Bluesq.com GUKPT Brighton Day 2: At-A-Glance

[danafish]

We're back! Mmm steak buffet.

News is that Mick Fletcher went out in the last hand before dinner to Monstrous Stack Joe Grech.

By the way, here is the rather long overdue payout, stolen from the nice Bluesquare people:



1st Place £86,800 plus seat in Grand Final
2nd Place £46,200
3rd Place £30,800
4th Place £22,400
5th Place £16,800
6th Place £14,000
7th Place £11,200
8th Place £8,400
9th Place £5,600
10th Place £4,200
11th Place £2,800
12th to 15th £2,240
16th to 21st £1,960
22nd to 27th £1,680

280 players, total of £280,000

Final tablists each receive a nano iPod, apparently.

[JungleCat03]

Just before the break a very big hand played out between Roberts Cowen and Talal Shakerchi, who Jen has been duelling with.

Talal raised to 7k, which was called by Cowen.

The flop came .

Talal now led for 10k and Cowen raised another 15-20k.

Talal now pushed  for 50k more or so and Cowen (who incidentally is carrying a piece of paper saying "STOP AND THINK") followed the advice on his paper and after firing a few questions at Talal and thinking about what to do decided to make the call with J-J.

It proved a good call, as Talal flipped over 9-9, leaving Cowen punching the sky happily as the turn and river blanked. Exit Talal and Cowen moved into the dinner break in 2nd spot, behind the extremely well stacked Joe Grech...


Here are the rest of the chip counts as we approach the bubble. Players will no doubt go crazy now, all desperate to finish outside the money...

Either that or they will merely follow convention and all the medium and short stacks will lock up allowing the biggies to bully them.

Let's see what happens!

 Josef Grech   438600
 Roberts Cowen   260400
 Karim Louis   227500
 Julian Thew   193100
 Niall Charlton   163200
 James Reid   151200
 Robert Garfield   120200
 Nik Persaud   95600
 Steve Jelinek   93900
 Marcus Bebb-Jones   71900
 John Eames   70600
 Jen Mason   70400
 Jonothon Butters   68900
 Fabio Esposito   68800
 Alan Dean   67500
 Farbod Javad   63500
 Darren Grosvenor   61200
 Paul Gardner   57800
 Colin Linton   57200
 Micheal Bolger   56600
 Woody Deck   55700
 Ross Campbell   55600
 Dave Shallow   50500
 Josh Tyler   48700
 Stephen Slavin   43200
 David Colclough   40500
 Jason Powell   40100
 Simon Wickenden   38600
 James Atkin   24900
 Mark Bointon   22400

[JungleCat03]

Paul Gardner played out a big pot earlier. Having raised he was re-raised allin by a shorter stack, Alan Dean...

The shorty didn't have him covered but there was still a sizeable amount in the pot as Paul called with J-J and found Alan with As ...

Josh Tyler ran a commentary on the hand as the dealer dealt out the cards.

....

"oooooohhhhhhh" (said Josh)



"OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH" (said Josh)

"No heart, no heart" was the heartfelt plea from Gardner...

River was.....A JACK! making a set for Gardner but completing Alan's straight to keep him in the competition.

"Oohhhhhhh.......SICK SICK SICK!" (was Josh's final contribution)....I feel he may need to work on the diversity of his commentary if he ever wants to seek professional work in the field.

In the words of Dana "You can see the moment Gardner's heart actually breaks in two..." Showing the ruthless streak that causes her to steal my puns and dye her hair pink, Dana nonetheless bravely dived in and snapped the man's moment of pain. And here it is...

Click to see full-size image.

[danafish]

By the way all you fine Guests reading the updates, the powers that be at blondepoker have an important message for you:

Click to see full-size image.

Plus if you do sign up, as well as being a hero to kittens everywhere, you'll be able to harass me and Junglecat for updates on your favourite players.


BREAKING NEWS:

Stephen Slavin OUT, A-A v John Eames' 9-9; another 9 on the turn. Ouch.

Also more breaking news - Dubai Dave Shallow OUT somehow. Will try to find out what happened.

Hand for hand, legging it downstairs for the bubble. Someone please post a pic of M C Hammer.

[danafish]

Ok, we've been standing around in the cardroom watching basically NOTHING happen for ages now, so I thought I'd better come up and check that no-one has done anything terrible to our thread.

Paul Gardener was all in at one point, but he had the other guy (I think it was Farbod Javad) covered. He's still hanging in there.

Also just about hanging in is James Atkin, who was kicking himself. Super-super-short (like 15k short now), he found himself squirming on the cut-off. "This will be SO tight if I fold. SUPER-tight." Eventually, with much face-pulling, he lays it down. Joe Grech and Rob Garfield in the blinds see a A-K-9 flop. "NoooooOOOH!" squeals James. Afterwards he says he had A-Q. Says tablemate Dave Colclough to him: "Weren't you in second place or something this morning?" James confirms he was. "Folding A-Q?" Coclough continues. James has become somewhat hysterical.

