Gala Poker Tour Grand Final: Day 1A - Interactive

[NoflopsHomer]

Ok, and speaking of weird hands...

Pete Singleton raises to 500 in midposition. Roland De Wolfe and Richard Haile call in the blinds.

Flop:



Roland bets 1,200, Richard calls and Pete passes.

Turn:



Roland bets 3,100 and is called again.

River:



Both players check and bizarrely Richard's is good as Roland mucks, shaking his head ruefully.

[JungleCat03]

Pat Donegan raised to 600 preflop, called by mateyboy just to his left, and also Barney Boatman in the Big Blind.

Barney checked the flop, as did Pat. Mateyboy took this as a cue to bet 500, which Pat called and Barney folded.

The turn came the , which Pat checked before Mateyboy bet 1700, again  called by Pat.

The river was the , and Pat bet out 2k, called by Mateyboy, who mucked as Pat showed his sneakily played ...

[b4matt]

So whilst Jen and Dana are hurrying around Amsterdam chasing the 400+ players or so in the Master Classics. (Shouldn't it just be the Amsterdam Masters, or Amsterdam Classic, why do they have to be greedy and have both?). We are down here in Bristol to cover the Grand Final of the Gala Poker Tour with it's chunky £2,500 buy-in. Originally, it was going to be held at the same time as the EPT Dublin event, but they wanted to avoid the clash and instead chose to send it up against Amsterdam instead. This clash however may have actually turned out to be a worse one because of the more comparable buy-ins between Amsterdam and Bristol since at the moment there are only 52 runners, though that could well change before the 2pm start time on Thursday. Also, Amsterdam already has one of the best reputations around meaning people are naturally going to go to that event and not even think about possible alternatives. Perhaps though some people playing in Amsterdam today may bust out early and decide to come back to play Bristol tomorrow?

A few of the names who are playing, however, will no doubt surprise you, as they include Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Robert Williamson III, Jennifer Tilly and 2006 WSOP Champion Jamie Gold. But this addition of 'star talent' hasn't seemed so far to galvanise people into coming to play with the big names, though we won't know this before the event starts. Obviously, if the field isn't huge, then where is the problem stemming from? Is it down to putting the tournament up against another very popular event and coming off worse? Is this another case, like Dublin, where there is simply too much poker going on and the buy-in is too big with people just deciding to wait for a better option? Or has the additional of glamorous US stars actually hurt the competition and people have seen the toughening of the field and thought they would be wasting their money?

Either way, the tournament will start at 2pm and we'll be here to bring all you all the action.

hey chris,
i enquired last week about the possibilty of reserving a seat in case i busted from the masterclassics early...was told no dice, had to show up in person at a gala & hand over the lolly.
fair enough, i know gala have some very sticky rules about buying in, but really, if they want to encourage players to participate in their flagship event then they need to be a little more flexible given the nature of the chocca-block poker calendar.

You stay at home looking through car catalogues... Fancy a curry mate? Korma for you floppy??

Are you buying?

Of course :-)

Great updates mate

[Mango99]

Ok, and speaking of weird hands...

Pete Singleton raises to 500 in midposition. Roland De Wolfe and Richard Haile call in the blinds.

Flop:



Roland bets 1,200, Richard calls and Pete passes.

Turn:



Roland bets 3,100 and is called again.

River:



Both players check and bizarrely Richard's is good as Roland mucks, shaking his head ruefully.

Speaking of bizarre hands, an absolute monster of a hand involving Pete Singleton and Roland De Wolf! Will let you guys tell the story!

[NoflopsHomer]

It's all crazy on table 1.

A for Roland De Wolfe against Pete Singleton.

On a 9-2-3-5-3 board, Singleton bets, Roland moves all-in with pocket Fives, only for Singleton to show pocket Threes pushing him up to the heady heights of 33k.

"It was a good call." Roland later confirmed.

Roland then had his own piece of good fortune, getting all-in with against Bambos' on a board when it came a harmless river.

Next Bambos knocks out Ian McWilliam sitting next to him with against Kings, all the money going in on the turn of   board.

"I was tilting," claimed Bambos, for the reason of his admittedly fishy call preflop.

*****************************Dinner Break 45 Minutes*********************************

[Mango99]

Wow!!! Congrats to Pete. That's an awesome result for Pete. He's helped Dan Carter fix a couple of leaks in his game, and is a great philosopher and student of the game

Final tabled in the £300 and £1000 events, meaning Pete and I are actually freerolling in this event

[cooler]

poor roland thats a cooler

[NoflopsHomer]

Rough chip counts as play restarts, courtesy of me angling my neck, and one of the friendly dealers, who I actually know from Gala Birmingham. I'm unsure of a couple of the names, so i'll edit the posts once I find them out.

