to do the same, it was a quick call from Darren with his AQ to find Barny stealing with 10 3 and a house appearing (just to rub it in) to make Darren Grosvenor the £66,000 Walsall champ, while Barny took second spot and £34,600.
It was all go at the end there, and it looked like Snoopy had had a run for his money on the updating front, too. He passed with flying colours (and was helpful on the old player recognition side too, this being his local and all). Not to mention Mr. Raab who took to the whole thing like me to apple crumble and was an invaluable help especially when it got down to the three-table crowdathon which invariably occurs. As ever a warm and friendly atmosphere down there made the job great fun, and moreover it looked like a good comp to play in. Will hopefully be back for the next one.
