Author: andrew

Thursdays are good but Fridays are always better. The closer you get to the weekend, the more excited you become and the more exciting your options are. There is no doubt that Day 1A of the GUKPT Didsbury event went down well and was a big success but there was a big difference between the Thursday and the Friday. This was no criticism of the organisers or the players that took part in the opening day but there were more players and a bigger buzz of excitement surrounding the Friday play.

There were a total of 94 players involved in the Day 1B activities, which was a sharp rise from the 59 that took part on Day 1A. In total, 153 players were fighting for the rights to make it through to Day 2 and just less than a third managed to progress to the Saturday action. 55 players were starting out on Saturday morning with high hopes for the event but 40 of the players will be leaving very disappointed. This is because only the top 15 players will be taking cash away with them. This means that there is a lot to play for and the tension and drama is guaranteed.

Plenty of chips picked up on Friday

The big chip leader on the day also turned out to be the big chip leader of the Day 1’s as Neils Ladefoged made hay with his 20,000 stack of opening chips. By the end of play, Ladeofoged had turned this into 119,750 chips. This beats the amount of Nigel Ventre who managed to claim 99,925 on Thursday evening.

Ladefoged does not have many cashes showing in his Hendon Mob page, but the ones that are displayed are quite impressive to say the least. He has live tournament winnings of £37,900 with his most recent cash being for £10,350 that was his reward for finishing seventh in the 2012 English Poker Open.

With players like Ventre, Peter Wigglesworth, Kevin Houghton, Matt Davenport and Erimas Livonas already through from Thursday, there were some big UK poker players making it through on Friday too. Coming through with Ladefoged were players like Mike Hill, who managed to pick up 118,375 which was also more than the amount picked up by Thursday’s leader. There was Day1B success for Julian Thew, the Sky Poker player too, who managed to earn 93,500 chips. Other players making it though were John Eames, Stuart Rutter, Steve Holden and Tom Hall.

A lot of the poker focus this weekend may fall on Australia and the WSOP-APAC Main Event but that is not the only place to find great poker action. There is plenty on offer for UK poker players and you don’t need to be in London to have something to look forward to. London is great and it is always worth a visit but it is good to see other places getting the nod when it comes to exciting poker events. Recent weeks have given Nottingham the chance to shine and very few UK venues do poker better than Dusk Till Dawn. This weekend though, it is time for Didsbury to be the one of the key poker places in the country.

This is because the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) Main Event is taking place. The first of two Day 1’s took place on Thursday and the leader of the day was Nigel Ventre. After being given the same starting stack of 20,000 as the rest of the field, Ventre managed to turn this into 99,925. This made him the leader from the 59 poker players that were involved in Day 1A.

Ventre is the Day 1A leader

Of the 59 players, only 22 poker players managed to book their passage through to Say 2 which takes place on Saturday. Then again, you can bet that many of these players will have tried their luck again on Day 1B which took place on Saturday. The Friday event was always likely to be the busier of the two so the players who are already guaranteed for the Saturday action will be delighted to have booked their place but at least the players who fell by the wayside know that they still have a chance.

Poker success is nothing new to Ventre though and he has picked up some success in GUKPT events before. Ventre received a cheque for £1,400 for a £200 buy in event which took place at the 2010 Club GUKPT Club Championship. That event was in Huddersfield, so he knows all about playing poker in glamorous locations and he will be keen to add to his GUKPT success in Didsbury.

Other poker players that managed to book their place on Day 2 alongside Ventre include Rob Sherwood, who managed to get 32,500 chips, Peter Wigglesworth, who held 59,450 chips and Kevin Houghton who managed to just pip Peter with 59,700 chips. Putting up a closer fight to Ventre are Matt Davenport, who managed to earn 85,700 chips and Erimas Livonas, who held 76,500 chips. Livonas has recently tasted success at the APAT World Championship Main Event and will be keen to do well in this event too.

The poker fun has only just begun in Didsbury and there will be a lot more to look out for over the course of this weekend. It may not have the media focus or the luxurious surroundings that the WSOP-APAC can offer but the GUKPT event is always worth following.

With the Hippodrome playing host to some top class poker this weekend, the Aspers Casino in Stratford may have been feeling a bit left out. After all, this has been the host for so many great poker tournaments already this year but it may be that the Hippodrome is going to give it a run for its money. There is no getting away from the fact that a casino and poker room in the heart of London’s tourist centre is going to be a popular choice and its location at Leicester Square is a huge draw for the Hippodrome.

However, the Aspers Casino in Stratford is not that far away and it is not as if there are no other attractions in the nearby area. It is a huge complex, a place you could easily spend all day in and there are plenty of reasons for poker players to spend a lot of time in this part of the capital city. Next weekend though, there is a very strong reason for spending a good amount of time in the Aspers Casino.

A big venue for the big poker events

The Boylepoker.com event, their International Poker Open (IPO) will be taking place and there will be a £200+£25 buy-in for the event. This tournament will be hosted in the same venue that has recently played host to the World Poker Tour National London event and the recent Premier League VI from PartyPoker.com was also held in Stratford. The venue has very quickly established itself as one of the main draws in the London poker circuit and you can guarantee that plenty more events will be hosted here.

