Author: andrew

The end of March is a difficult time for many students because the threat of exams is looming large. For the dedicated student, study time has already begun and this month will be a quiet period when they spend all of their time in their books cramming hard for the big exams that are coming up shortly. However, there will be some students that feel as though there is plenty of time before they have to start worrying about exams. This means that some students will be in the mood to let their hair down before the more serious effort of studying comes to a head.

One student who will definitely be in the mood for celebrating at the moment is Ben Foxwell. This is because Ben is the big winner of the UK Student Poker Championship, the UKSPC. The event has been taking place at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and 469 players took to the event in the hope of grabbing one of the top prizes. When you consider that the entry fee for the event was £30, the eventual return that Foxwell managed to grab was well worth the time and effort that he put in at the Coventry event.

A good selection of prizes for Foxwell

For his achievement, alongside the kudos of knowing that he defeated all of the other players, Foxwell gets to celebrate the fact that he receives £3,450. In addition to the cash, Foxwell will also receive a seat at the Grand Final of the GUKPT. This has a value of £2,000 so you have to say that this student has played his cards right with his performance this week. 98 players made their way back to the event on Thursday afternoon but there was only cash for the top 50 players so a lot of players would be going home very disappointed with their showing.

It was a late affair for the final table with the last 9 players getting down to action around midnight. Mind you, this is still quite early in the evening for a number of poker players so it would not have been a culture shock to be playing at this time. The first player to drop out of the final table was Andy Sumeou who received £245. In 8th place was Arthur Villa, who received £425 and Matt Butcher, in 7th, picked up £630.

In 6th place, earning £775 was Simon Priddis and the 5th placed player, Sunny Kalcutt, earned £915. The first player to earn over £1,000 was Han Zhang, who came in 4th and there was £1,405 provided to Matt Takaro in 3rd place. The unlucky runner up was Lucas Durney who received £2,100 and of course, Ben Foxwell was the winner, receiving £3,540.

The GUKPT rolls onto Manchester in April but many of the students will only be looking forward to the hard slog of examinations before the long joy of summer comes their way once again.

It seems like almost every day or so that there is a new poker press release or story breaking that involves the Aspers Casino. This venue has been the host of some great poker events recently, notably the Sky Poker London leg and it seems as though there is plenty more poker action coming up. This is down to the fact that Black Belt Poker have announced that this is the venue for their East End Live II event. Given the popularity of the venue and its located in the East of London, this is hardly the biggest upset in the world of poker but having it confirmed allows players to take action and plan ahead.

The event, which starts on Friday the 10th of May, will have a prize pool which is guaranteed at $50,000. There will be two opening day flights for the event and the buy-in for the event has been cited as $200+$25. If this sounds a little bit too expensive for your tastes, the organisers have promised that there will be satellite opportunities from as little as $5, which will help to make the event a lot more accessible for many poker players.

A lot to live up to

Last year’s event, which took place in April, attracted close to 400 poker players but it was a 20 year old who shocked the pack by coming home in first place. Sonny Pomroy overcame Elliot Aspden at the final table and he took home $13,300 and the kudos of beating a pack of big name poker players and a lot of poker players with much more experience.

Neil Channing, one of the co-founders of Black Belt Poker, said;

“We’re delighted to be returning to Aspers for East End Live. It’s quickly become one of the best places to play poker in the country, and if last time is anything to go by, players can look forward to another fun and exciting event.”

There is a genuine sense that Aspers in Stratford City is becoming one of the key poker venues in Britain and it is likely to keep on playing host to an increasing number of events in the months and years to come. The rise of the supercasinos that will come may have an impact but given its prime location in London, Aspers is likely to remain one of the venues that players want to play in and venues want to host their nights in.

If there is one thing that many poker players have learned in recent times is that the top female poker players are just as capable as the top male players. There may be some arguments about the true world class nature of the best male and female players but there is no doubt that the vast majority of poker players in the UK would love to have the talent, staying power and of course, the lifetime career earnings that many of the top female players have shown in recent times.

A reminder of the talent that is included in the rank of female players was shown at the Newcastle leg of the 2013 Genting Poker Series or the GPS. This was the second GPS leg of the season and with 400 players buying into the event, there ended up being a prize pool that was worth £160,000. Considering the guarantee for the event was £100,000 it is fair to say that there was a good deal of interest in this event. There were plenty of famous UK poker names involved in this event but in the end, they all bowed down to Ellie Biessek.

