blonde poker forum

So long-term blondeite Stu Fox opened his 2007 WSOP Account with a 2nd in the $5,000 NL, for close to a tidy half a million $$'s. Very nice. In 2005 he had three minor WSOP cashes for about $20,000, & in 2006 he was 2 for $280,000. Impressive stuff for one so inexperienced. Easy to forget, he's not been around long. He began playing Fessies in late 2004, & took a nice win in Luton, but signs that he was special appeared in the 2005 Midlands Medley Main Event, in the February.

A lot of rivers have flowed under the poker bridge since then. This was the first Event ever covered by Poker 425, but the same Team as Poker Week now, & one of the earliest ever blonde Live Updates, conducted, by the way, entirely by mobile 'phone texts! My texting fingers have barely recovered even now. I was texting to a guy called Simon Cook, (jbsc7769) who was in his villa in Greece, & he was uploading it from there, with a bit of help from a bloke in a caravan in a field in Leicestershire - Red-Dog. Bizarre. Simon, by the way, is a Serious Big Suit at PokerStars these days.

The Final was a blonde-studded affair indeed. Dave Colclough won it, & pocketed £70k+, although the very last hand was a cheek-clencher. Runner-up for £39k or so was a young lad who Thewy & I had almost had to force to play a proper Fessie Event, after he'd been burning up the tables in Gala Notts, in those days a real hotbed of up & coming hot-shots. Hello & welcome Greg Hill, aka Junior. 4th was our Foxy, exiting in a slighly odd all-iin pre jobbie with Mr Colclough, the latter with 9-9, Foxy with A-J, first card A, but the blonde one 4 flushed it. Big Trev Reardon, Henning Granstad & Lord Wernick also finalled. (The embarrassingly basic Live Update is here, but fascinating to see who was Posting in those days - http://blondepoker.com/forum/index.php?topic=70.0 ).

We watched Foxy in countless Finals subsequently, & he had the twin abilities to build mountainous stacks & donk them off in spectacular exit hands. In the 2005 Grosvenor Grand Prix Final, in which he finished 5th, he somehow CALLED all-in for his pretty decent stack with A-5, with the inevitable results. (It was against Pino Valentino or Mick Fletcher I seem to recall).

And so it went on - Foxy only had 1 gear - flat to the Boards.

But gradually, he learned to vary his game. He could sit quietly for 2 hours, & then suddenly explode with a torrent of Raises & Re-Raises.

In the 2005 Luton Christmas Cracker, I shared a table with him, & he told me he'd learned to slow down, pace himself. Then I watched agog, as he R'd every hand for 3 orbits! He Finalled, & what a Final that was, too. Lord Wernick & Pascal Perrault were neck & neck for the 2005 European Rankings Crown, with whoever finished higher almost certain to win the 2005 Title. Pascal eventually went in 5th, busted by Foxy. Buffenburger was 8th, & one "IrishDenis" O'Mahoney 6th I think, after suffering two seriously ugly beats, & one horrid Pass which went badly wrong. (But my 10% "saver" with Denis was still very handy, & to this day, he & I still swap at Luton. He thinks he'll get even eventually, the fool. Which reminds me, I owe the jovial Irishman £400, oops....). When they got 3 handed, with Wernick safe in the knowledge that the Title was sewn up, there was a 3 way chop - Wernick, Gavin Butler & Foxy, in that order, 1-2-3. Wernick had the big chip domination, but after Foxy had bust Pascal, & thus inadvertently guaranteed Wernick the Rankings Title, Wernick said he'd chop with Foxy if the chance arose, & he was good to his word.

Foxy continued to blaze a trail across Europe, still a helter-skelter Raising machine, & picked up $250,000 in some TV jobbie in Spain in 2006.

Then he took a break, bummed around America for a while, before returning to action quite recently. Unsponsored as ever, he has a trademark BaseBall Cap or Visor - never - until recently maybe - with a Poker Site Badge on it. He sits hunched at the table, shades on, cap pulled over his eyes. And Raises.

And so to last night. Those of us who watched the Live Stream had to pinch ourselves. Foxy would Raise these guys off the table. We all knew that - that's what he does, that's his thing. We waited. And waited. And waited. And he Passed. And Passed. And Passed. Backhand Passes, flick-with-the-index-finger Passes, the two-spinning-card Pass, the occasional Carloesque dwell, then a forehand Pass. And we are thinking - WHAT? Who IS this guy? Foxy don't do Pass. We thought we saw him Pass  Ad Jd UTG without a moments hesitation. We did, I'm sure.

But he does do Pass. And he did. In a lightning fast Final - 42 hands, from Start to Finish, Foxy played, prior to being Heads-Up - let's think - yes - one hand. ONE HAND. An Auto-Call in the BB against Billy Low-Stack. And get this - in the latter stages, Foxy, sat to the right of the Chip Daddy - alll of 7 years old by the look of him - gave up his Small Blind uncontested FIVE times - never even made up the SB. Oh, but obviously, once Heads Up, he had to play hands. Well, one, to be precise. So, he played two hands in total.

So what to make of the new-improved Stu? Well he's clearly added a tactical awareness. Here was a Crapshoot Final if ever there was one. The WSOP Suits have told us loud & often that they've doubled the starting stacks in 2007, bully for them. They musta whispered that they'd also chopped out several Levels. So there they were, in a $5k WSOP Final, & it was Crapshoot City. How does that work?

And Our Hero had it all worked out. The 7 year old was hitting cards like a grown-up (played well, too), the maniacs were getting it all-in with marginals, trying, arguably, to win the jewellery. And Mr Fox just Passed. And Passed. With elegance, with style, with aplomb. But Passed his way to $450,000.

It's good to Pass sometimes.

