| Game Type: | No Limit |
| Buy-in: | £1,500 |
| Prize Pool: | £144,000 |
| Entries: | 96 |
| Rebuys: | no |
The UK Open Main Event this time round saw 96 runners converging on Luton to play the £1,500 No Limit Hold’em event, and after the relentless sea of unknowns passing through the Rio, it was a delight to update on one room of players whose names and faces were familiar to us. Loitering around the bar while the final one-hand-turnover frenzy was taking place were Mickey Wernick, Julian Thew (left), Rob Yong, Simon Nowab, Iwan Jones, Barry Neville and Joe Grech, and that’s already nearly a tenth of the field.
Tikay, £750 victor a matter of hours previously, was playing too, and it’s as if the poker gods had decided that it was all too easy the last time, and gave him this lineup:
1. Sir Kendall
2. Joe Grech
3. Dinh Le
4. Julian YoYo Thew
5. Ali Mallu
6. David Courtney
7. Trevor Reardon
8. Jason King
9. Alan Mclean
But it all went horribly right, at least to start off with, as a succession of monstrous hands, like the straight flush against Thewy’s flush, and some flopped nuts gave Tikay some early chips and led him to muse on the vagaries of tournament poker – how one can (and has to) play better when given no hands than when the good cards just appear.
A better start, however, went to the ever-dangerous Ali Mallu. Eric Barker made it 600 to go, Tikay called with 66, but passed when Ali made it 3,600, and Eric moved in for 4,000 more. Ali seemed to have decided to commit himself with his, er, 83off, and called the rest, finding the best kind of hand against him he could have hoped for – AK. The whole board came out with four clubs on it, and the only club between the two players was Ali’s 3c. Ouch. Now chipped up and even more threatening, Ali sailed through Day One without ending up on the losing side of many of these confrontations, and made the final.
At the first break, there were only three players in better chip position than Mallu – Jim Reid (whose AJ had flopped trips and rivered quads against KK), Ash Hussain and Paul King (right). The latter two carried their early advantage all the way to the final too, while Jim Reid busted out on day One. So did Luton regular JP Kelly, whose all-in bluff on the river against his opponent’s two pair (he had been on the flush draw, with one turned pair) didn’t work out – but he looked pretty content over in the NL cash game after a while. Once he’d busted, tablemate Womble actually played a few hands, rising to 18k, saying, “The table has freed up now JP's left - I couldn't make any moves with JP and Chubbs behind me.”
Paul King was propelled up to the front of the leaders with an enormous hand against Richard Ashby and Burnley John – his flopped set of Sevens on a 7 x x board held up against the nut flush draw (Ashby) and pocket 
Queens (Burnley), knocking the two of them out and giving him a tidy 34k. This might be an apt point to comment on the speed at which this field consumed itself – I don’t think I’ve ever covered a Main Event (10,000 starting stack, hour clock) which shrank at the rate of this one. “All-in” was not a move used as sparingly as some poker books might suggest, and there were also some huge hands finding huger ones in inescapable situations. But mainly there was just a fearless, some might suggest reckless, scramble for the early lead. Leaving out those players who are Creators and Destroyers of large stacks on a regular basis (you know who you are), players like Sid Harris managed to accumulate in rather strange circumstances. His call with 7c 4c (yes, the mighty 7 4) against Matthew Ansell’s AA hit the Kc 9h 2c flop enough, he reckoned, to bet and call a raise, while the 7h turn clinched the all-in situation, and the Qc river gave Sid the chip lead.
Yoyoing for Britain was Barry Neville (from Sheffield) whose final hand (AA vs. KK) sent him into the second day nicely stacked, while slowly but steadily climbing were Tracey ‘Dingdell’ Dell, both Bambi (Bambos and Stasia Xanthos) and Dave Courtney. The latter wins my Climber of the Day prize, after suffering at the start of the comp (down to 2,500 at one point) playing half as crazily but twice as unfortunately as many of his counterparts. He’d kept his head despite the early setbacks and finished the day on nearly 50,000.
Trophy-winner Tikay was one of the later eliminations, and was, in his own words, “Mallu-d,” a phrase that might be entering the poker lexicon permanently. He’d raised with JJ after Ali limped under the gun, only to find a bit of a re-raise (to put him all in). He called; Ali’s A 10 spiked the Ace and Tikay had to settle for playing the £100 PLHE freezeout on Sunday instead of yet another final.