As expected, Joe Grech is ripping them up down there. At one point he was heard to say, "Just 27 left..." I did get a photo of his gigantic stupidly monstrous-huge stack, but I left the camera with Junglecat in the hopes that he might catch the unlucky bubbler in the act, as it were. Soon, my pretties, soon...

[danafish]

Everyone seems pleased with the payout structure this year, what with the bottom rung of the payout almost twice the buy-in rather than just slightly more than the buy-in. This information comes to the attention of Nik Persaud: "£1680?! That's big money! I might start tightening up!" It's true, I haven't seen him play a hand in half an hour.

[danafish]

Here is a picture of a lot of chips to give you some sort of idea how Joe Grech's stack might look:




During the dinner break Jon Raab speculated that Joe's stack would already be about average for three-way on the final table. He has more now.

Snoops, this is definitely the guy to nip.

[danafish]

By the way I found out what happened to Dubai -

He was down to 60k and was shoving every few hands; eventually he button-shoved his A-7 into Steve Jelinek's Pocket Queens. He took it very well, apparently. "Yeah, he doesn't care," said Jen.

OOH, OOHHHH, the bubble's burst.

[JungleCat03]

yes indeedy, the protracted bubble period is indeed at an end.

Various things happened during the bubble, such as Paul Gardner getting very short with J-J vs A-A before multiple shoves, which weren't looked up got him back into the running.

Dave Colclough took some chips off Joe Grech, nicely judging a value bet with his K-K on an A-A before making a good bet for a decent amount of his stack with 2nd pair as Joe bluffed with a missed gutshot...


HOWEVER, most importantly, we had our unlucky bubbler in 28th spot.

James "Mcepitome" Atkin had become very short over the bubble period, missing a spot to double up earlier when he passed A-Q to no raise in the cutoff...

Down to 14k or so with 4k in the BB, he was virtually committed if someone raised, although perhaps the A-Q pass from James earlier convinced Rob Garfield that he could get one through, so raise he did and James called allin, holding Ah versus Rob's surprising 6-2...

"This is going to be sick!" announced James and his words were to prove prophetic...

The flop came ........"OOOHHHHHHHHHHHHH" said the watching crowds, who have clearly been attending the Josh Tyler school of commentary excellence, if such an organisation exists....

The turn improved Rob's chances of outdrawing James even further as a fell, meaning Rob now had an open ended straight draw. James could barely look at the river and it fell....

THE !

A single pair on the river was sufficient to give Rob the popt and consign James to the growing ranks of nearly men, leaving the casino to console themselves with fish, chips, gravy and large and bountiful quantities of ale...


Here is James, taking his defeat in good grace and managing to squeeze a smile out despite his beat...




And here is Rob, happy to burst the bubble and increase the size of his piles...of chips.

[JungleCat03]

Here is a picture of a lot of chips to give you some sort of idea how Joe Grech's stack might look:




During the dinner break Jon Raab speculated that Joe's stack would already be about average for three-way on the final table. He has more now.

Snoops, this is definitely the guy to nip.

This was Dana's estimate of Joe's stack.

Here is actual footage....



I'll let you decide hoe accurate dana's eyesight is., here are the new glasses she has just ordered...

[danafish]

Dave Colclough had a big stack of purple chips he didn't have before - on around 100k, a result of winning a big hand against Joe Grech. "Joe tried to bluff me," said DC, and winked. Umm.

However next hand he called a 15k-or-so shove from Colin Linton on the button. "I didn't think you had the better hand," said Dave as they flipped their cards over, "But you do."

Dave Colclough -

Colin Linton -

Board -

Double up!

[danafish]

Simon WIckenden is OUT - he pushed with Q-2 and was called by Woody Deck's A-8, which made trips.

[danafish]

Paul Gardener has made an impressive comeback - down to just 14k on the bubble, he's back up to 117k.

[danafish]

Jen Mason is on fire.

Darren Grosvenor shoves one off utg, and it folds around to Jen on the big blind. She squirms and huffs, and then calls.

Darren Grosvenor -

Jen -

Board -

Meaning that Darren Grosvenor is OUT.

She has also since won a massive three-way pot, and another off of Steve Jelinek - she's on roughly half a million we reckon. Chip counts from the last break coming up (although her count might not reflect that). We'll have details soon...

[danafish]

Your end-of-level-15 chip counts, courtesy of those fine people at bluesquare -

 Josef Grech   420600
 Roberts Cowen   229600
 Karim Louis   225500
 James Reid   221200
 Julian Thew   202400
 Steve Jelinek   202000
 Niall Charlton   153300
 Farbod Javad   151800
 Alan Dean   135600
 Robert Garfield   135600
 Jen Mason   115000
 Nik Persaud   113200
 David Colclough   106500
 John Eames   103300
 Jonothon Butters   89300
 Ross Campbell   74300
 Marcus Bebb-Jones   58000
 Jason Powell   49000
 Micheal Bolger   48400
 Woody Deck   44700
 Colin Linton   44300
 Fabio Esposito   38400
 Paul Gardner   38200