Gala Poker Tour Grand Final: Day 1B - At A Glance

[NoflopsHomer]

And we are about to restart. 44 players remaining, avg stack is 19.4k. Blinds 150/300.

[NoflopsHomer]

Stephen Holden, who won the Nottingham leg of the Gala tour, bets out 600 on a flop. Neil Channing makes it 1,700. Holden adds a further 3,500 on top of that. Neil Channing thinks and says, "Verrrrrrrry Interrrrrrresssssting," as though he's an evil Bond villain. He then just calls, which is the scariest move of them all and should've set alarm bells off in Holden's head.

Inevitably, Holden bets most of his stack on the turn and Channing immediately puts him. Joshua Tyler has been whispering to Phil Laak, and as Holden shows his and Channing flips his , he says, "I told you!" Blank river and Stephen Holden is OUT.

Almost immediately, Antonio says, "I passed A-8," Joshua says, "I passed A-9." Then Phil Laak says, "I passed 9-7."
 
Channing replies, "Why didn't you call? Or you? Errr...not you though," indicating Laak.

[JungleCat03]

150/300 now.

I notice Albert Sapiano limping on Priyan de Mel's big blind so I stick around to see if it all kicks off given these two have been crossing swords a fair bit...

Jennifer Tilley gets in the way of their confrontation, raising Albert's limp to 1300. Priyan passes after a rueful glance towards Albert that might be summed up as "don't limp my blind son."

Albert calls the extra 1k from Jennifer, who he earlier said he was "taking a shine to" and everyone else passes.

The flop comes .

Albert Sapiano checks, Jennifer bets 1k, he calls...

The turn is the .

Albert checks, Jennifer bets 2k, Albert calls...

The river is the .

Albert checks, Phil Laak's better half bets out 4k now, and, yes, no prizes for guessing that once more Albert calls.

Jennifer shows A-K for the nut trips whilst Albert mucks his hand, leaving it a mystery as to what he had. J-Q is my guess, although I may be doing him too much credit...

Another nice pot to Jennifer who is doing better than her partner Phil Laak at the moment.

[NoflopsHomer]

A few players limp on Priyan's big blind.

They see a flop.

Jeffrey Flewitt bets 500, Priyan makes it 2,000. Everyone else passes.

The turn is the , now Jeffrey check/calls an oddly smaller 1,125 before both check the river. Priyan's miles ahead of Jeffrey's missed .

Jason Ho is OUT. Manuel Palanca has recovered up to 23k, but desperately needs a drink. Waitress!

[JungleCat03]

Albert Sapiano appears to be going through leaner times now after hitting the early heights of chip leader.

Although I wasn't able to do a proper count of his chips it looked like he was nursing a stack of only 30k at most, quite a bit less than his 60k of earlier.

The 150 300 level has obviously hit him hard!

Matt Tyler is doing well though, up to 25k ish at this point.

"I've bin a look box mate" he tells me. "Although I went for dinner and managed to eat a whole piece of garlic..." which prompts Stuart Rutter to say, after losing a pot to Matt, "...at least I didn't have to kiss you!"

Matt laughs but i sense he cries a small internal tear of sadness at this...

[JungleCat03]

14 minutes of 150 300 remain before we move to 200 400.

The standings are that we currently have 40 players remaining and the average stack is 21,400.

Floppy tells me I may have slightly underestimated Albert's stack which apparently is still in the region of 35k-40k. He must have been hiding his pinks away from me the little rascal!

(When i say hiding away I mean putting them near any green or yellow chips where they are camouflaged from my colourblind eyes)

[NoflopsHomer]

Andrew Feldman has turned up and in no time has got busy, getting Matt Tyler to call his river bet on a board and then showing .

Next Josh (Can't remember if it's Gould or Tyler) calls Neil Channing's bet on the turn of a board before firing out 3,200 on the river. He instantly begins reading a poker magazine, but is flipping through the pages very fast. After a while Neil passes,

"Excellent pass, sir" says Antonio. Josh flips the .

(a beat)

[JungleCat03]

Ok, we have an elimination.

I believe the gentleman knocked out was Danny Dodds...(although there's a small chance it wasn't)

I joined the hand as he was standing up all his chips in the middle. I know he was short prior to the hand so there wasn't a massive amount in the pot.

Albert Sapiano and Priyan De Mel had called his preflop allin.

The flop was .

The two active players, Albert and Priyan both checked.

The turn was the .

Check Check.

The river was the .

Bet of just 500 by Priyan, called by Albert.

Priyan showed A-T for the straight, Albert showed A-K for ace high, whilst Danny shook his head and showed 9-9 for a flopped set that was no good vs Priyan's turned straight.

Another pot heads Priyan's way and Danny exits the tournament to join the rail...

[JungleCat03]

Ok, we have an elimination.

I believe the gentleman knocked out was Danny Dodds...(although there's a small chance it wasn't)

I joined the hand as he was standing up all his chips in the middle. I know he was short prior to the hand so there wasn't a massive amount in the pot.

