England Invaded
How does a small collection of islands like the UK come to be attracting players on a monthly basis whose local casinos are places like Commerce and The Bicycle, the Rio, and The Venetian? Almost every televised event this year has attracted at least a handful of big American names; August alone featured the PartyPoker
Women's World Open and the
National Poker League's UK Open event, which both gained publicity due to their trans-Atlantic contingent. Rather than wait for the start of the
European Poker Tour season in Barcelona, I was half expecting Phil Ivey, Greg Raymer, and others to descend upon Brighton for the weekend festivals, but no, the local Grosvenor and Rendezvous main events were won by Kim Callow and Martin Green, respectively, and turnouts were somewhat disappointing.
Party People in the House
Realistically, a 36-player, sixhanded, televised women's shootout event like the one PartyPoker held was always going to be a bit of a niche affair, and a perfect opportunity for the most visible female players to be, well, visible. A prize pool of more than $100,000 was actually a reasonable incentive in itself for the U.S. trio of Jennifer Tilly, Liz Lieu, and Shannon Elizabeth to change time zones, with the latter scheduled to commentate with veteran Jesse May. He had his work cut out for him, as it turned out, with one heat breaking the televised heads-up record for number of hands needed to decide a winner, and the others lasting more than a lot of televised crapshoots, due to the timing of rounds by hands played. Elizabeth said before the event (won by Beverley Pace) that she was excited to be coming to London - a sentiment shared by many foreign players before they arrive and find their currency devalued and the price of staying in the city to be astronomical - and although none of the Americans made the final, Tilly resurfaced at the small but high-definition NPL tournament the following week.
International Brigades
Back in 2006, all eyes were on Phil Ivey as he made a rare foray into Europe to play the
EPT in Barcelona, eventually cashing third for €371,000 - one lone American drifting seemingly effortlessly toward the final table to give a ballroom full of Europeans a run for their money. In fact, the outnumbered Americans have often pipped the "locals" in their own games; remember Phil Hellmuth winning
Late Night Poker back in the day, or Gavin Griffin taking down the
EPT Grand Final's near €2 million first prize last season?
The increased buy-in of the
EPT (now €8,000 a pop) may have put off the large numbers of UK players who were making the frequent trips abroad last year, but it looks like the way to attract the biggest names in the game is to make tournaments prohibitively pricey and full of elite cachet. Expect England to be invaded once again in autumn, as the
EPT London and
GUKPT at the Victoria Casino both follow the
WSOPE, presumably enticing U.S. players like Greg Raymer, Johnny Chan, Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu, and Phil Gordon to stick around for a while after taking the short-hop flight from Barca, where they all made an appearance recently. Major money finishes eluded them at the Gran Casino, but two young Americans, Adam Junglen and Greg Dyer, both made the final table, suggesting that the lower age requirements for playing in Europe might be starting to attract the next generation of Internet-honed players.
Even with the tough competition at the Barcelona final table, Mark Teltscher, a London-based pro whose tournament winnings had already topped seven figures (in US dollars), nearly made history by winning a second
EPT event (his first being the 2005 London tournament). He ended up heads up with his friend and fellow backgammon expert Sander Lylloff, a Danish chess champion whose aptitude for games has apparently given him a steep learning curve in poker. A good-natured continual stream of table talk rattled alongside their brief heads-up battle, and although it was mainly Teltscher talking, he ended the day congratulating his friend and saying, "It would have been great to win, but if it had to be anyone else, I'm glad it was Sander." Both players may well be part of the high-limit gatherings in London in the coming months, and expect plenty of competition between the British and American pros, as exemplified by the duo of Hellmuth and the Devil Fish, who opened the
WSOPE press conference. It's good for the game for England to be invaded once in a while.
For a review of the www.pokerstars.com
EPT Barcelona Open, see The Inside Straight section of this issue.
Jen Mason is a part of www.blondepoker.com. She is responsible for its live tournament coverage in the UK and abroad.
