Bluesq.com GUKPT Brighton FINAL DAY: At A Glance

[JungleCat03]

Welcome back to the Brighton Grosvenor for the culmination of the first leg of the GUKPT tour.

The initial 280 entrants have been boiled down and concentrated to these final 9 competitors who will have spent their sleeping hours last night dreaming of what could be when they return today to duke it out for the title.

Here are our celebrated finalists, including of course William Hill's own Julian Thew, whose superb run in recent times shows no signs of abating as he returns today in fourth spot, well placed and well fancied to take down the title.  He will have to get past the meaty stacks and assembled talent of Jim Reid, Karim Louis and Joe Grech first though, who are all going to have a big say in who prospers today.

The smaller stacks are also only a double up or two away from catching up, and will doubtless have formulated their own battle plans for success today. The good structure means they have the ability to play themselves back into contention if they bring their A game along today...

We will bring you some pictures of today's Finalists shortly but for now, here are the players themselves and their chip counts.




James Reid    678000
 Karim Louis    574500
 Josef Grech    454000
 Julian Thew    400500
 Micheal Bolger    180500
 Nik Persaud    173000
 Marcus Bebb-Jones    158500
 Fabio Esposito    146000
 Roberts Cowen    136500

Good luck everyone. An explosive final beckons. Join us for the fun and frolics...

[danafish]

Does anyone what time they are due to start?

They are right this second announcing the players; it should be starting any second. I am not bothered that all this is going on downstairs while I am up in the press room, because Jon Raab has most kindly given us permission to set up one laptop from each updating company downstairs, right by final table, and Junglecat is there even now. Joy!

[JungleCat03]

Yes, indeed, Grosvenor have kindly provided us with a cordoned off area next to the final table which will facillitate the updates immensely.

They have introduced the players, who have already rescued their chips from their overnight plastic sleeping bags, and are sitting there chatting merrily away as they eagerly wait for the start.

Here is how the table is laid out.

In Seat One..Michael Bolger.

Seat Two.....Karim Louis

Seat Three...Fabio Esposito

Seat Four....Joe Grech

Seat Five.....Jim Reid

Seat Six......Nik Persaud

Seat Seven..Julian Thew

Seat Eight...Roberts Cowen

Seat Nine...Marcu Bebb-Jones

[danafish]

Seat 1: Michael Bolger

Michael is a professional poker player and spread better. He mainly plays the big cash games down at the Vic with the likes of Neil Channing et al, although he is also involved in spread betting - "I can lose money at any given game," he laughs. In fact it was watching them play big events like this one that first got him into tournament poker - "I thought, if those muppets can do it, so can I," he says jovially. His biggest live result so far was the €800 event at the 2006 Irish Open, which he chopped with Ian Woodley and a few others, and although he wins online (mainly on the Ladbrokes site), he's never won over $10k and this could well be his biggest ever cash.

[danafish]

Seat 2: Karim Louis

Karim only started playing poker two years ago after spending some time "just being into the roulette". He learned to play on the internet and progressed to live poker, often playing tournaments at the Vic and the Sportsman. He has only played one GUKPT before - it was Brighton this time last year, when he came 18th, and thought he'd come back to see if he could improve on that result.

[danafish]

Seat 3: Fabio Esposito

Fabio has a full-time management job in local government and spends his weekends being a part-time lone parent so he doesn't have that much time for big tournaments, but he likes to play them when time permits. He played two GUKPTs and an EPT last year - no results, but he made Day 2 down here in Brighton. Day 3 now! No word on whether he has a water bed, for our readers who were enquiring yesterday.

[danafish]

Seat 4: Joe Grech

Joe Grech is one of the most successful long-term festival players in the UK. A regular on the scene, he is a consistent winner who never surprises when he reaches a final table.

Joe has adapted his game over the years to one that is more aggressive, particularly early on, and is prepared to gamble to get a chip stack from which he can apply pressure. This was a conscious decision borne of deep thought into the changing nature of festival fields and the skills required to remain a winner. Most recently Joe final tabled in the inaugural GUKPT event in Bolton. In 2006 he hit over a dozen final tables including winning the February 2006 Broadway festival Main Event outright after a titanic heads-up struggle with Paul Jackson. However Joes biggest career result was achieved in April 2005 when he finished second in the WPT Five Star World Poker Classic at the Bellagio.

An absolute chip monster through almost all of Day 2, it would have taken a miracle to keep him off the final table.

[danafish]

Seat 5: Jim Reid

Officially Irish (although he's hiding that accent pretty well), Jim Reid is one of those players who is truly due a big win, and if his talent for the game and the respect he garners from his peers is anything to go by, then that scoop should be just around the corner.

