Walsall GukPT: Day 1A - At A Glance

[snoopy1239]

Play of the Walsall Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in association with Blue Square Poker is due to commence at 4pm.

Aggarwal, Om
Aslam, Zahir
Arama, Jac
Arees, Tariq
Arnold, Michael
Ashby, Richard
Ayeglin, Olabode
Baine, Darren
Bates, A
Bebb, S
Beevers, Joe
Blake, Tim
Blood, T
Bolous, Michael
Bond, Kevin
Booth, Andrew
Bradshaw, Andy
Bright, Robert
Brown, Ray
Burberry, John
Burke, Geoff
Cadd, Graham
Callinan, Ben
Carter, Dan
Cartwright, Anthony
Cawley, Russ
Channing, Neil
Chapman, T
Chattha, Sunny
Cheetah, S
Choy-Sing, T
Clark, K
Colclough, Dave
Conroy, John
Craven, Thomas    
Dale, M
Davies, A
Davies, Alan
Debealox, Ronnie
Demaine, Paul
Demetriou, Maria
Denton, C
Donn, A
Donnelly, Brian
Donoghy, Ivan
Eastwood, S
Eccles, Stephan
Enley, D
Evans, Damien
Evans, P
Fletcher, Michael
Fletcher, T
Folkes, M
Ford, Zachary
Fronda, Ryan
Gale, John
Glanville, Chris
Gourley, Paul
Granstad, Henning
Grech, Joe
Greco, Micharl
Green, Stephen
Hales, A
Harris, Sidney
Harrison, S
Heath, M
Henson, Alan
Herbert, I
Herron, M
Hervert, R
Hibbert, J
Hikary, Ouday
Hilton, G
Howard, Greg
Howard, S
Huckle, Jon
Hudson, J
Hudson, Tom
Hussain, M Z
Huyton, C
Isackou, M
Iverson, Tor
Jackson, Paul
Jenkins, Nick
Johnson, A
Jonas, Des
Jones, D
Jones, Iwan
Jordan, Athena
Kalmar, Jonathan
Khayat, H
King, Ben
Lane, Barry
Larse, K
Law, Royce
Libertini, H
Little, Brian
Lynch, R
Mackay, A
Mah, A    Thursday
Mahrenholz, Karl
Marles, John
Mason, G
McArthur, Gordon
McCloskey, Mick
McCool, Mick
McCreedy, Tom
McHugh, R
McKenna, Brendan
Mckinley, M
McLean, Alan
McLean, M
Miles, A
Millar, J
Mobbs, David
Moore, M
Morgan, J
Muldoon, Michael
Mulla, Reyaaz
Mustanglu, Osman
Muthy, Kaysham    
Nelson, Ian    
O'Reilly, S    
Orlowski, M
Page, T
Parker, D
Parker, Paul
Passantino, B
Perry, Ian
Persuad, Nick
Peters, Niamh
Peters, Phil
Plant, Howard
Plummer, Paul
Prew, Richard
Probyn andrew
Purewal, J
Rao, G    Thursday
Rayner, Paul
Reardon, Trevor
Rokach, Lucy
Romanello, Roberto
Ruehle, J
Sami, Darshan
Sandhu, Satnam
Schwartz, Luke
Shaw, G
Shipley, John
Singleton, Peter
Slade, Nick
Smith, D
Somaiya, Rumit
Stevens, M
Suckling, G
Szisak, L
Tabatabzi, John
Tann, Willie
Taylor, Kerry
Thew, Julian
Tse, C
Tyler, Matt
Vaccarella, G
Vinncombe, A
Vinson, Ben
Walls, Brendon    
Walmsley, Steve
Watkiss, Rob
Wernick, Mickey
Wilkinson, Adam
Wong, K
Wong, R
Woodley, Ian
Workman, A        
Wyre, Ray         
Xanthos, Charalambous         
Yusif, Sami         
Zarandi, F

[Djinn]

***Delayed***

I have emerged from the traffic, which is as bad as the players harassing reception say it is, and joined Snoopy in the Press Area which is actually pleasingly close to the tourney room, and comes with a fridge, although no wifi, as yet.

Looking forward to covering the second of these events, good structure, attracting the interesting players, yatta yatta yatta.

Going for a wander and a cup of coffee.

[snoopy1239]

We've encountered our first exit of the day, and it's NOT Ariston.
"Why does it always happen to me?" cries Rumit Somaiya.
"Aces?" I ask.
"No, Kings. I flopped a set, Lucy (Rokach) moved in with a flush draw and hit. She called my pre-flop raise with A-6."

