You can babble on about winning a top European event, or retell dreams of the bright lights of Vegas, but when it comes down to it, can you really beat the charisma, character, and pure vigour of our home-grown comps?
Last week saw the re-emergence of another Luton classic, the Grosvenor Grand Challenge. In the past, Luton has provided us with some of the best home-grown festivals around, and this week was to prove no exception. The big lure for the sharks was of course the £1000 No Limit Hold-Em Freezout.
147 players sat down for the weekend's event. Famous faces included Vicky Coren, Mike Magee, and former Eastender Michael 'Don't call me Beppe' Greco. Among them were hoards of Blondeites fully braced for action. To name just a few, Wardonkey, TightEnd, The Sheep, and nick.w had all made the tip.
As early exits saw Barry Neville, Rob Yong, and James Dempsey hit the rail, it was Dave Rykin who had obtained the chip lead. However, hot on his heels was JP 'Wonderkid' Kelly, intent on building upon his huge successes of the previous year.
With the cardroom set to close at 4am, it was inevitable that a fair few were going to be heading for Day 2. In fact, 52 players were due to return, but, with only 18 being paid, some may have thought twice about making the trip.
When the day's play eventually reached a final, it was Eric Hansen who held all the chips with an enormous stack of 383k. A few eliminations later, and the subject of deals arose. After a somewhat heated discussion and a few raised voices, a 5-way deal was struck and the 140k was spread across the remaining players. To protect the privacy of the 5 competitors involved, the financial details of the split were not made public.
As always, the show must go on and an official victor had to be announced. The final placings were as follows:
Winner -- MOHAMMED KAZI
2nd -- Robert Nysted
3rd -- Erik Hansen
4th -- Sergio Capel
5th -- Paul Parker
So Mohammed Kazi is the Grand Challenge Champion and takes home the trophy. Luton provided us with another top class comp, but the topic of deals, pay-out structure, and starting times will perhaps plague what was otherwise a great week for UK poker.
For more details of the happenings of this event and a full discussion on deal-making, please check out our live update section on the forum.