Having said that, however, Jim has frequented many a final table, his strongest performance being in the 2005 Irish EPT where he took home just under 50 thousand Euros for his 6th place finish. Prior to that, Jim became the Grand Prix Champion in 2004, earning £40k for his troubles.

Touted by Richard Prew as a very talented and aggressive player, father-of-five Jim lives in Bedford where he runs a transport business.

[JungleCat03]

And we're off!

First hand, Jim Reid raises to 30k from UTG+1. Roberts Cowen reraises an enticing 20k to 50k....ACTION FIRST HAND!

Everyone else passes...

Jim Reid calls the extra 20k.

The players see a flop of .

Jim checks and Roberts now moves in for his last 70 or 80k...

Jim instantly calls him with an unbeleivable 4-4 for quads! First hand!

Roberts looks understnadably dejected as he shows Q-Q and a 3 on the turn leaves him drawing dead, meaning .......

Roberts Cowen is OUT, elminated in 9th Place for £5,600

[danafish]

Seat 6: Nik Persaud

You can't ignore Nik Persaud, whose think-out-loud style of tournament play has both tilted the sensitive amongst his opponents, and revealed him to have a card-sense thought-process which, while not always working, is undoubtedly fairly sophisticated. Cashing in last year's WSOP and coming 10th in the £1,000 GUKPT Bolton tournament, expect him to show up at a good deal more of these well-structured events.

An extrovert personality without crossing the line into outright annoying, Nik is a genuinely enthusiastic player who will happily discuss concepts of double-flop Pot Limit Omaha while playing 'Red or Black' for more money than is in the pot.

Likely to: Recover fast after throwing toys out of pram; be heard shouting one-word exhortations like, Gamble! or Coinflip! or, Lucky! while playing online cash with his whole bankroll.
Unlikely to: Leave Gutshot for more than a fortnight; not have time to talk to you about poker. Has amusing glasses.

[danafish]

Seat 7: Julian Thew

A Nottingham native, Julian has had a phenomenal year by any standards. Winner of the Plymouth leg of the GUKPT in 2007, he added an EPT title to his list of achievements later in the year on Baden. Known of course as "Yo-Yo", his performance in this event has so far been uncharacteristically un-yoyo-ish - he doubled up early, and remained one of the larger stacks pretty much all the way through. Leading to his alternative nickname, "Goldenbollox". Whichever way he does it, Julian has now added another juicy cash to his record, which will no doubt please his very excellent sponsors at William Hill.

[danafish]

Seat 8: Robert Cowen

I'm afraid we didn' t really get much of a chance to speak to young Robert Cowen before he busted, but from what we understand he is a local player, with a unique and aggressive style at the table. His aggression is tempered by caution occasionally, however, via the medium of a piece of paper urging him to STOP AND THINK. WP, Robert.

[danafish]

Seat 9: Marcus Bebb-Jones

Marcus Bebb-Jones is apparently 44 years old and "looking for sponsorship..." A familiar face on the circuit, he has been playing poker for 2 1/2 years, live poker for 18 months, and although he says he's read 30 books about the game, the best education he's had is playing live with good players. He still works selling gas and electricity ("Cheapest in the country!"), but made more money last year playing poker than he did working, so perhaps we'll see him turn pro one of these days...

[JungleCat03]

Nik Persaud picked up a few chips off Jim Reid when he value bet his J-5 after bluffing a but hitting a J on the river, his 40k was paid off by Jim.


Julian just raised to 30k and found a caller in Joe Grech...

The flop came down . Joe checked and Julian bet 40k. Joe called...

The turn was the . Joe checked and Julian checked.

The river was the . Joe checked and Julian also tapped the table.

Joe showed which was good for the pot, whilst Julian showed ..."It doesn't matter when you hit as long as you hit" remarked Joe wisely!

[JungleCat03]

I was just in the loo, so missed a big pot but Dana managed to jot down most of the key information.

Karim Louis and the exotically named Italian, Fabio Esposito saw a flop, following a little preflop action.

The may have looked slightly harmless but both players were willing to commit their chips, unsuprisingly when you saw their hands which were for Fabio, who must have been sick to his stomach when he saw the cold-deck that had ensued as Karim turned over 3-3!

a and on the river sealed Fabio's fate, meaning...

Fabio Esposito is OUT, eliminated in 8th place, winning £8,400

(No need to be too upset, that buys you a lot of waterbeds and hair spray Fabio...) Good game...

We continue 7 handed...