| Game Type: | No Limit |
| Buy-in: | £1,000 |
| Prize Pool: | £37,000 |
| Entries: | 37 |
The Southampton £1,000 No-Limit freezeout took place on a bank holiday weekend, and was vying for poker players’ attention with the Western’s big comp, the World Heads Up Championship in Barcelona and the usual “it’s time to have a break and go somewhere with the family/see Mum/girlfriend” type thing which goes hand in hand with an extended weekend. So it was not exactly a surprise that the field was 37 in total, leaving more space between the tables than the intrepid Snoopy and I were used to. A pleasant cardroom, the Grosvenor Southampton was blessed with very friendly and helpful staff, and at the same time cursed with mobile phone reception which was roughly equivalent to that which one might experience while submerged in Jell-o.
This meant that information on blondeite players like Chris ‘NoflopsHomer’ Hall, Luke ‘Doc12345’ Smith, Keith ‘Camel’ Hawkins and James ‘RoyalFlush’ Dempsey was flowing like treacle as we performed the Live Update, which didn’t accurately reflect the action in the cardroom itself.
With a 45 minute clock at the start, later lengthening to an hour, there was a decent amount of play to be had with the players’ 10,000 starting stacks, and the action began pretty thick and fast, with the usual suspects Jim Reid, Stuart Nash and Mukesh Morjaria getting off to a good start, with Antony Hughes the chipleader at the first break.
Meanwhile Martin Green’s pocket Queens cost him a chunk when an Ace fell on the river to give Nick Jenkins’ A-T the winner, and Flushy, despite jokingly announcing to us poor reporters that he was out within five minutes, was actually out within the hour. He wasn’t impressed at Tony Adderley’s willingness to get all the chips in with Kd Qd on an Ad 7d 5c board - after James’ initial 250 bet, he was raised to 1,000 and tried to end it there by adding 3k, only to find an all-in which he had to call with his 5d 5h. The 9d put an early end to Flushy’s Southampton experience, but I don’t think he was too disappointed, having qualified online for the event. Oh, just thought I should mention that Flushy drew Table 4 Seat 7…
Denis O’Mahoney was flushed from the tournament too, after a hefty bet which his nut-flush-drawing opponent called on the flop, leaving them both pretty short; he wasn’t happy when the third club hit the turn, and made an irritated-looking call all-in, knowing he’d been outdrawn. Meanwhile the Camel played his chip stack, which can only be described as variable, back up to a final-attaining size after a nice double through with Js Qs which hit a board of 10d 8d 3c 9h much harder than his opponent’s 8c 9c. When they were down to two tables, Keith had manoeuvred his stack up to third place in chips.
I don’t think I can report the most extreme hand of the tournament any better than Mr. Snoopy did at the time, so here’s the copy-paste version of Outdraw of the Month:
“Okay folks, hand of the day, and probably tournament, for you now.
All the chips move in on a flop of 2c Ad Kd
Antony Hughes = Ah As
A Miles = 8d 8h
Iain Abrahams = Jh Jd
Miles is the shorstack, then Hughes, with Iain holding the most amount of chips.
Look set in stone with the Ace on the flop, but...
Turn = 8s
River = 8c
RIGGED!!!
It wouldn't happen online...”
It became clear to us about this time that Day One would end when there were nine players left (the point at which the money started) and that would be far earlier than any update we’d previously experienced. With schedules being schedules and set in, if not stone, then at least very hard plastic, Day Two had to take place on Monday, which meant that the finalists would get a proper night’s sleep, for once, before returning at 2:30pm. But it wasn’t clear yet who they would be; Adrian Royle (left), who’d found himself playing the £1,000 event after winning a freeroll league was definitely at the top of the pile, and Jim Reid had a similarly intimidating stack, but there was a battle for the other places between the smaller stacks.