------------------------

Another early exit, this time Welshman Alan Davies.

With a Flop of , Philip Dorington called a 1.5k bet from Alan before re-raising the 2.5k bet on the Turn to 6.5k.

Alan moved all-in with his seemingly formidable and Philip made what was, by then, an obligatory call with .

Dorrington sighed and shrugged his shoulders before holding his hands up when the River dealt a cruel blow to the Welshman with a nasty .

-----------------------

Word on the grapevine is that another Welshman has departed, this time a celeb in Matthew Stevens.

[Djinn]

Here's a small list of those not even making it to the at-table stage due to the traffic:

S. Howard
Antony Mackay
Osman Mustanoglu
Giovanni Vaccarella

Reserves are now in in their place, according to Jon Raab - And Jules Adamson got in there just at the last possible second, along with Phil Dorrington and, er, two other guys.

[snoopy1239]

Ryan Fronda has doubled up with Aces, all the chips going in on a board (last bet was 3.7k by Ryan) with Mateyboy (I think it's Sudling)  holding A-Q. Blank on the River leaves Sudling down to the felt.

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Across the other side of the room Welsh lad has doubled through Richard Ashby after catching a nice Turn.

All the chips went in on a with Ouday's 4-5 crushing Richard's Pocket Queens, no Full House arriving on the River.

As a result, Ashby is down to approximately 2k.

[Djinn]

Early eliminations are few and far between - but action is definitely taking place on Lucy Rokach's table.  That first hand double upping flush draw hit hasn't stayed put in her stack, and she's back down to a smallish 6,900.  There is now someone else with a big early stack there, going to find his name if the trend continues.

Other stacks looking healthy:  Ray Brown  16,000 (glad he introduced himself right at the start)
Maria 'Chili' Demetriou  15,800

On Chili's table we have a certain Mick McCool, whom I didn't notice on first pass because he's totally quiet.  He's got one of those mini-movie players and appears to be engrossed in some kind of sword-fighting thing with Templars in it (I had a brief over-the-shoulder peek).  He's on 11k so must have played a hand, however.

[Djinn]

Some seat neighbours, adding interest to a few tough tables:

Paul Jackson + Willie Tann
Joe Grech + Mick McCloskey  (Julian and Mr. Burke on there too)
Dave Colclough + Roberto Romanello  (Torstein Iversen and Karl Mahrenholz on there too)
Ryan Fronda + John Gale  (Paul Vicary and Iwan Jones there too).  I arrived at that table when Ryan was saying something like, "Next time I'll be raising with that," to Iwan.  Looks like that could be interesting.

[Djinn]

any updates on nick slade and zippy plz

Nick was apparently down to just 4,800 after the first few hands but is now back to a safer 9k.  No detail yet as to what inspired this quick loss and recovery, although heard something about his betting (with some spanners) on an A-A-8-8-x board and getting called by "the nuts," which I think wasn't actually the nuts, but an Ace wary of the often-present Quads....

[Djinn]

I overhear someone telling Nik Persaud off for "calling off 500 on the river with King high," and am all prepared to report that he's started the tournament without his, er, characteristic focus...but no, he gets a chance to explain himself:  He's in the big blind with .  Under the gun flat calls preflop, and it folds round, including the small blind.  So, flop .  Nik bets out 100; call.
Turn:    Check-check
River:    Nik checks, limper bets 500.  Call.  Nik mucks (but tells everyone he had King high) when the limper shows the mighty .

Two things about this story - firstly, surely he should just show that King high to discourage later, more pricey bluff attempts (especially if he's going to tell everyone anyway)?

Secondly, I don't know about the sole preflop limper with T-6 being Under the Gun, for that would make it Paul Parker, legendary "I might play a hand when it gets heads up" player.  If it's true, we're going to have to start to disregard his own highly successful mythology...

[snoopy1239]

And after losing that big pot to Ouday Hickary, Richard Ashby has now bitten the dust.

---------------------

Zahir Aslam = 6.5k
Nick Slade = 12k

----------------------

Andy Johnson eliminated Ray Wyre with A-T vs J-J (a rather unfortunate four Fives hit the board) before winning a big pot off Michael Bolous, his 4k bet into a pot of 3k and a board of being enough to force the youngster into a reluctant fold.

----------------------

Sami Yusif is OUT. All-in preflop against Edwad Phipps, K-Q vs A-K, 2-6-J-A-Q board.

----------------------

Lukas Schwarz and Don Jones are also OUT.

