Author: andrew

When it comes to a Main Event, you really want to make sure that it is a main event and there are many ways that you can do this. When it comes to poker, you want to make sure that your big event is taking place in a great location and in a stylish poker venue. You also want to ensure that there are plenty of big name poker players lining up to take part in the event. Of course, you also want to make sure that there is a great deal of money on offer for poker players too and this is definitely something that the GUKPT has lined up for their big end of season finale.

The Grosvenor Victoria Casino in Edgware Road London is the destination for the Grand Final of the GUKPT this season and the event takes places between Sunday the 17th of November and Sunday the 24th of November. The event is a long way off and there is a lot of poker to be played between now and then but there is no doubt that poker players are having their appetite whetted for the big event already. One thing to bear in mind is that you can book your place at the big Grand Final of the GUKPT if you find success at any of the regional legs taking place around the country.

Play for big money with Main Event poker games

The fact that there is a £400,000 guaranteed prize pool for the Main Event in the Grand Final is likely to increase the level of interest that many players have for this special occasion. Even if you thought that November is far too long in the distance to spend much time worrying about what you will be doing with your time, the idea of being able to play for this amount of money may just make one or two poker players rethink their opinions on long-term planning.

If you would like to play your way to the Grand Final, the next leg, the fifth leg of the season, is not too far away. The latest GUKPT festival of poker begins on the 16th of June and it continues all the way through until the 23rd. The Grosvenor G Casino in Reading is the place to be but if you are focussing on the Main Event for this leg, you have a bit more time to wait. This is because Thursday the 20th of June is the date that the Main Event takes off and not only can this event provide you with short-term success, it may provide the platform for big success near the end of 2013!

Over the summer, you may find that you have plans mapped out ahead of you and this will determine where you can be or what free time you have. If you are booked up for the summer, knowing what you are going to miss out on when you are away from home and what you can enjoy when you are at home is important. It is probably important for you to find out what is available when you are at home because this will help you to make the most of the free time you have at your disposal when you are here.

Poker players across the UK always know that they have online poker to fall back on and that never seems to take a break or a holiday. No matter what day it is or what hour of the day, there will be some poker event or tournament which allows you to use your skills and play for big poker cash. Of course, there is something to be said for getting out of the house and taking on poker players in events and tournaments. Online poker is always going to be of benefit and interest but there are going to be plenty of poker players that want a greater level of human interaction when it comes to poker.

Play poker around a table with real people

This is where the first ever UK Poker Calendar Live event on Saturday the 13th of July may be a date that is worth putting in to your diary. This poker event is being held in association with Betfred and it will take place at the Hetton Social Club. The Hetton Social Club can be found in Houghton le Spring, which is in the North East of England, a well-known hotbed of poker. The venue may not be amongst the most glamorous of poker events but this looks set to be a summer poker event that players will be able to look forward to with great excitement.

The format for the tournament is going to be a Shoot-out event and there will be 100 players taking part in the event. The buy-in for the live event is going to be $75+$5, which is common online but you would expect them to state the buy-in with GBP for a live UK event, while players will receive 10,000 chips. Satellite events are already taking place to allow players to snap up a place at the tournament if you want to save some cash and get settled for the main event.

The fact that there are so many poker games, tournaments and even leagues taking place around the UK means that there are not too many events or occurrences which are shocking or worthy of note. There are so many poker hands being played that there is not too much to get excited about. Winners will always get big congratulations and losers will always feel as though they could have given more but by and large, once a game has been played, it is handshakes and on to the next one.

One local poker league in Alexandria in Scotland has been causing a bit of a stir of late and the local newspaper has been getting involved with the Dempsey’s Poker League. The big fuss has come about thanks to the fact that two players have recorded royal flushes in the past four weeks. Even though the royal flush is said to have odds of 650,000-1 in a poker game, Andy Parker and Tangy Kirilmaz have both played the hand in recent weeks.

Poker hand that can’t be beat

With the Ace, King, Queen, Jack and the 10 of a single suit being played, most of the other players and onlookers were shocked and delighted when Andy Parker played the hand in a heat for the league. You can then imagine the shock for the poker league when just two weeks later; the Royal Flush was emulated by Tangy. You probably feel a bit sorry for Tangy, some poker leagues and events will never get to see this sort of move but because he followed up on another player’s hand, he was probably met with a lower key response than what he may have been expected to receive for this rare hand!

The organiser of the league, Julie Ferguson, spoke to local press about the occurrence! Julie said;

It’s remarkable, absolutely amazing. You never hear of two royal flushes within a few weeks anywhere. It just feels like we’re unique. Both players were fine during the heats when they held the cards. They knew they just had to keep their cool. When a royal flush happens, the players leave the cards on the table to let the others see what it looks like. It’s been really busy, which adds to their achievement.