One of these was Chris Hall, whom I’d seen pick up a couple of pots by re-raising raisers from the blinds (he said he had the goods every time, but you know poker players). He told us that he’d had a pretty good run of hands earlier, but with 20,000 or so at the crucial two-table time he wasn’t sure whether he’d make the final in his first Main Event… Then with one paid-off full house he was comfortable in chips and made Day Two, and the money – we were delighted to see such an enthusiastic and friendly blondeite final his first go at it.
The bubble saw a bit of a chip change-around as the Camel’s aggressive play with a six-high flush draw saw an optimistic call from Nick Jenkins for all his chips on an Ah 10h 6h flop with Ad 5d, which stayed good and gave him the stack to double the Camel back up a few hands later with Ah 3h against pocket Kings. So no exciting draws coming in there, although elsewhere Stuart Nash survived being called when he made a move with Jack high, spiking a turned Jack to keep him in. Another move-maker was the eventual bubbler – Jim Reid with Jack high, too, this time on a totally unconnected board which had brought Adrian Royle top two. So your final looked like:
1 Nick Jenkins 64,300
2 Mukesh Morjaria 24,100
3 Stuart Nash 41,100
4 S. Harris 36,300
5 Paul Traynor 29,000
6 Adrian Royle 89,800
7 Keith Hawkins 41,800
8 Chris 'NoflopsHomer' Hall 18,900
9 Ian Cox 13,800
Despite there being shorter stacks, it was Mukesh Morjaria who finished 9th, with one of those QQ vs AK hands, which Sid Harris took with the latter. Up until now I have to admit that we hadn’t seen a lot of commotion around Mr. Harris – he’d just been quietly building a stack and after this early pot suddenly looked like one of the top contenders for the money-heavy first three places:
1 £14,400
2 £7,200
3 £3,600
4 £2,900
5 £2,500
6 £1,800
7 £1,400
8 £1,100
9 £1,100
With Morjaria gone (right), the next exit was that of probably the most aggressive player still left in – Keith Hawkins in 8th after he lost his race (TT vs Stuart Nash’s AJ), although the damage to his stack was done with those same Tens, which outdrew his Jacks by flopping quads. Then short stack Ian Cox was eliminated in 7th, after a period of folding while his stack slowly evaporated – in fact there were more walks in the blinds on this final table than on any I have watched previously. Maybe it was the players’ styles which all lent themselves to this sort of tight play, or perhaps it was the top heavy prize structure, but no one looked like they wanted to go out, or even play very much poker. The pace slowed to a crawl as the chip leaders refused to tangle with the little stacks, and NoflopsHomer, after letting his stack dwindle to less than 18k, suddenly took the breaks off, moving in (uncalled) three out of four hands in a row.
It was actually Stuart Nash who took 6th place, in a no-escape turned flush vs. bigger turned flush battle of the blinds with Sid Harris. Rhowena was on hand fresh from her Pokerdome victory in Vegas (well, holding up after the transatlantic haul) and interviewed the finalists as they slowly eliminated each other. It was Paul Traynor out next, racing 33 against Adrian Royle’s AJ – the chips looked to be accumulating mainly in front of him and Sid. NoflopsHomer Chris’s last stand came as an auto-all-in on the small blind when it folded round, but he ran into the big blind’s KK and his great final table effort left him a more-than-respectable fourth place. Incidentally, the good wishes for the prolific-posting blondeite came in throughout the tournament, but TightEnd seems to have pulled off the world’s quickest bok, 33 seconds…
It was down to three, and the proper money – Nick Jenkins was 3rd, or the runner up, I should say, 
as there was a deal done between Sid Harris and Adrian Royle once they were heads up. It was a particularly good deal for the shorter-stacked Adrian - £11,600 to £10,000, as the chips weren’t as even as the money split suggests. In any case Adrian Royle showed that a freeroll qualifier has every bit the chance to make the final two in a big tournament as everyone else, while the continually solid play of Sid Harris ended up winning him the match. Despite the deal, the final hand wasn’t a random chip shover – a turned Queen gave Sid the set of Queens, and Adrian Queens up – a legitimate end to a lengthy and hard-fought battle.
