| Buy-in: | £1,000 |
| Prize Pool: | £360,000 |
| Entries: | 360 |
Those who had reserved judgement on the first £1,000 event of the new Grosvenor UK Poker Tour seem to have found in favour of the well-structured four-day tournament, and another, larger field turned up to contribute to the healthy prize pool at the Walsall event. 360 runners played pretty much non-stop over the four days allocated to the event, pushing the cardroom (dwarfed by the TV table’s set at the end) and staff (who dealt with it, as it were, admirably) to their limits. Players from London and beyond mingled with the plentiful regulars, while even a few Scandinavians (not including Dusk Til Dawn’s Henning Granstad) were starting to trickle in to the mix. I wonder if it will get to the point where hordes of them will descend on Plymouth, putting British players properly to the test.
Like at the EPT, there are now two Day Ones at all Tour events. Like at the EPT, the stacks are large (10k in chips), the clock long (an hour), and the tournament structured like a ‘proper’ No Limit Hold’em tournament, complete with running antes in the later stages. Unlike at the EPT, players weren’t used to this. By the stage at which the antes were 3,000/6,000 and the blinds 600 mutters of ‘crapshoot’ were beginning to emerge, as was a pattern in the amount of play people felt they were getting at different stages in the comp. Simply: beginning= lots, early middle= lots, late middle= not enough, late= lots.
A good debate about this kicked off on our Live Update of the tournament, with BlueSquare’s overseer Jonathan Raab taking into account the players’ views, which have determined many of the decisions made concerning the tournaments, a good sign, surely, for the future of high buy-in events organised in the UK. Experienced players like Neil ‘Bad Beat’ Channing (right), Tom ‘RED-DOG’ McCready and Keith ‘The Camel’ Hawkins put forward their views on the matter, with the bottom line being that a compromise had to be made between playability and the fact that regular people can’t go taking a week off work to play cards. The unavoidable fact remained, however, that different players (perhaps slightly simplistically, but easily separated into the ‘loose aggressives’ and the ‘rocks’) want different things from their tournaments. James ‘Flushy’ Dempsey might have overstated the opinion of the former when he came in to start Day One B and saw the clock still paused on 600/1,200, remarking, “Great, blinds start at six-twelve – straight to the pushing stage!” but the antes definitely upset the latter type, as they adversely affect the style of play which involves waiting the most.
The amount by which a running ante changes one’s ability to sit tight without playing hands is not immediately obvious, and this, I think, is the real reason why the comp, so widely lauded for being full of Play, suddenly became an all-in fest during Day Two. We were losing a player every two minutes, complaints were growing louder, stacks were looking like they’d only survive a few orbits - the reason was not something intrinsically wrong with the structure, but the fact that players took longer to adapt to the new style than even they might have anticipated, thereby causing a sudden mass realisation that they’d left it too long to make their move, and a lemming-like leap for the Double-Up cliff.
The fact that once the chip consolidation had occurred (the period covering the last couple of tables, and the final) play slowed right down again proves this point. Also, the last four or five tables had an unusually high number of aggressive players, which both made for great watching, and a quick decimation of the ranks. In fact, so much action occurred on Day Two that I’m going to overlook the start days this once, save to remark on a first hand exit – that of Rumit Somaiya (left), whose Kings were eliminated by Lucy Rokach’s flush draw (which hit, of course) to send him to the rail after two minutes of play. This is the second time the guy’s luck has failed right at the start, and Snoopy is trying, rather ungenerously, to get the nickname ‘One Hand Rumit’ to stick.
Day Two saw the average chips in the mid twenties, quickly rising to the mid thirties as the traditional second day early action saw us losing a player a minute at one point. Chip leader Chris Bruce stayed out of the madness for a while, but played Kings (fair enough) against all-in Shanti Samarant’s offsuit AK which nevertheless four-flushed to dent his 100k stack. Kings stayed good for chip fluctuator Nik Persaud, who knocked out short stacked Maria ‘Chili’ Demetriou with them after a couple of levels. She’d managed to double qualify online for the Walsall leg, however, and so left secure in the knowledge that she’s playing the next one. As if to prove that Online Qualifier is not by any means a negative title, both of the top spots ended up going to them…but that’s getting ahead of myself.