It may be a slow news day in the rest of Alexandria to allow a poker story to burst its way into the local newspaper but for poker players, this is definitely news that needs to be considered!

Many people thought it would never happen but Jakub Michalak has been crowned the ISPT Wembley 2013 champion after a great day’s poker play at Wembley Stadium. The final table was played out in a suite overlooking the pitch as opposed to on the hallowed turf but if there was one immediate benefit from this, it was the fact that the victor didn’t have to climb all of those stairs to collect the trophy and the all-important cheque. I suppose when you win you find an extra source of energy somewhere but some players must find those stairs a great strain at the end of the game! Not that this have been on the mind of Jakub Michalak although he will no doubt celebrate as though he won the FA Cup or Champions League final.

The second last day of the ISPT event at Wembley saw twenty hopefuls whittled down to the final six players, who would all return on Wednesday the 5th of June to see who the 1 million euro winner would be. Of course, the fact that deals are always likely to be made means that the actual winner may bag less than 1 million euros but getting a huge sum of money and winning a prestigious poker tournament at Wembley Stadium is likely to be all that a poker player really needs!

A lot of poker players went quickly

The tournament exits came thick and fast at the start of play on Tuesday with players like James Sullivan, Neil Bernadout, Giuseppe Stagno, Leon Louis, Leigh Wiltshire and even WSOP bracelet winner (two times) Praz Bansi were making the lonely walk from Wembley Stadium. They were quickly followed by Florian Hoeller, Freddy Deeb and Dave Ulliott, the man the poker world knows as “Devilfish”.

Bassam Elia was next to go and although there would have been disappointment in finishing in 11th place, the thought of grabbing €19,000 would certainly help to cheer him up! Jean Miguel Lacerda was out in 10th and the final table had been achieved. During the break, there were discussions about making a split of the cash at this point but this was shouted down and at the final 9, the money up for grabs was still along the lines of the original tournament layout. The players who crashed out before the end of the day were Julian Gardner, Jerome Brion and Ferhad Seyadi.

This left the final six players, and their chip count as Pete Linton (11,070,000), Alban Juen (7,615,000), Gwendoline Janot (6,230,000), Nick Hicks (6,230,000), Jakub Michalak (4,825,000) and Xavier el Fassy (4,555,000).

Into the final day and sadly, Gwendoline Janot, the final female player left in the tournament crashed out in 6th place. At least there was a prize of €73,000 (officially but indications about a deal being made would see Janot grab €243,000) to make her feel better. She was quickly followed by Alban Juen in 5th.

There was a bit of a shock in 4th place as Pete Linton crashed out, and he was the big favourite going into the final day. Yet again, sometimes the pressure gets to players and if you get misfortune running against you, the game can run against you. Pete did seem fairly relaxed in his post-tournament interview but he was able to take it in his stride. The fact that he usually plays PLO games and he bagged a great deal of money in the process (unofficially it seems as though Pete takes home €290,000) will definitely keep him satisfied for a good while yet.

Nick Hicks crashed out in third place and he was quite philosophical about his performance in the final day, which he felt was not up to scratch. Nick blamed this on a big lack of sleep in the past few days but even with that in mind, third place is not a bad finish. He got a third place medal as well as more than €200,000 so the Dusk Till Dawn player definitely had a lot to be proud of. This left Jakub Michalak and Xavier el Fassy for the head to head but there could only be one winner with Jakub Michalak grabbing the top prize after Xavier went all in and didn’t get the vital King he was looking for.

After last week’s fun with Charlotte Jackson, Sky Poker is keeping their name in the headlines with the fact that the next event in the 2013 tour is taking place in Birmingham this week. Saturday the 8th of June is the day when the action goes to the Broadway Casino Hall in Birmingham and there is still a great chance of getting involved. Not too many people would recommend that you take a trip to Birmingham at the best of times but when there is a big Sky Poker event on, it makes sense to have a look at what is on offer.

The buy-in direct option has been open for a considerable time and there is still time to do so. At a £110 buy-in deal, it isn’t too bad and many players will decide that this is a fair price to play for the £15,000 guaranteed amount. You have to make your choices in life and if guaranteeing your seat with some cash will help you to get underway in a tournament, it makes sense to do so.

However, there are still satellite events that are open in the run-up to this event so if you would rather keep your cash for yourself, there is still an opportunity to do so. You don’t need to spend a lot of money if you don’t want to and the sense of achievement that comes from making your way through a satellite qualifier to the main event is definitely something that will put an extra spring in the step of most poker players.

There have been four different satellite events running for this Sky Poker Tour event and they have all been running every day. This is definitely the sort of thing that pleases people and the best news is that there have been a variety of price ranges for players to choose from.

Grab the chance of a Birmingham seat

The Sky Poker Tour Birmingham Frenzy satellite may only have a 1 in 50 chance of a seat at the main event but when you are only paying £2.40 for a seat, this is not too bad a price! If you want to take part in the Sky Poker Tour Birmingham Direct satellite, you have a 1 in 10 chance of a seat at the main event and the price rises to £12.