[Djinn]

Big hand for Dave Colclough (although it could have been bigger, in a good or bad way) -

Torstein Iversen raises to 225 (something tells me this is not a rare occurrence) and he gets four callers, including Adam Wilkinson in the cutoff, small blind Roberto Romanello and big blind El Blondie.

Flop:  .  Check to Adam, who bets around 1k (I was momentarily distracted by a story from Karl which I will also relate momentarily).  Back around, passed by Roberto who said, "I should bet this," when he found himself first to act but didn't like it any more by this point, while Dave check-raised a substantial 3k when it got back to him.
Now heads up, and Adam thinks about it for a while, before pushing all-in, for around 8k more, a stack which just about covers Mr. C.  He understandably takes his time thinking about this one, and after a long couple of minutes of that, frankly, intimidating staring thing he does, he passes face up .

[Djinn]

Big fold for Ariston.

Flop =

Ariston bets 2k, leaving next door neighbour Stefan Eccles to move all-in for 10k (although Ariston only had 4.3k left).

Ariston somehow manages to fold Kings only for Eccles to reveal Sixes.

"I wouldn't normally fold but he went to Hollywood before he moved all-in," added Mr Cawley.

ARISTON LIVES!!!

Started with 0, his survival factor is now up to 3.

Another Kings fold, if you can believe what poker players say... this time from equally lairy Romanello.  He raised pre-flop and got the standard re-raise from Karl Mahrenholz.  The flop came Ten-high and Roberto bet out something like 1,600.  Raise from Karl to 4,000, and a reluctant pass.  No-one showed anything, and even when directly asked, by me, a respectable member of the press with a watertight secret-keeping record, Karl wouldn't say if he had Aces. 

[snoopy1239]

Ken Wong is OUT.

[Djinn]

OK, there's been a break, and a restart, and a scour for some Level Three Counts (this isn't everybody, but it's a start)...

Mickey Wernick      7,800
Peter Evans           9,300
Womble               12,100
Dan Carter            13,400
Mick McCool           8,900
Maria Demetriou     14,000
Des Jonas             10,600
S Sandhu             16,000
Jules Adamson       5,500  (Saying he's played worse than Phil Peters so far, but wins Chancer of the Day award for showing up tonight and sneaking in)
John Gale             22,000
Ryan Fronda          11,300
Skalie                    5,000
John Shipley          19,000
Matt Dale               5,000  (Said, at the bar, "I'm a calling station.  I can't stop calling.  I call every hand."  Rigorous self-analysis there...)
Trevor Reardon       8,500
Henning Granstad   4,050
Laura Szisak           13,600
Kunkuwap             18,000
Jac Arama               2,000
Lucy Rokach           21,000  (The chips are back, all of them)
Paul Jackson           5,200
Bambos                 2,300
Woodley               14,000
Neil Channing         15,800
Ariston                  3,125
Nick Slade              10,200
Niamh Peters          5,050
Scott O'Reilly         15,000   (Blonde watcher, will have to post if I get a picture of him up here in the next half hour)
Richard Redmond    10,000
Ronnie Debeaulox    8,275
Richard Prew          10,500
Paul Parker              4,350
Nik Persaud            17,200
Barney Boatman      14,200  (who's preflop re-raise of Nik's 475 to 1,325 prompted an instafold faceup of )
Sid Harris                7,525
Geoff Burke            6,000  (Having a time of the 'torrid' variety, as described by Shelley)
Mick McCloskey        6,525
Joe Grech               8,150
Julian Thew            5,125
Torstein Iversen      9,400
Karl Mahrenholz       10,500
Dave Colclough        7,000
Adam Wilkinson       16,000
Roberto Romanello   8,900

[snoopy1239]

Andy Johnson and Willie Tann are OUT.

-------------

Meanwhile...

Nieve Peters has doubled up after getting all-in with Queens vs the Nines of Richard Herbet.

Board = 6-8-7-J-3

-------------

and...

Ian Herbert is up to 22,300.

Ian, Paul Gourlay ad Mick Heron all saw a cheap A-5-7 Flop. Mick checked, so did Ian only for Paul to bet 1k.

With both players smooth calling, all players then checked the rag Turn.

3 on the River and Mick came out betting, 900. Ian made it 2.5k, Paul pushed all-in, Mick folded and Ian called.

Mick had 7-5, Paul had A-3 and Ian had A-5, leaving everybody with two pair, but it was the Welshman who picked up the pot.

----------------

AND...

On another table, Matt Tyler has doubled up to 10k with Queens vs. Deuces, all-in preflop.