Polish poker star takes home the spoils after ‘Toon trip

Yes, the Polish poker star has been a regular name on the UK poker scene since 2011 and she became the first ever female winner of a GPS event. Okay, the series has only been running since 2012, so it is not as if this triumph is breaking down years of male dominance but it is good to see that the girls continue to show that they can match it and mix it up with the boys.

To be fair to Biessek, she has been showing for a considerable time that she is a match for the boys. In February 2012, Biessek picked up £4,000 at a side event at the GPS Birmingham event and then in March 2012, she reached the final table in London at another GPS event, where she picked up just less than £10,000. A third placed finish in the GUKPT leg in Belgium saw Biessek have career earned of over 13,000 euros but she can add another £38,000 to her earnings thanks to this triumph in Newcastle. It was certainly the best female performance in Newcastle since Cheryl Tweedy decided that she was going to try singing as a way to get out of the ‘Toon.

Of the final table, Dan Hemmingway was ninth and bagged £2,720 and Dom Mahoney came in eighth, taking home £4,320. In seventh place was Ashraf “Wadey” Waheed who earned £6,4000 and in sixth place was Jonathan Gill who picked up £8,960. In fifth was Jimmy Charlton who earned £11,840 and in fourth sport was Dan Woodford, who received £14,880. In third spot, George Clyde-Smith earned £19,104 and runner up Jamie Rutherford will have to contend himself with £25,600.

The next GPS event will take place in Sheffield in May.

The Ricoh Arena has been in the news of late with the announcement that Coventry City have removed their staff from the premises. There is an air of uncertainty about the status of Coventry City at the moment with the owners placing one part of the business into voluntary administration while still claiming that the club is not affected. There is politic involved with penalty deductions from the football league and fans feel a sense of shame about their football team going into administration.

There is a lot of this behaviour going about at the moment. You only have to look up to Scotland and look at the new Rangers that are playing in the Scottish league. The old club went into administration and then was liquidated before a new club was hastily formed and pushed into the lower tier of Scottish football. Some of their fans cling to the notion that it is the same club this notion is so wrong it is not worth explaining. So, there has been a lot of drama and tension taking place at the Ricoh Arena of late and it will be good for attention to be placed on the site for other reasons.

Plenty of poker options on offer

This will be the case when the GUKPT sponsored Student Championship for 2013 takes place at the Ricoh Arena. There was some poker action on Monday with plenty of Sit N Go games, a free entry tournament and a £100+£10 student high roller game but the real action begins on Tuesday the 26th of March. This is because it is day 1A of the Student Main Event, which begins at 12.30pm. There is a £30+£5 buy-in and there will be a 15,000 stack and a 40 minute clock on proceedings. If that starts a little early for you or you get knocked out, there will be a £20 Deepstack event taking place at 8.30pm. There will be a 20 minute clock for this event.

On Wednesday, it is Main Event Day 1B and again, it is a £30+£5 buy-in for a 15,000 stack and the clock is set at 40 minutes. Again, for those players that will find this to be a little bit too early or get knocked out but want to have more poker action, there will be a £15 Deepstack event at 8.30pm. This games is billed as a guaranteed £500 game, so there is plenty to play for.

Thursday the 28th of March sees the Main Event final take place with the action starting at 1.30pm. There will be a 4pm game that provides free entry for every player that has taken part in the Student Championship and at 8.30pm there will be a £20 Triple Chance event.

The winner of the Main Event will receive a seat at the GUKPT Grand Final while High Roller winner will get a seat at the GUKPT Main Event. There are also team challenges and there will be Goliath Seats handed out to various players during the event, including one for the bubble boy! There is also an added bonus for the chip leaders at the end of the Main Event Day 1A and 1B because they will both receive a £100 bar tab.

There may not be too much fun to be had at the Ricoh Arena for Coventry City at the moment but for students that love poker, it is the perfect place to be this week.

Even though there are plenty of great poker tours and events taking place in the UK and Ireland, it seems as though the Sky Poker Tour has managed to find some friends. There is a lot to be said for the way that Sky has managed to take over our lives and its live coverage of football and other sports is central to this. However, with their Sky Poker programmes and a genuine dedication to poker, it is easy to see why so many poker fans have fallen in love with what is on offer from Sky Poker.

The London stop-off of the 2013 Sky Poker Tour took place in the popular Aspers Casino in Stratford City and it seemed that plenty of people wanted to get a piece of the action. A £200 buy-in for the Main Event was an attractive price but there were 267 players seated and listed by the time that registrations were closed. This meant that the event is the biggest Sky Poker Tour event outside of any Grand Final event, so the organisers were extremely happy with what they had pulled together. With so many players you would expect there to be an interesting prize pool on offer and there was, with £53,400 up for grabs. However, players knew that they had to get into the top 36 places to take some of that money home with them!

