Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[77dave]

Have you noticed that young Vinny acts more like you each and everyday

(apart from diet)

[tikay]

A bit of balance to those Post Counts.

"skysports.com" had, I gather, some 17 million unique users in January, & one billion page impressions.

On Transfer Deadline day, there were 650,000 uniques.

Buck up, Tighty, you need to do better.

[tikay]

Have you noticed that young Vinny acts more like you each and everyday

(apart from diet)

Vinni as in Celtic Vinni? No, I had not, in fact. I assume you jest......

I saw him briefly last night. The man carries too much pain. If he'd not suffered enough already, now his Mum is badly.

He's a lump of lard, of course, but I can't imagine him any other way - it suits him. Can you imagine Vinni if he looked like, say, chompy? All wrong, that.

Taling of "vinni", I saw the other vnini on Friday, in G-Manchester, on Day 1b of the GUKPT, though he must have busted out pdq, as I never once saw him after the Tourney started.

[GreekStein]

Taling of "vinni", I saw the other vnini on Friday, in G-Manchester, on Day 1b of the GUKPT, though he must have busted out pdq, as I never once saw him after the Tourney started.

Hope Barry's keeping well. Always had a good laugh with him.

Maybe he saw someone there who he felt was gonna have a dig at him in some way or another and just didn't fancy the chances of getting seated with them.

[tikay]

Saw so many old friends at Manchester GUKPT, in fact, Maureen I already mentioned, & Raaby rung me up & we chattted for 20 minutes about his new project entitled, would you believe, "Eureka". I kid you not.

It's some interesting project, & like all 'Stars projects, it'll go down an absolute storm.

The GUKPT misses him, of course, though it'll be OK, it's just fashionable to knock it at the mo in favour of it's new Fessie brother, UKIPT, which is all the rage right now. 'Stars tick every box.

I wish Raaby nothing but well, he's been an awesome influence on the domestic Live Poker scene.

[77dave]

Made a post in Vinnys diary about Diouf joining Rangers. Expecting a negative comment yet he manages to put a positive spin on it.

Class fella always sees the positive outlook on things. The mods have had a lot of stick down the years on here, what a great addition to the mods team Vinny has been.

Obv would never post this in his diary.

[mondatoo]

Saw so many old friends at Manchester GUKPT, in fact, Maureen I already mentioned, & Raaby rung me up & we chattted for 20 minutes about his new project entitled, would you believe, "Eureka". I kid you not.

It's some interesting project, & like all 'Stars projects, it'll go down an absolute storm.

The GUKPT misses him, of course, though it'll be OK, it's just fashionable to knock it at the mo in favour of it's new Fessie brother, UKIPT, which is all the rage right now. 'Stars tick every box.

I wish Raaby nothing but well, he's been an awesome influence on the domestic Live Poker scene.

What did you think of the way they dealt with alternates and how they changed the way alternates entered the tournament on Day 1b compared to Day 1a ?

[tikay]

Jen Mason was another surprise & very welcome face at Manchester GUKPT, not seen her in an age. She invited me to a sort of dinner affair at her place with her & Rod, snoops, Dana, Ben (her Brother), & her Mum.

Ben used to be a blonde many years ago. Now? He learned Chinese (Mandarin/Mandai?) & has a job in the Hilton Hotel in China somewhere. He's as gifted & bright as her. I don't know too many British (or in his case American?) folks who can master Chinese language. Fair play to him. I can't even master French or German.

Jen was there to write the Grosvenor Press Release, so we shared Updating Tables, she has the most amazing ability to brighten the day. She's been quite unwell for a while, with a crazy daft but bad allergy, but seems fully recovered & full of zing & zip again.

Final Table Press Releases are usually as dull as dishwater, but have to be written for PR & SEO purposes.

She fiffed & faffed with her article, &, as usual, it came out absolutely sparkling, full of clever wordsmithing. She's not far shy of a genius.

[celtic]

I hate trains & I hate roads with nice views and I hate starbucks.

Just saying...

[tikay]

Here's Jen's GUKPT Manchester Grosvenor piece.

Read it slowly to appreciate just how good it is.

McAdams Bests Dan-gerous Final Table to Win £58,100 and GUKPT Manchester Title

Peter McAdams has beaten a field of 207 at Manchester’s G Casino to become the first GUKPT champion of 2011 and take down the top prize of £58,100.  Among the tough competitors gracing the felt over four days of unremitting poker action were bracelet-winners Steve Jelinek and Lawrence Gosney, EPT champion Will Fry, double GUKPT trophy-hoister Priyan de Mel and several others well qualified in the live arena such as Marty Smyth, Julian Gardner, Karl Mahrenholz and Jeff Kimber.