Table 1:

Andrew Mitson -- 10,200
Omar Ghandur -- 27,000
Marcus Farthing -- 16,150
Pete Singleton -- 36,000
Xanthos Charalambos -- 26,300
-- Empty Seat --
Benedetto Passantino -- 19,300
Roland De Wolfe -- 25,000
Richard Haile -- 17,900

Table 2:

Mark Stewart -- 36,000
-- Empty Seat --
Fiachra Meere -- 10,125
Ian Woodley -- 24,500
Barny Boatman -- 16,700
Pat Donegan -- 43,000
Eddie Gaines -- 8,325
Jitesh Thakker -- 20,900
John Tabatabai -- 2,725

Table 3:

Alex Torrance -- 23,000
Bobby Rach -- 21,000
Andrew Feenan -- 11,550
Mika Ollila -- 27,200
Peter Cockayne -- 10,350
William Haughney -- 18,500
Paul Hardwidge -- 18,450
Andrew Flemming -- 14,400
Richard Ashby -- 5,850

Table 4

-- Empy Seat --
Mark Seagal -- 11,500 (see below)
Rob Akery -- 32,050
John Bousfield -- 5,025
Rob Sherwood -- 13,250
Chris Royle -- 24,800
Joe Beevers -- 33,875
Ben Blackmore -- 17,800
Guiseppe Pillitteri -- 11,525 (see below also)

[NoflopsHomer]

The Strange Case of the Missing Players:

Over on table 4, there's a slight problem. Both Mark Seagal and Guiseppe Pillitteri have not turned up to the tournament, meaning, they are essentially playing 6-handed on this table. This, combined with the fact there are regular small and big blinds going uncontested, has completely changed the table dynamic here. Ben Blackmore is in the best position here since he'll always be in a position to steal or resteal. When I spoke to the Cardroom staff about this problem, they said that usually they'd have removed the stacks at the start of this tournament, but since the rules regarding this event are completely different they can't do anything except let the stacks blind away. Does this leave some players with an unfair advantage?

[NoflopsHomer]

William Haughney has knocked out Andrew Feenan with a brutal A-K vs K-K on a K-J-T flop. Queen on the turn.

[GlasgowBandit]

William Haughney table 3 seat 6 is it Willie Haughey a glasgow player by any chance I am sure he was going to play this event.

[JungleCat03]

After the dinner break, play has resumed with the blinds at 150 300, meaning the pots are now starting to reach more chunky proportions...

As alluded to earlier John Tabatabai's chip stack, however artistically he arranges it, is looking a bit thin and when Barny Boatman and  Eddie Gaines limped in for 300, he moved his 4.2k-ish stack into the middle, taxing those pesky limpers.

Barny passed fairly sharpish and Eddie dwelt for a while, before passing, allowing John to receive a much needed boost to his stack...

[JungleCat03]

Roalnd De Wolfe's stack is moving in the wrong direction.

I join his table as he faces a 3k bet from mateyboy on the river of a board of As .

He ummed and ahhed, prevaricating and procrastinating before asking his opponent "will you show if I fold?" which seemed to be greeted with an affirmative nod...

Roland ultimately passed and his neighbour showed Roland an Ace for trips. "I passed an Ace" claimed Roland" but it was only Ace Two" and seemed happy with his fold.

Next hand Bambos limped and Roland announced "you're in every pot!" before raising to 700.

The flop came . Bambos checked and Roland also checked.

The turn was the . Bambos checked and Roland bet 1700, which Bambos said "it's a bit expensive...." before calling.

The river was the , checked by Bambos and Roland gives up and checks behind him.

"Your ace is good!" he tells Bambos. Bambos sneakily turns over a 6, to which Roland sighs and turns up KT. Bambos now reveals the other 6 in his hand for his flopped set!

"You're supposed to bet with a hand sometime you know" offers Roland as advice, but Bambos is possibly too busy giggling and raking in the pot to take this onboard...

[NoflopsHomer]

As a booming mic voice announces that Bristol Gala has now become the first casino in the UK to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, Barny Boatman is contemplating a call on the river of a board. He'd limped in the small blind and Pat Donegan had checked his option but bet 800 into the 600 pot on the flop. Both players checked the turn, before Pat fired 2,000 on the river. Eventually Barny did call, and Pat insta-mucked, Barny's obviously good.

Rob robs Rob news now. Rob, of the Sherwood variety, called a 1,400 bet on the turn of a board from Rob Akery before both checked the slightly scary river. Sherwood, who I'm guessing had a Seven, flung his cards in the muck at the sight of a rivered pair when Akery showed .

[NoflopsHomer]

John Tabatabai is OUT. Ace King against Jacks, with a third knave on the flop for good measure. At least this means I don't have to try and spell his name again..

Bambos, having raised OOP in the small blind against a number of limpers bets 3,000 on a board. Two of the limpers have called before the flop, the first folds but Pete Singleton calls, quickly enough.

The turn is the and Bambos bets 3,000 again. Now, from despite wearing glasses, you can see that Singleton doesn't like this bet at all, Bambos has gone from betting around 3/4 of the pot on the flop to betting less than a third on the turn, sensing he's beat he folds and Bambos, says, "Ok, I'll show this once." He turns over for the set and rakes in the 10k pot.