2009 Update ** WSOP 2009 PLH $1500 Bracelet winner ****
JP has come a long way since first arriving in Luton’s Grosvenor Casino in late 2004 for Tuesday night £10 rookie competitions. It was soon obvious that even then, at the age of 18, this was someone with a natural talent for poker. Indeed, no lesser authority than The Camel described JP after he won his first ranking event as “one of the best young players he has seen for a long long time”
In 2005 JP has won tournaments at each of the following festivals
Walsall’s Midlands Medley in January, his first ranking event
Luton’s Springfest in April, beating Dave Colclough heads up
Brighton’s Harbour Lights in October
And now, Blackpool’s Northern Lights in November
As a consequence he is now in the top 20 of the 2005 www.williamhillpoker.com European Poker Rankings.
In addition JP was selected as one of the participants of Blue Square’s innovative and successful Unusual Suspects competition, where he is currently well placed in the second round, much to the delight of a certain dromedary like gentleman who has partaken of the generous prices on offer from the sponsors on JP’s success in this competition.
Perhaps his greatest achievement throughout this time has been convincing his Mum to allow him to repeatedly stay up way past his bedtime, and to withstand with good humour Tikay’s constant jibes in this regard. Still, tournament winnings of approaching £100,000 in under a year probably help keeping the smile on his face!
Still only 19, in poker terms the sky really is the limit for JP. Sitting in small tournaments in provincial UK casinos this July you could tell how keen he was to test himself against the best, lamenting that he was still two years away from being able to play in the WSOP. Strangely, JP says his favourite starting hand is 74 offsuit, an omen there perhaps that one day he might follow in the footsteps of an initial BHOF inductee.
There is not much doubt that the big events are his forte. Blessed with all the moves and vitally a seemingly infallible instinct as to when to make them he still displays a thorough grounding in poker fundamentals as his posts on Blonde in hand analysis threads prove. He seems to raise his game each time he meets a new challenge.
At the age of 19, the best is still yet to come, unfortunately for the rest of you...