There is the Sky Poker Birmingham Satellite event which has guaranteed seats for the nightly semi-final on offer and this costs £5.20. However, if you want the most effective route for the final, the Sky Poker Tour Birmingham Semi, where there is a 1 in 5 chance of getting a seat for the main event, at £24 is likely to be your best bet.

The last Sky Poker Tour event in Dublin was a roaring success and there is nothing to suggest that the upcoming Birmingham event will be anything but a great time too. The Sky Poker brand is definitely moving upwards in the UK poker community these days.

If there is one thing that Scottish sportspeople seem to do very well, it is glorious failure. Andy Murray finally managed to buck this trend with his Grand Slam win in 2013 but for so long in his career it looked as though he would be another Scottish person who promised big and then just fell short. There is something about Scotland that seems to revel in the glorious failure and coming so close and now there has been a poker hard luck story to add to the tales of national woe!

Not that David Vamplew has anything to be ashamed of or really upset over. Most poker players around the world would love to get the chance to play at the WSOP 2013 event so getting to the final table of Event #2 was a huge achievement. Vamplew went all the way to second place in the $5,000 No Limit Hold ‘Em Eight-Handed Tournament. This tournament proved to be a big success and there were a great number of poker players who were involved with the final table being a very competitive place. Vamplew has already grabbed a European Poker Tour title, so he knows what it takes to see out a victory but sadly in this case he was not able to complete his journey.

Only one poker player was destined to win at the final table

Going into the final table, 7 of the 8 players held chip stacks that were between 432,000 and 629,000. This meant that there could have been a huge level of competition at the final table but you have to take into consideration the chip stack of the 8th player, Trevor Pope. Pope was the chip leader on a phenomenal 3,420,000 chips which made him the runaway leader and although chip stacks can change hand quickly and largely at a final table, most players expected Pope to remain in charge throughout the final table.

So it proved and going into the final head to head, the chip stack stood up as Vamplew on 550,000 chips while Pope held 6,650,000. Vamplew put up a valiant effort but it was done and dusted within 10 hands of play as Pope proved that chip leaders can sometimes get home in style and comfort!
For the win, Pope gets the all-important bracelet but he also managed to bag $553,906 for the glory of winning. In second place though, Vamplew helped himself to $342,450 which is an awful lot of money for one poker tournament. This huge amount takes Vamplew to a total of $2,539,059 in his career which is an amount of cash that no would be upset at picking up in their poker career!

Yet another GUKPT event is over and another player has risen to the top. Like most other poker tournaments, there were a few twists and turns along the way and the early favourites for the final table managed to fall away. Any observers seemed to agree on the fact that there were two excellent poker players giving it their all when it came to the end of the game but of course, when you start off with a final table, it can take a long time to get there.

The first player to drop out of the final table was Morgan Sorfleet. Sorfleet was one of the early chip leaders in the Day 1 events but his 9th placed ensured that he would be taking home £1,510. It is not a bad return for a weekend’s work but when you hold such a good position at certain times in a tournament, it is only naturally to be let down by such a turn of events. Sorfleet was turned out of the tournament by Khalick Mohangee and he didn’t waste much time in taking another player out of the Main Event.

A great run of poker at the final table

The next player to fall was Dennis Omahoney who would have to settle for £2,010 for finishing in eighth place. The next player to be taken out was Trevor Bowers and this time it wasn’t Khalick to blame, it was Dom Mahoney. Trevor ended up in 7th spot which was enough to bag £2,680. The player who ended up in sixth position was also taken out by Mahoney, which meant that two poker players had taken out four players between them. The player going home in 6th position was Adam Boutwell. Boutwell would take home £3,350 for his efforts in coming 6th.

Mahoney then got his hat-trick of taking players out when Blair Hampton, who had been the chip leader, crashed out in 5th place for £4,360. At this point the game slowed down which was just as well. The first five exits from the final table had taken place in the first hour, which indicates how much of a breathless opening it was to this poker tournament’s final table. In fourth place was Khalick Mohangee who became the fourth victim of Dom Mahoney in the final table! Khalick took home £5,520 for his efforts.

Next to go was Simon Skinner and it was no surprise to see Dom being the man once again to take him out. Third place at this event raked in £8,800 for his efforts. This saw Dom Mahoney and Nick Humphris going head to head and the battle raged from end to end. Dom initially held a great lead which Nick would claw back only for Dom to quickly race away again only for Nick to pull himself back into contention. This pattern continued for a while until Nick got his chance and managed to power home, making his lead and dominance count.

Nick Humphris grabbed the title and £16,500 but thanks to the deal struck between the two players, Dom actually managed to take home £17,850 for coming second.