Poker in the UK, and Beyond

There's no doubt that around this time, many UK players are thinking about a poker holiday somewhere, alternately baking hot and frosty cold, where they are guaranteed their game of choice 24/7, and where record-breaking fields compete in a staggering number of events over a month and a half. Yes, Walsall's Midlands Meltdown in June was a great success, with 106 runners competing in the £1,000 Double Chance Freezeout main event. Two players who probably know each other's game well by now, Simon Nowab and Rob Yong, took first and second, respectively. The Dusk Til Dawn boys (DTD being a new large-scale poker club opening in Nottingham) are both old (and competitive) friends and regulars around the UK circuit, taking the odd last-minute flight around Europe, too. I'm not sure that winning nearly all of the money in the Midlands main event promises a nice, easy field when the club gets going, but it does prove that the entrepreneurs know their game.



They, like many British players, in fact headed to the real summer hub of poker activity – Las Vegas. Those who weren't on their flight or calculating just how many dollars their sterling bankroll was equivalent to, and then dividing it into attempts to bring back some World Series jewellery, went to the Victoria Casino in London for a last taste of quiet, dimly lit gaming before plunging into the crazy world of Vegas.



Once again, the turnout for this most pricey of UK tournaments (£5,000) was small – 45 runners. Compare this to last year's EPT event also held at the Vic, which felt packed to the rafters, and the forthcoming repeat visit of the Tour in September, for which they anticipate (and due to space reshuffling, can probably now seat) 300. Nor was this a value-filled room; satellites were said to be prohibitively expensive, "about the price of another festival's main event," and with everyone's Internet time apparently being spent on trying to get into the WSOP main event on the cheap, the only players heading to London were pros, sponsored or otherwise.



The upside to paying top dollar, and being unavoidably seated next to the likes of Willie Tann, Scott Fischman, Iwan Jones, Dave Colclough, Mickey Wernick, Jim Reid, et al., was the structure. Surely there could be no complaints about a 10,000-starting-chip, 90-minute-level event. Well, apart from Willie Tann (who finished third), who described it as "boring" and "more of an endurance test," this seemed to quiet the restless and gave three full days' play, despite the third day being solely for four finalists. With the full £225,000 prize pool set aside for these top four, the "Deal or No Deal?" question was raised several times, but with the exception of a £4,000 saver for fifth place, everyone else went home empty-handed.

But there were still European Ranking Points up for grabs. Marc "Mr. Cool" Goodwin, who spent all of day one perilously short-stacked, won my Climber of the Month award (possibly overtaking Jani Sointula's effort in the World Poker Tour Paris event earlier in June), turning 3,000 chips into a short-stacked final-table appearance, into a fourth-place money finish. It's the final table Marc was concerned about, however, as the Ranking Points would (and did) nudge him into first place in the standings, ahead of Ian Woodley, Mickey Wernick, and Paul Jackson. "I just want to get there, even temporarily, once," said a self-deprecating Marc, "just to say that I've been European number one." This is from a man who has recently highlighted his hair and can often be seen sporting a belt reading "Mr. Cool" in what looks like rhinestones.



With bracelet-winner Tann and Marc in the last four were veteran poker-playing and directing Irishman Liam Flood and Turkish pro Osman Mustanoglu. These two got heads up after a lengthy battle, and eventually Osman took the trophy after quietly playing a small to average stack all the way through to the final table, where he took the chip lead from Liam, who'd held on to it with a vice-like grip through two days. The whole thing, incidentally, had to be wrapped cozily around the World Cup, which seemed to have preoccupied this nation, like many others; a projector and screen even materialised in the cardroom so that the crowd could watch the footie and then the finalists could start play as soon as it was all over. In fact, ask many British players what they think of when hearing the word "tournament," and throughout June you probably would have received a football-related answer, most likely with a lengthy aside over how their betting on it had gone.



In fact, almost all poker players I know bet sports. It's not unusual for sums of money dwarfing your average tournament entry fee to be won and lost rapidly, and when asked about the reason for this, the answer is always the same: "It's more fun than poker." There's definitely more immediate gratification to be gained in this fashion than through playing a slow three-day tournament with few prizes and tough opponents, like the World Masters. It's probably a credit to the game of poker, though, that people who are one minute betting five figures on a hole of golf can take a tournament seriously for days on end, playing to win because the sheer competition is an incentive in itself. With cash games online being a much more sensible use of time if it's the bottom line players have their eye on, you only have to look at the World Series to see the appeal and challenge of the still-expanding world of tournament poker.



Jen Mason is part of www.blondepoker.com. She is responsible for their live tournament coverage in the UK and abroad.