| Game Type: | Pot Limit |
| Buy-in: | £100 |
Tonight was the opening event in this years Midlands Medley, one of several Festivals held at the Grosvenor Casino in Walsall every year, & invariably well-attended. And despite appalling weather, some 135 punters showed up for the Festival curtain-raiser.
As usual, we were treated to a free pre-comp buffet by Grosvenor Walsall - full English breakfast, luverly!
Danny, who seemed to be running the show, & very well too, did his best to get a prompt start by posting the seat draw at 8.20, & the comp got under way almost bang on time, in marked contrast to last year - well done Danny!
An Interesting Line-Up
Not overloaded with quality, but very good for a £100-er. El Blondie had arrived at Heathrow at 4pm, just back from the USA.
Paul "actionjack" Jackson - apparently the greatest living person online ever ever according to many posters on The Hendon Mob.
Fari Badmansour - what a lovely man he is, Ash Pervaiz, Micky Wernick, Peter The Bandit Evans, Frankie Knight, Pete "The Undertaker" Seager, D Jonas, Mr & Mrs Peters, & Pete "The Kangaroo" (the what?) Singleton represented a strong local entry. Not forgetting - how could we - the Anals, represented by Ginger, Crazy & Golden.
The East Midlands had Julian Yoyo Thew & Rumit Somaiya.
Andy Norman & Graham Pound had traveled up from the posher parts down south, & Jim Reid from Bedfordshire.
Blackpool, Salford & the North East had Ip Mann, Shaf, Alan McLean, Osman "Big Oz" Mustanoglu, Ali Maloo, George Geary & Steve Johnson on hand.
Jeff Burke & Viv Williams were flying the flag for Wales.
Intriguingly, the Scandinavians had what seemed a coach load there, many of them straight from Deauville. Scandies in Walsall - whatever next? Not a second 11 either. Henning Granstad, winner of the World Speed Poker Championship in Tallin last August, & sporting his winners bracelet. And WPT Palm Beach runner-up (worth a third of a million US), & recent winner in Copenhagen, Daniel Larsson. This guy makes Ali Mallu look like a rock, believe me. And a dozen more whose names I could not possibly spell.
Feature Table.
Well they don't have such a thing in Walsall but if they did, table 12 had to be the one. ElBlondie had seat 5, Thewy in seat 6, & Larsson is seat 8. In a £100 rebuy, that table could sure get expensive.
Highlights
Hard to catch much of what was happening, as I was pinned to my seat with no room to wander at will. But Ash Pervaiz had to consider himself unlucky when he clashed with Larsson, "The Cash" holding AA, & Larsson 88. A flop of 4-6-7 gave Larsson some extra outs, & he duly caught the 5 for an unlikely straight.
El Blondie exited earlyish, presumably grateful for an early night after his long journey.
Thewy was in true Yoyo form, arriving at my table 4 tables from home with 13k, & very quickly running it up to 30k. But he made a stand against KK with 8-4 - well, it was his BB - & he caught what he thought was a good flop of 9-T-J, giving him, so he thought, an up & down, but of course the Q was no good to him, & in any event, Mr KK was not gonna be bullied off his KK, & all the chips went in. No improvement came for the William Hill guy, so that was him on his bike.
Nottingham Mick clashed big style with Alan McLean in what seemed like a "who's got the biggest willy" contest, both of them somehow getting their entire 30k+ stack in pre-flop with Nick's AQ a mile behind Alan's AK, so it was goodnight Nick.
Luton winner Jonas survived a horrendous scare, when he got involved in a battle of the blinds with anon, again all the chips in pre-flop, Jonas showing AQ, & anon 6-5. 6-5 off, that is...... A flop of J-6-5 had Jonas reaching for his coat & halfway to the car park before the turn & river came runner runner AQ to ensure justice was done.
Tikay somehow managed 3 rebuys in the first 20 minutes, but then his luck changed, & he reached the freeze with 15k, & remained above average for the next 6 hours, including a nice spell when he busted Larsson in 2 consecutive hands, Larsson at it on both occasions. In the first of these, Tikay had made a button R, Larsson in the SB just called, & I knew from running into him in Stockholm last year that his tactic was gonna be to bet the flop & push me off, but TT on a 9 high flop gave me the ammo to fire back & I was in great shape now. But the wheels came off in the last hour, &
blinded down to 17k, & a Tuesday afternoon start as lowish stack looming, I played A-T strongly & got called by K-J, he caught his K, & that was that, another bubble finish for tikay, 21st & one off the money. But at least I got a "Blue Square Bubble Envelope".