The event starts on Wednesday the 17th of April but there will be three starting flights for the event. Yes, Wednesday will be Day 1A, Thursday will be Day 1B and Friday is all set to be Day 1C! Saturday will be Day 2 proper and Sunday is Day 3 and the final day where the poker action will continue until there is a winner. With respect to the flight days, the evenings will begin at 7pm and it is expected that the events will carry through until just before 1am. There is a lot of interest in this event and organisers have said they expect there to be around 700 poker players involved at the time when the registration process is shut.

There is an added boost for the players with the news that Boylesports have added £5,000 to the prize pool, boosting the amount that will be on offer. The kudos of taking on and defeating your fellow poker player is always good but when it comes down to it, nothing spells success like poker winnings!

While footballers dream about winning in famous stadiums like Wembley or Hampden, poker players want to play at the most prestigious poker venues. There will be many poker players who have dreamt about winning a major event in Las Vegas and having all eyes of the gaming community on them. However, a poker player doesn’t have to go all the way to Las Vegas to experience playing in a world-renowned poker venue, there is one in Nottingham.

Okay, Nottingham may lack the glitz and glamour that Las Vegas delivers nonchalantly but there is no doubt that the Dusk Till Dawn club is one of the most respected poker venues in the country. It hasn’t been easy for DTD to earn this reputation but it is fully deserved and it shows no sign of slipping away. This means that poker players will always be keen to make their way to the venue and try and be a winner.

One player that no longer has to dream about being a DTD winner is Zahir Aslam. This is down the fact that he has become the latest poker player to clinch the £300 Deepstack game. This is no mean feat, especially when you take on board that there were a total of 468 players vying for the prize. A top prize of £33,596 is definitely a huge incentive for players and there was a massive turnout.

Plenty of interest in this poker game

This is always a tournament that is very popular with DTD players and even though there was a £300+£36 buy-in for the event, there ended up being an overlay of close to £10,000. When there is a guarantee of £150,000 for a single poker tournament, it is probably not surprising that there is a massive level of interest in the event.

Of the 468 players, only the top 63 were guaranteed to take cash home which meant there was heartache for Terry Jordan. Jordan was the 64th player in the event which meant that everyone still sat at a table upon his exit knew there was a minimum of £600 coming their way. When the bubble bursts, some players can relax, safe in the knowledge that they will receive some cash reward for their poker endeavour. The final table was set up when Dennis Troake crashed out in 10th position.

Paul Hardy was the first player to exit from the final table with £3,138.75 for his trouble and he was swiftly followed by James Sykes who earned £3,720. In 7th place was Peter Wigglesworth who received £4,650 and in 6th was Robert Moss, who received £5,231.25. In 5th place was Aaron Brunskill who received £6,939.75 while 4th placed finisher David Shaw received £8,137.05. Third place went to Hasmukh Khodiyara who smashed through the ten grand level with £11,625. The runner up spot went to Adam King who received £19,413.75.

All of these players were left in the slipstream of Zahir Aslam though who take home more than £30,000.

One of the best things about Twitter is that it forces you to be brief and get to the point. With Facebook and email you can witter on endlessly, boring everyone around and making everyone forget what the initial point to the story or message was. This isn’t the case with Twitter and when Sam Trickett (@Samtrickett1) updated his status from Australia, it was fairly obvious how his latest poker game panned out.

Lasted 2 hands today! Pretty annoying to get out of bed for that…..

That is not the sort of tweet you want to see from anyone but given that Trickett was looking to push on in the hunt for a WSOP bracelet, it is doubly disappointing. There is still an awful lot of poker to be played at the WSOP-APAC festival but every time you get knocked out of an event, it is understandable that your nerves will increase and your confidence will dip a bit further. It can only be hoped that Trickett bounces back from this quickly and to be fair, even the best players know that they lose a lot more than they win. It is how you bounce back from defeat that marks you out as being a top poker player and you can bet that Trickett will be on hand sooner rather than later!

Poker players fell quickly

The PLO event at the 2013 WSOP-APAC is the second event where a bracelet went up for grabs. More than 170 players were involved at the start of the play and by the end of 8 levels of poker play on the first day; this had been whittled down to 29 players. By Monday morning, there were a total of 10 players in the running.

At this point, Jim Collopy was in the lead with respect to chips, holding 207,000 while Dan Shak was in second place holding 122,000 chips. There was a fair spread all the way down to 10th place with Scott Reid looking nervously over his shoulder. Reid was holding on to 29,000 chips at this point but of course, a lot can happen in a moment or two at a poker table.

The final table is scheduled to begin at 12pm local time and play will continue until the event is done. This means that there will be a WSOP bracelet making its way to another player before too long, it’s just a shame that it won’t be going to Sam Trickett.

Make sure to follow @maxpokerbonus on Twitter to stay up to date with the latest news on UK poker players participating in events abroad.