The final featured an appearance by Kuljinder Sidhu, who won last year’s GUKPT Main Event here at Bury New Road and put in an impressive bid to make it a double, but fell at a late hurdle leaving the door open for a new champion.  Unusually for this year’s Tour, the starting flights were split into two separate days, the second flight bringing 138 of the total 207 to the felt.  After watching Carl McCarthy, Allan McLean and Andrew Wright top the Day 1A chip counts with over 80,000 each, the second, larger batch of players brought an even higher pace of action and left three players with six-figure stacks in front of the pack as a whole going into Day 2: Dan Brown, Michalis Michael and Michael Leedham.

The sting of being the first out of a Main Event in either flight is mitigated this year by the fact that the first eliminated receives Wild Card entry into each leg’s Champion of Champions’ event – the first being a £10,000 freeroll on the 2nd February for all winners of Manchester’s side and Main Events (including the Online 10% Series) held online on gcasino and bluesq cardrooms (https://www.gcasino.com/poker).

The other initial Wild Card seat (given to the player randomly drawn on Table 5, Seat 5) went to Glenn Hopley, who fell a little later on Day 1B as the unpredictable Lawrence Gosney cracked his preflop Kings with Sixes.  Last year’s GUKPT Leaderboard Winner David Johnson was busted by virtually the same match-up a little later, his Aces falling to the same under-pair, this time held by Terry Mitford.

Chun Man burst a fast-popping bubble, taking the unpaid 23rd spot after just one hand, running some unlucky Queens into the Kings of Allan McLean and leaving before the suggestion of a saver for the bubble had time to come to a vote.  Meanwhile Spencer Lawrence, having spent 17 levels building a big stack saw it suddenly and dramatically destroyed after flopping bottom two pair against Allan McLean, whose broadway draw hit like a tournament-ending hammer and brought Day 2 to a close.  McLean now held almost 1.2 million chips, double that of second-placed stack Daniel Charlton.

Rarely does a final start with the table nearly tipping due to the weight of one player’s stack; Simon Cawley, Lawrence Gosney, Matt Waterfall, Peter Mcadams and Osman Mustanoglu all held around 10% of the leader’s total chips.  Unsurprisingly, a swift flurry of all-in moves attempted to boost the short stacks into contention for the top spots.  Matt Waterfall’s shove with Sevens was unsuccessful (Peter McAdams held Queens), but 2010 Manchester champion Kuljinder Sidhu performed the double-up against McLean, starting a trend which was continued by no fewer than five other short stacks.  McLean, however, was to have his bad-beat revenge on Sidhu, calling his all-in with 3-3 vs. Sidhu’s 7-7.  Despite Sidhu flopping a seven for a set, four hearts gave one of McLean’s threes the flush and a round of applause congratulated Sidhu for his back-to-back final table appearances.

Lawrence Gosney, scourge of the early days, kept a relatively low profile on the final table until his elimination in 8th place.  While he received no action moving in with Aces preflop, his K-T was looked up by Peter McAdams with a suited A-J, making a flush for good measure.   The same hand match-up proved once again how fickle the deck can be as George Geary’s A-J fell to the K-J of Dan Charlton, and we were down to five players by the time the final side event (£100 Bounty Booster) kicked off at 5pm.  In between these twin confrontations, Osman Mustanoglu finished in 7th place (£7,250) after getting it in with top pair vs. second pair on a Queen-high flop, only to see Charlton’s 7-6 hit running sixes on the turn and river.  His misfortune was part of the two Dans’ rise to the lead – in just two levels Dan Charlton had taken the lead and lost it to Dan Brown (AJ to AK) leaving the dynamic for the end game very different from the start of the day.

Charlton’s rollercoaster recovered from its dip at the expense of Simon Cawley whose A-K lost a race against Jacks, leaving him short, and shortly out - in 5th, for £11,400.  Charlton, meanwhile, hit the dinner break running with 1.3 million chips and coming back to the table managed to avoid the post-prandial skirmishes which saw Peter McAdams and a now-shorter Allan McLean both double through leaving Dan Brown in bad shape and out shortly thereafter in 4th place (£15,000).  McAdams now took his turn as a dominant force (all three of the remaining players had now had a turn at the top) and it was Allan McLean who finally dropped from the running after a hard-fought day in 3rd when the pocket threes which had worked so well for him earlier failed to hold against McAdams’ A-9.  Left with less than a big blind, McLean was a check-down away from the rail and took home £25,350 for his performance.