Cant tell you any more, 'cos that was the end of play for the night.
The overnight chip counts are on our forum.
As usual, we were treated to a free pre-comp buffet by Grosvenor Walsall - full English breakfast, luverly!
Danny, who seemed to be running the show, & very well too, did his best to get a prompt start by posting the seat draw at 8.20, & the comp got under way almost bang on time, in marked contrast to last year - well done Danny!
An Interesting Line-Up
Not overloaded with quality, but very good for a £100-er. El Blondie had arrived at Heathrow at 4pm, just back from the USA.
Paul "actionjack" Jackson - apparently the greatest living person online ever ever according to many posters on The Hendon Mob.
Fari Badmansour - what a lovely man he is, Ash Pervaiz, Micky Wernick, Peter The Bandit Evans, Frankie Knight, Pete "The Undertaker" Seager, D Jonas, Mr & Mrs Peters, & Pete "The Kangaroo" (the what?) Singleton represented a strong local entry. Not forgetting - how could we - the Anals, represented by Ginger, Crazy & Golden.
The East Midlands had Julian Yoyo Thew & Rumit Somaiya.
Andy Norman & Graham Pound had traveled up from the posher parts down south, & Jim Reid from Bedfordshire.
Blackpool, Salford & the North East had Ip Mann, Shaf, Alan McLean, Osman "Big Oz" Mustanoglu, Ali Maloo, George Geary & Steve Johnson on hand.
Jeff Burke & Viv Williams were flying the flag for Wales.
Intriguingly, the Scandinavians had what seemed a coach load there, many of them straight from Deauville. Scandies in Walsall - whatever next? Not a second 11 either. Henning Granstad, winner of the World Speed Poker Championship in Tallin last August, & sporting his winners bracelet. And WPT Palm Beach runner-up (worth a third of a million US), & recent winner in Copenhagen, Daniel Larsson. This guy makes Ali Mallu look like a rock, believe me. And a dozen more whose names I could not possibly spell.
Feature Table.
Well they don't have such a thing in Walsall but if they did, table 12 had to be the one. ElBlondie had seat 5, Thewy in seat 6, & Larsson is seat 8. In a £100 rebuy, that table could sure get expensive.
Highlights
Hard to catch much of what was happening, as I was pinned to my seat with no room to wander at will. But Ash Pervaiz had to consider himself unlucky when he clashed with Larsson, "The Cash" holding AA, & Larsson 88. A flop of 4-6-7 gave Larsson some extra outs, & he duly caught the 5 for an unlikely straight.
El Blondie exited earlyish, presumably grateful for an early night after his long journey.
Thewy was in true Yoyo form, arriving at my table 4 tables from home with 13k, & very quickly running it up to 30k. But he made a stand against KK with 8-4 - well, it was his BB - & he caught what he thought was a good flop of 9-T-J, giving him, so he thought, an up & down, but of course the Q was no good to him, & in any event, Mr KK was not gonna be bullied off his KK, & all the chips went in. No improvement came for the William Hill guy, so that was him on his bike.
Nottingham Mick clashed big style with Alan McLean in what seemed like a "who's got the biggest willy" contest, both of them somehow getting their entire 30k+ stack in pre-flop with Nick's AQ a mile behind Alan's AK, so it was goodnight Nick.
Luton winner Jonas survived a horrendous scare, when he got involved in a battle of the blinds with anon, again all the chips in pre-flop, Jonas showing AQ, & anon 6-5. 6-5 off, that is...... A flop of J-6-5 had Jonas reaching for his coat & halfway to the car park before the turn & river came runner runner AQ to ensure justice was done.
Tikay somehow managed 3 rebuys in the first 20 minutes, but then his luck changed, & he reached the freeze with 15k, & remained above average for the next 6 hours, including a nice spell when he busted Larsson in 2 consecutive hands, Larsson at it on both occasions. In the first of these, Tikay had made a button R, Larsson in the SB just called, & I knew from running into him in Stockholm last year that his tactic was gonna be to bet the flop & push me off, but TT on a 9 high flop gave me the ammo to fire back & I was in great shape now. But the wheels came off in the last hour, &
blinded down to 17k, & a Tuesday afternoon start as lowish stack looming, I played A-T strongly & got called by K-J, he caught his K, & that was that, another bubble finish for tikay, 21st & one off the money. But at least I got a "Blue Square Bubble Envelope".
Cant tell you any more, 'cos that was the end of play for the night.
The overnight chip counts are on our forum.