Plenty of big name poker players were involved

Julian Thew was on hand to represent Sky Poker but there were plenty of big poker names like James Dempsey and Dave Shallow involved too. None of these three players managed to make it to the final table where nine players contested. At the final table, the minimum amount of money that was being won was £1,180 but when there are bigger prizes to play for, you know there is going to be a bigger element of competition.

Sam Bayliss dropped out in 9th, taking the £1,180 prize with him while Silvano Leighio followed soon after with £1,575. The final two players battling for the big prize was Chris Love and Aaron Flamand. There was certainly no love lost between the two when Flamand managed to pull out a King-high flush which defeated the flush of Love and it was all over. Chris had to settle for £8,725 while Aaron received the trophy and £11,905.

There is some respite for the Sky Poker Tour for a little while but it returns in Dublin in May and that is bound to be a thrilling time for poker players.

There is no doubt that the Aspers Casino in Stratford City has captured the imagination and attention of plenty of big poker fans. London definitely has the capacity to host a great number of poker venues with a large capacity and of course, the Stratford area has a lot of goodwill about it. The spirit of the Olympics may be long gone but the triumphs felt in the local area may well inspire other people to achieve their best and this is something that poker players will look forward to.

There will be a big chance for poker success in the Aspers Casino in Stratford City with the upcoming Boylepoker International Poker Open Event. Boylepoker found some success with its first International Poker Open in Dublin, which was well received. The success of this event led the firm to decide to try their luck across the water in the United Kingdom and the Stratford City event will hopefully be the first of many great UK poker nights for Boylepoker.

Poker firm looking to make a bigger mark in the United Kingdom

The poker manager for the Boylepoker website was enthused about having the chance to come over to London and the company released a statement regarding the upcoming event. Ciaran Corbett said, “Our site is very popular with UK poker players. We like the idea of putting on a full scale professional poker tournament that the amateur poker player can afford to enter. It’s been a hugely successful formula for us in Ireland and now it’s time we brought it to the United Kingdom.”

The Boylepoker event at the Aspers Casino begins on the 17th of April, continuing all the way through until the 21st of April. The buy-in for the event is £250+£25 and the tournament will be a re-entry event. This means that any player that is knocked out of the event will have the chance to re-enter on any available starting day.

Even though Boylepoker is a known name in the online poker community, it obviously falls a long way short of the major players in the poker industry. While the IPO London event has the potential to be the first of many exciting poker events that the company brings to the UK, it will be interesting to see if there is the appetite for the event amongst UK poker players.

Poker can be a great way to earn money if your skills hold up and you have a little bit of luck but it is possible to use poker to raise money for great causes too. This will be the hope of the Poker For The Homeless event which is being held in Dublin on the 5th and 6th of April. Paddy Power is sponsoring this poker festival which will be taking place at the Jackpot Club in Ireland’s capital city of Dublin. The majority of funds raised at the event will go to the benefit of the Capuchin Day Centre.

There will be some big name Irish poker players taking part in the event and there will be celebrities involved. You can usually find a celebrity or two willing to turn up for any event but if their patronage of the event helps to raise more awareness and generates more interest and income for the group, it can hardly be seen as a bad thing.

Big names can always draw a crowd to a poker event

International poker stars from Ireland like Noel Furlong, a WSOP world champion and Donnacha O’Dea who holds a WSOP bracelet will be joined by the likes of Reggie Corrigan, an international rugby player and Ken Doherty, a champion world snooker player.

The poker action begins at 9pm on Friday evening where there will be a 100 +10 Euro buy in no limit freeze out game and 20% of the prize pool will be handed over to the Poker For The Homeless fund. The NLH game features a 400+40 Euro buy-in and there will be four teams competing in this event. Every team will donate 80 Euros to the fund.

With respect to payouts, the first place will see 2,800 Euros for the first prize, 1,600 Euros for second prize and third place will receive 800 Euros. This equates to 60% of the prize pool and the remaining 40% will be making its way to the individuals who find themselves at the final table.

There has been a lot of great work for charities carried out by the Poker For The Homeless Group in recent times. In fact, over the last seven years, the group has been able to raise close to 250,000 euros for various charity groups across Ireland. When you consider the economic downturn in this time, particularly in Ireland, this has been a fantastic amount of money to pull together. A lot of people will look down on poker and think that it is not an activity for them but the fact that it can do so much good in local communities should never be overlooked either.