Heads up play between Peter McAdams and Dan Charlton lasted mere minutes, but a crowd of onlookers still managed to gather round for the deciding hand – all in on a nine-high flop with McAdams holding pocket Kings and Charlton 9-8.  The tiny sprinkling of chips left to Charlton was automatically all-in the next hand and followed the majority of his stack into McAdams’ hands, giving him the title, trophy and £58,100 first prize.  After this dramatic burst onto the live scene they may be back, however, for the second leg of the GUKPT to be held in London’s Victoria casino, March 9th-20th; for more details on upcoming schedules, as well as full reports and last year’s archive, please visit http://grosvenorukpokertour.com.

[MereNovice]

That's proper writing, that is.

[tikay]

Saw so many old friends at Manchester GUKPT, in fact, Maureen I already mentioned, & Raaby rung me up & we chattted for 20 minutes about his new project entitled, would you believe, "Eureka". I kid you not.

It's some interesting project, & like all 'Stars projects, it'll go down an absolute storm.

The GUKPT misses him, of course, though it'll be OK, it's just fashionable to knock it at the mo in favour of it's new Fessie brother, UKIPT, which is all the rage right now. 'Stars tick every box.

I wish Raaby nothing but well, he's been an awesome influence on the domestic Live Poker scene.

What did you think of the way they dealt with alternates and how they changed the way alternates entered the tournament on Day 1b compared to Day 1a ?

I thought it was wrong to change the rule halfway through, Day 1a & Day 1b must surely play to the same rules.

Having said that, it was hardly a big deal either way, but to hear some of the moans, you'd have thought someone had been murdered. As usual, of course, half thought 1a was played correctly, the other half thought the 1b was the fairer & better method!

It was wrong, of course it was, but it's hardly a deal-breaker, it's just a little mistake. It's very easy to knock Organisers, but they don't mess up on purpose.

I thought the whole thing went off pretty well, to be honest. I was only there to work, not play, but I became quite envious after a while, seeing so many familiar faces, & the Tourney being run pretty much on time throughout.

Being there was good for me, too, the middle of the week I'd hit a bit of a rough patch, some of which (mentally) I never handled so good, & I was down about myself, but Manchester (of all places!) cheered me up no end, seeing so many buds, & the whole thing going so well.

The Team Sky Poker kids acquitted themselves well, too, with young Dan Brown making the Final. If we'd have won that, it would have been Christmas for Sky Poker, & we came so close, but £15k & 4th is not to be sniffed at. The pity is they headline & carry photos of the winner, not the 4th. Quite right too, of course.  We go to The Vic, next, in late March.

For me, though, I was there 4 days, & really enjoyed it, & I think we did a good job, too.

[mondatoo]

I thought it was a pretty terrible decision and it was really unfair on those who played Day 1a. I think I would've thought it was a big deal if I'd late regged on Day 1a then seen they totally changed it for the next day of the same tournament. It just showed a total lack of understanding imo and is a bit much for a 1k comp, £1000 is a lot of money for them to be changing rules half way through.

I don't know why but the GUKPT has never really had an appeal to me and I wonder how many others feel the same way. I can't pinpoint an actual reason though, I guess the numbers year by year reducing hasn't been too attracting as that suggests something is wrong. Part of the reason for me is my whole lack of enjoyment from playing live poker. I get my fix every few months with a trip to DTD and that's enough for me.

Off to watch the Mark Knopfler documentary now, sounds like it's worth a watch.

[titaniumbean]

I thought it was a pretty terrible decision and it was really unfair on those who played Day 1a. I think I would've thought it was a big deal if I'd late regged on Day 1a then seen they totally changed it for the next day of the same tournament. It just showed a total lack of understanding imo and is a bit much for a 1k comp, £1000 is a lot of money for them to be changing rules half way through.

I don't know why but the GUKPT has never really had an appeal to me and I wonder how many others feel the same way. I can't pinpoint an actual reason though, I guess the numbers year by year reducing hasn't been too attracting as that suggests something is wrong. Part of the reason for me is my whole lack of enjoyment from playing live poker. I get my fix every few months with a trip to DTD and that's enough for me.

Off to watch the Mark Knopfler documentary now, sounds like it's worth a watch.

THIS, I've never wanted to play a GKUPT, never thought I was missing out not playing them and from all the reports/updates i've always been glad with my decision.

Changing rules half way through is ridic, you're paying rake for a level playing field with one of the most important factors being consistency. new day new rules seems really stupid!

[RED-DOG]

Rule change cliffs please.