Arise Sir Stuart Fox, Knighted for Services to Passing.

top,,,TOP post Tikay!

hadn't heard this,
way to go foxy!

Well done that man

I agree that it's a top post. Crikey, Tikay, you must've been up most of the early hours to compose this...now that's dedication to the cause !

And one more time......Well played Foxxxxxyyy,

from Coxxxxxyyy.

I've always said that tight is the only way to play this game ;)


well done Foxy

One helluva post Mr K.

And again well done Foxy.

Geo

Great piece of composition Tony, have you ever thought of writing a few articles here and there ?  ;shame;

Correction.

I've just remembered - Stu played TWO Hands before getting Heads-Up.

The one I omitted was when the SB made up, & Stu pushed with 4-4.

His Table Image was so good by then, he coulda moved in with ONE card & not get a caller.

It was funny to listen to the two Commentators, who were really rather excellent in fact, but had no knowledge of Stu's game. And they are suggesting he can't play, & offering him advice........all the while, Foxy is laddering to almost half a million bucks. Without breaking sweat.

Funny old game, this poker lark.

Turns out Tight end is looser than Stu Fox - who'd have thought it?

Congratulations to Stuart on a fantastic cash, but lets not forget he also passed the bracelet.....

What a great post.   Not because of the elegant use of the English language but because I had forgotten Tikay owed me £400 what a start to Saturday morning. I'm sure Yo Yo  owes me a cup of tea and I have never forgiven Matt Tyler for eating all the nuts in Walsall.

Oh and well done Foxy

my hero!

congratulations Stu, many more to come


great stuff tikay.

When you see the push/fold conditions that bracelets in $5000 buy-in events are won under, you begin to realise that bracelets aren't all that.

Tight is the new loose.

LAG is so last year.

Well passed Stuart!  ;tightend;

What an absolute superb post. Well written informative and knowledgeable. My first encounter of Mr Fox was in St Kitts in late 2005. He used to drink a bit at the table on occasion which affected his play at times imo, nevertheless he had a consumate confidence in his game even then.

drinking is the new super system, keeps the players at the table guessing wtf your up to, got to be beer or wine, spirits is a no no.  Right I'm off for a guinness ;dewi;



nice post Tony

pure class.......foxy and TK

One drinks like a fish....the other is a.....

excellent right up tony .

wd foxy.

Great post Tikay...and congragulations to Foxy, a great performance

This is another of those "grounded in realism" posts I was talking about yesterday - often we hear of WSOP final tablists saying "Im going all out for the win, the money doesnt bother me" - well, unless you are either extremely rich or extremely stupid, or both, the jump between each place prize money can often be as much as 100K$ - I would like to think those sort of laddering possibilities would affect the judgement of most of poker players....

Quite right Andrew and it is very easy for me to be idealistic on the sidelines, but I accept my view might be completely different in the heat of battle, particularly for the sums at stake.  

That said, I remember seeing Dave C post about his regret at putting the cash ahead of the bracelet a couple of years ago.

Lovely piece btw Tony and huge respect to Stuart.

Yeah, that 8 9 sooted hand when Stu was going to push,,, in the end he folded. THAT fold was worth $200k!!

difference is dave made a deal that let his oppo off the hook
stu didnt have anyone on any hook and basically really didnt have any chances to push

Hey Tony thats a great write up,almost had a tear in my eye looool. Ive got a hang over from last night we nailed it in the vodo bar last night. Iwan told me he watched the final on the net and the guys were nailing me about playing tight, I did all the jiggy stuff to get in the final and dont care what some random guy thinks about how i play poker. I started the final with 700k and about 40 hands later im heads up with 500k how can you slate that ?. I played solid which fooled them all as they all saw me the night before playing most pots. Again thanks for the write up Tony and thanks for support and well dones guys, last night..... I dont want money or respect all I want is friends thats was a quote from foxtra aka SEATibiza TDI sport ;D

You'rre a bloody star Stuart,  Enjoy the rest of the series pal.

Well done ..great result ......So chuffed for you..xxx

Good post by a level headed poker player with his feet firmly on the ground. Congrats again Stu and I hope you have all the success you deserve.

congrats stuart enjoy it  :cheers:

Here is a story about utter bureaucracy.  I arrived at the Rio yesterday for the first time ever with my Uncle Peter, I had lost him in about 30 secs so wandered around aimlesly until i saw on a screen that 4 were left in the 5k comp with Stuart being one of them.  So more wandering around brought me to an curtained off section where the final was being played. I went round the back and used all my charm with the 2 big butch guards to let me in and watch because was mate was in there.  They said "NO miss, you have to walk in with a player!"  So clutching at straws i said "well can you go get Stuart off the table and i'll walk in with him!"  Ever the optimist me lol.  So they stared blankly at me and tried to shue me away.  Then they told me anyway it was only 2 players left.  So now begging further, I asked if I could just move the curtain one inch so i could at least see if Stuart was HU.  They booted me out and told me never to go in that area again!!!!!

How cruel can people be??  My charms have deserted me.

Well bloody done Mr Fox - Respect!

Maria if you'd worn the yellow tartan skirt they'd have let you sit on the dealers lap to watch :)

 rotflmfao rotflmfao  Yeah thanks for that Andrew.  On reflection, I shoud have just nipped off to a local doctors and got implants and then gone to a make up artist for a fake face and it might have worked then.  U know what? I went to buy cigarettes just now and got asked for ID!!! LOL  Still got fake youth!!

I got asked for ID last year a few times when ordering a bottle of Lager!!

Great!! Keep shattering my illusions  :o

I got asked for ID there in 2005, believe it or not, Thewy is my witness  ::)

Me too.

Thats because you were trying to get on the Ring and Ride