The pace on Day Two was no less frenetic, with the shorter stacks making their expected bids for double ups or early breakfasts (which we also managed to partake of, thanks to Helen). Despite a lucky early double thanks to his Ace spiking quads against Paul Alterman’s QQ, Womble just couldn’t amass enough chips to get to the final, nor could Outer Hebridean SportingOdds qualifier Edward Macleod (right). Tracey Dell, on the other hand, went from strength to strength, finally realising that Ali Mallu et al shouldn’t be allowed to keep raising un-re-raised. She quietly went from average chips to a comfortable 45,000 (moving in on Luke Patten with KQ at one point and getting a call with K10) and it looked like her £150 satellite might just turn into a proper cash after all…
Sid Harris disposed of Mark ‘Monkey’ Harris’ QQ with a wince-inducing four-flush with his Ajoff, but failed to make the final when Lalit Khajuria’s AK took out his pocket Tens. At this point it looked like Lalit would comfortably make the final, but even with 130k was in nowhere near as good shape as Ali Mallu, who’d somehow passed the 250k point while everyone else was struggling far below. He did lose a big chunk re-raising Dave Courtney’s AA preflop with Q8off, however, propelling Dave to 200k in the process. Still, Ali doesn’t strike me as the sort to be disheartened by the down swings caused by his style of play, and bullied the final table until his eventual elimination.
The final started with the chip positions as follows:
1. Arshad Hussain 44,500
2. Rumit Somaiya 36,500
3. Lalit Khajuria 50,000
4. Luke Patten 123,500
5. Ali Mallu 180,500
6. Dave Clark 76,000
7. Tracey Dell 127,000
8. Paul King 97,000
9. Dave Courtney 205,500
And the prize structure:
1st -- £50,400
2nd -- £28,800
3rd -- £19,400
4th -- £13,700
5th -- £10,100
6th -- £6,500
7th -- £5,800
8th -- £5,000
9th -- £4,300
The action at this point slowed to a walk (almost a crawl) which was somewhat surprising considering the lineup. In fact it was short stack Rumit who impressed the most during the early stages – after a race to double up he was involved in some of the most interesting hands of the evening. But first, they lost their 9th placer, Ash Hussain (left), who’d raised preflop with 5h 6h, and got a sneaky call from Luke Patten. The 7 5 2 flop saw Ash moving in, and Luke calling quickly with the Aces. Rumit doubled up off Ali Mallu, but just as quickly gave the chips to Tracey, who’d called his small blind preflop re-raise with 10 10 and found a non-hitting AK.
Ali Mallu wasn’t to go out without busting one more player – Lalit Khajuria. Lalit raised with AJ and found a re-raise which he called. Ali had AK and the Soko champ was out. Interestingly, the exact same hand match-up had occurred earlier, with Lalit raising on the button and passing to Ali’s big blind re-raise (they both showed their hands). Maybe he just thought “Nah, not this time,” and went for it.
After that it was all rather quiet, and we began to despair of having any news to report, and having to go watch Tikay, Snoopy, Kev and Tighty play the £100. But no, just as I was giving up hope, the table went bananas, with first Dave Clark, then Ali Mallu dropping in 7th and 6th place respectively. Ali’s exit was perhaps some sort of karmically influenced bad luck – his KK were cracked by Luke Patten’s suited A4. What was truly surprising about this double elimination, however, was that it guaranteed Paul King 5th spot, when only a matter of minutes before, he’d been knocked to just 7,000. I’d been hovering, like the press vulture I am, waiting for him to make his move, but instead two other players had managed to bust in front of him. He looked pretty happy on his way out, to be honest.
It was Rumit who fell in fourth spot, having heroically battled with the short stack for most of the final, he flopped the second nut flush on a 9 4 2 board, and was hoping to extract a double through from opponent Dave Courtney. Courtney held 9 10, and the turned 9 gave him trips and the impetus to call the all-in. But the river filled him up (a 10) and Rumit had to make do with £13,700.
At this point, discussion ensued, and a three-way chop for £30,000 agreed upon, leaving £8,600 extra, and the trophy, for first place. The chips were more even at this point than they were barely ten minutes later, as Luke Patten (left) surged into the lead. He knocked out Tracey in third spot when his 4 7 pipped her Q 4 for a higher straight on a 5 2 6 3 board. No escape possible, and this left an extremely successful Ms. Dell to collect her winnings.
Seconds later, it was all over, with Dave Courtney ‘racing’ his AQ against giant-stacked Luke Patten’s Ah 2h – the inclusion of the suits must give you a hint – Luke hit a flush and sent Dave Courtney out in second spot, crowning himself UK Open Champion in the process. I am running out of fingers upon which to count Luke Patten’s UK cashes – once again he’s made the final and taken down the top spot. Support for the blondeites was once again fantastic, with Tracey especially receiving well-deserved congratulations. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing her at more events soon.