Albert Sapiano and Priyan De Mel had called his preflop allin.

The flop was .

The two active players, Albert and Priyan both checked.

The turn was the .

Check Check.

The river was the .

Bet of just 500 by Priyan, called by Albert.

Priyan showed A-T for the straight, Albert showed A-K for ace high, whilst Danny shook his head and showed 9-9 for a flopped set that was no good vs Priyan's turned straight.

Another pot heads Priyan's way and Danny exits the tournament to join the rail...

Ok, not Danny Dodds eliminated. He's still in, so all you Dodds fans out there can rest easy.

In fact the eliminee was .... Mark Seagal who found himself under siege/ marked for death/ on deadly ground but sadly not hard to kill in that last hand. (delete spurious stephen seagal reference as required)

Moving on, we have had an ALLIN!

In a raised pot, seen by Jennifer Tilley, Lee Richardson and Hussein Yilmaz, Jennifer and Lee checked to Hussein who bet 3,000 on a

flop.

Jennifer passed, before Lee called off his last 2.7k saying "need some help here!"

Indeed he did as he tabled , but had more outs than he thought as hussein showed .

The turn was a blank but the river A completed Lee's straight draw and kept him in the competition.

Priyan was seen laughing, saying "two-three suited! Now I've seen it all!"

[NoflopsHomer]

Hussein Yilmaz was crippled doubling up Priyan De Mel. The third raise on Priyan's big blind caused the latter to call with J-9, the flop came 3-5-9. Priyan bet 1,500 and was quickly called. He bet 2,000 on the 4 turn and Hussein shoved for 12k more. Priyan instantly called due to Hussein's "filth merchant" reputation. This rep was understandale when Hussein showed J-T and missed his 3 outs for the river. No wonder the rest of the Hitsquad moan about how lucky Priyan always seems to get.

Phil Laak is out. He raised and check/raised Neil Channing's bet on the turn of a board from 1,500 to 6,000 with 2,500 behind. Neil set him in with which held.

Phil is now in the a 5/10 cash game with Ian Woodley, Roberto Romanello, John Tabatabai and Barny Boatman which involves at least two or three of them pushing all-in preflop and it's already drawing a decent crowd.

In the first hand John Tabatabai moved all-in for from the big blind looking at his cards. Ian Woodley raised from the button to protect.

The board came .

John flipped first the then the and cheered, until Woodley showed ...

[NoflopsHomer]

15 minute break, blinds will be 200/400/25 when we return. 37 players remain.

[JungleCat03]

It looks like Hussein's doubling up of Priyan was a critical injury as he has now departed the tournament arena and is sat in the crazy cash game going on.

One more down...

The green screen of information (I can't think of a witty pithy title for it) says there's 37 players remaining with an average of 23,100 chips although in actual fact there will definitely be one or two less than this as it is not updated completely yet.

Players are currently on a short break now so we'll be back with you shortly.

[JungleCat03]

In the short hiatus players have been freshening up, grabbing drinks at the bar, fitting in a quick cigarette, smooching with pretty brunettes outside the casino (I'm looking at you Mr Esfandiari) but the break has ended and the players are now back in their seats doing battle.

At 200- 400 -25, the pots will  now be getting much bigger and we will either see players being very cautious or going tooth and nail to get a big stack going.

Obviously we are hoping for the latter because like this guy....



VE VANT BLOOD!!!

Good luck everyone remaining...

[JungleCat03]

Matt Tyler has just been involved in a pot with David Lloyd.

Raising to 1500 or so Matt found David moving in behind him. The dealer went to count David's stack, but David castigated him for this..."not unless someone asks for a count."

Passed round to Matt who asks "can I have a count please?" to general laughter from the table.

David has roughly 6k so getting in the region of 2-1 Matt says "I'll give you a spin" calling and showing 8-8.
David turned over A-T and one flip-tastic board of A-3-6-5-T later, David had doubled up and Matt had made a small dent in his decent stack.

"I had to call" says Matt. "Wanted some chirping chips if nothing else..." Well he's still got plenty of those.

I'm slightly concerned about Stuart Rutter, who has a large scarf wrapped round his neck, as if he is fending off the cold chill of winter, whereas we're actually sat in a warm casino. Looks like he needs a lempsip poor lad.

I'll ask him about that when I get the chance...

[NoflopsHomer]

There's a dead stack on the Estfandiari/Channing table, in between them in fact, so Antonio is being fairly liberal with his raises in position. Button raising to 1,400, Neil called him and the bet out 1,000 on the flop. Antonio quickly called before both checked the turn. Neil asked how much Antonio had left, roughly 13k, before betting 2,500 which Antonio called instantly. When Neil showed K-J though, he quickly mucked.

Roland De Wolfe has spun up £250 into over £3,500 so far in the cash game. He just won £2,000+ pot holding on a board. This game is still attracting way more spectators than the tournament.