Outdraws saw off D. Sami and Rory McHugh (who was taken out by a sheepish Nick Slade’s K-T vs A-K all in preflop, with the straight coming on the river to double Nick up) while Nik Hicks (who’d started on the same table as the behoodied Norwegian BA Kildalen (right) who paid him the high compliment of saying he played, “Like a Scandie”) raced himself out with T-T against A-J, commenting that there wasn’t a whole bunch of flop play going on anywhere in the casino. Looking at the new chip counts showed who’d been benefiting from this – Chris Bruce hadn’t drifted down from his 100k spot, but players like Paul King, Ouday Hickary and Roberto Romanello had shot upwards to meet him in that area. Paul King especially looked to have won Climber of the Day hands down, but missed the Final after a turbulent time of it.
Meanwhile there were still three Hendon Mobsters in – Ross and Barney Boatman and Joe Beevers. Barney got involved in some interesting hands, one of which was against James Dempsey, and he proved that he could chat it up with the best of them, getting over a third of Flushy’s hard earned stack in the process. While Day One saw James in the chip lead (with his 5% Soxy in second – “Happy Days!”) Day Two just didn’t go as well and while James was out in the middle of it, it looked like Chris Sokrati (after getting all of neighbour Roberto Romanello’s stack earlier) was the bubble. Or one before. Great confusion ensued as a miscount of the remaining players led to some bubble-deal discussion when they’d already reached 27, and the money, which was spread like so:
1 £111,600
2 £59,400
3 £39,600
4 £28,800
5 £21,600
6 £18,000
7 £14,400
8 £10,800
9 £7,200
10 £5,400
11 £3,600
12-15 £2,880
16-21 £2,520
22-27 £2,160
With three tables left, it was interesting to see who’d looked like they were always heading upwards in chips and who’d come back from the brink and now had their sights set on the bigger prizes. Chris Bruce (left), Jerome Bradpiece, Ganesh Rao and Raj Patel go in the former category, while super shortstacked Billy Ngo (who’d had KK vs. AA take most of his chips earlier) and Alan Mclean go in the latter. Dan Carter (comfortably stacked) should have been in the lead (although there is no ‘should’ in No Limit Hold’em really) since a sneaky call/re-raise all in got his decent stack in a threeway all in coup with Kings against Paul King’s 9-9 and Alan Mclean’s 2-2. A spiked Deuce left Alan with a very healthy stack indeed, making tablemates Billy, John Conroy and Ross Boatman feel like pressure may well be put upon them at any moment. It probably didn’t lighten that pressure when Jerome Bradpiece got his whole stack in with A-A after re-raising Alan preflop, getting a call from his 3-3 and then spiking the Ace and getting the rest in on the flop for good measure.
John Conroy was, however, just biding his time. As larger stacks self-destructed (Alan Mclean finished in 20th, Jac Arama just before) he waited patiently, fooling his table and some of the updaters into classifying him as a rock, before finding an open spot in the small blind and shoving with J-9 offsuit. He found Chris Bruce on the big blind with A-K, however, but spiked a Nine to double him up and put the day One leader even further behind chip monsters Jerome and Shaf. Now in a position to need a double up himself, he did so with Threes against Billy Ngo’s A-Q and despite giving the rubdown at that point went on to suffer probably the worst beat of the comp at the hands of The Kid. On the Final Bubble (having kept Dan Carter alive with his A-9 against Dan’s Q-Q), he then found Kings against Billy’s Queens, and the hand which could have sent him on TV instead gave him 9th place, which he took very well as an excited Billy behaved with an equal lack of decorum. Nothing, however, compared to Shaf when he got going…
The final:
Seat 1: Joe Beevers 135,000
Seat 2: Des Jonas 506,000
Seat 3: Peter Evans 448,000
Seat 4: M. Shafiq 203,000
Seat 5: John Conroy 256,000
Seat 6: Dan Carter 440,000
Seat 7: Ganesh Rao 181,000
Seat 8: Billy Ngo 548,000
Seat 9: Jerome Bradpiece 918,400
The final table line-up was a great mix of old school (Peter ‘The Bandit’ Evans - right) and the Vegas unready (19 year old Dan Carter), locals (Shaf; Des Jonas) and visitors (Joe Beevers and Jerome Bradpiece). Chip leader Jerome, who’d had a bet on himself at something like 250 to 1, stayed that way for the better part of ten hours, although there were some big hands not involving the wry Londoner. Ganesh Rao took a shot at eliminating Joe Beevers with K-Q, but Beevers’ A-T held up and Ganesh was the first out from the final. When Jerome showed down Aces a few hands later against all-in John Conroy, we thought we’d lost another, but John had Aces too. You’d think the deck knew there were cameras on it. Similarly, when Joe got it all in with A-3 against Jerome’s 7-8c the 3-8-5 board looked like it could be fatal, but a Three on the turn and another on the river brought Quads to the Final and another hand which I guarantee gets featured.
