I first met Simon Deadman three years or so ago, when updating DTD Deepstacks
A cherubic looking twenty-something, who routinely would amass huge stacks, his boyish good looks seemingly luring gnarled old veterans into giving him chips, and creating an image completely at odds with the laggy lunatic they were in fact playing. Or might have been playing. If anyone ever got to showdown with him, which they rarely did such was the pressure he applied.
His stacks were not always accompanied by garish knitwear like this, fortunately.
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More often than not, back in those formative days, the stack would be distributed to all and sundry mid way through the final day and though he was in my "one to watch" notebook the big breakthrough was proving elusive. Through to mid 2011 there were six top fifteen finishes in DTD Deepstacks and Monte Carlos, DTD being his main venue for playing live, but no big scoop
This changed with his Deepstack victory in March 2011 followed by 3rd at GUKPT Walsall two months later and a 4th in the Goliath at Coventry after he returned from Vegas.
One good judge, who watches a lot of the DTD Deepstacks, says that the March 2011 Deepstack win was really Simon's "lightbulb" moment. It just so happened that he finalled alongside two good friends, Tom High and Tom Kugelstadt and, in this judge's opinion, Simon knuckled down on that final table, was determined not to spew off and face the wrath of his peers afterwards. Knuckle down he did, and the rest is geography.
However it has been the second half of 2012 that Simon has really come to the fore, with a second place finish at GPS Stoke and successive final tables at GUKPTs Coventry and London before, on his fifth GUKPT final table in just over a year, his win in Blackpool last month . Just this past weekend Simon cashed in the GUKPT Grand Final, to continue the fantastic run
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Now settled in Leeds, with his partner Shola Akindele, 2013 is set to be another big year for this likeable couple
Simon has been posting on blonde this year and (nudge nudge) I am sure we would all like him to do so more going forward.
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