Peter Evans had dwindled in chips somewhat, and was now outstacked by Billy Ngo. It wasn’t to stay that way, however – after re-raising Billy preflop, Peter called his all in on a 7-7-9 board with pocket Eights, which remained ahead of Billy’s pocket Fives. Again looking dangerously short, the Kid with nine lives came back once more, hitting a rivered flush with his suited A-Q against Joe Beevers’ K-K. The fact that it was the Ks on the river could have made the loss more poignant for Joe, considering that he would have been in pretty good shape if he’d won that hand, especially as his A-K against risky-calling John Conroy’s J-K had put him back in the running moments before. As it turned out, John finished 8th and Joe right behind him, leaving the remaining six all lagging behind Jerome, who proved his consistency both at the final and in general with his play through all three days.
The hand which pretty much ended popular local Des ‘Bling Bling’ Jonas’ (left) tournament saw Dan Carter making a well-timed squeeze play on an A-J-K-5 rainbow board, pushing off Jerome and Des, who showed his laydown of J-5, and was shown an offsuit 9 in return. That bluff secured Dan (who’d been low stacked a couple of times, saved at one point by the mighty 5-7 which cracked Hendon Mobster Joe Beevers’ A-A) fourth place, £28,800 and presumably a hug from his sponsor. Des finished 5th however, and his leaving the final saw a definite decrease in spectator numbers as everyone presumably went to congratulate him and see if he’d buy them a drink.
Comeback King Billy Ngo met his chat match on the Final in the form of Mohammed ‘Shaf’ Shafiq. The low intensity continual babble from Billy which either amused or annoyed his tablemates earlier in the tournament just couldn’t compete with Shaf’s louder, ruder, more confident and generally unstoppable monologue. Totally uncowed by the idea that what he was saying was being recorded and may end up broadcast (although even Channel 4 have their limits) Shaf ran up a healthy eleven different swear-words and walked a fine line between the offensive and frankly megalomaniacal. While he’s the reason, for me as a player, that ipods were invented, I couldn’t help thinking while watching the action via a live feed to the press room, that he made the seven hour final go by more quickly.
The more successful Shaf was, the less control he seemed to have over that switch between brain and mouth – when he knocked Peter Evans down to the felt with A-K all in against The Bandit’s Q-Q we sure heard about it, and when Peter finished 6th he predicted, “Couple more like that and it’s all over. Come on you f***ers, let’s see if you can re-raise me out this time!” Eventually, he was eliminated in 3rd place after attempting to forge a deal which the other players saw (rightly) as unfavourable. Jerome made a crucial call with Tens, beating Shaf’s A-Q and securing himself a near two to one chip lead. Again, with no deal, the heads up between the two BlueSquare qualifiers 
Jerome Bradpiece and Billy Ngo was brief but entertaining. Relieved, perhaps, by the removal of Shaf, they began to chat once more, and a good natured second place was Billy’s after Jerome called his all-in with A-J, dominating the Kid’s A-8 and taking another title back to London.
Jerome proved that his success in the Amsterdam Masterclassics wasn’t a one off with his steady and confident performance in the GUKPT Walsall, plus his generous tip to the Valets left the casino sure that the £111,600 first prize (plus BlueSquare’s £10k added and seat in the Final) had gone to a nice guy. Billy the Kid tried to get us press a drink, but we were already half out the door after four 12 hour minimum days. The tour looks to have struck a balance between realistic length of tournament and playability which is attracting talented young players and experienced pros alike, and I look forward to covering the next one.