UK News

Online Qualifier and Last-Minute Planners

It seems that February and March gave UK players a wake-up call when it comes to planning their poker forays around Europe. Even considering the ever-rising European Poker Tour buy-in and the plethora of mid-level to expensive tournaments taking place all over our small nation, interest in playing these events has not been overly dampened. In fact, while numbers regularly playing circuit events do at last seem to have peaked, there has not been the drop-off which might be expected as large numbers of people lose multiple thousands of pounds in tournament entries. How does that work?

Mainly, it works because while there might be a core of British players playing as many events as they can squeeze into their diaries like the Hendon Mob, Marc Goodwin, and Dave Colclough (sponsored; successful) the turnover in online qualifiers is the yeast which makes runner numbers rise and fattens the prize pool. Far gone are the days when "I was playing against this online qualifier" meant, "There was a total novice who was easy money on my table." In fact, it only meant that some of the time anyway, and just because someone is wearing a website-logoed hat or can't do any chip tricks does not mean that they're not the next 18-year-old prodigy waiting to unleash their large virtually-garnered experience on an unsuspecting live scene.

So, why would suspected prodigy not just use his or her huge online roll to buy in directly? Well, if they're as disorganised as a lot of people who make their living any time of day or night by pressing buttons in their living rooms,
last-minute planning is going to be part and parcel of the poker lifestyle. And as many UK players found to their disappointment, nowadays a sell-out field is always a possibility. Many who had pencilled in a trip to the EPT Copenhagen (read: spun up the buy-in a week before) found that when they got round to booking a seat, the whole thing was full. 460 players took on the Scandinavian Open, and only a handful were British -- this has hardly ever been the case, and if you look back at the final tables from every season of the EPT, the UK is almost always represented. British winners include Roland De Wolfe, Victoria Coren, and Julian Thew and if you added up the prize money making its way back to our small island over the years it would be quite a lot. But it looks like the UK scores last on forward planning amongst its players and I heard a lot of, "I was going to go to Denmark, but …" in the weeks preceding the event (won by American PokerStars qualifier -- back to "theme one" -- Timothy Vance).

So, it was the home grown festivals surrounding the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour first in Walsall, and then London to which players here turned, as well as the £300 monthly event at Dusk Till Dawn. The latter has steadily been growing in popularity, as word spreads about its comfortable, spacious playing environment and many cash games on offer just in case after driving up from London you were to bust in 10 minutes and need something to do, as happened to … a friend of mine! February's event needed its two allotted days to eventually settle the winners with a four-way chop between Mickey Wernick, Garinder Purewal, Nick Marshall, and Pete Charalambous.

Meanwhile the Walsall £1,000 main event was taken down by popular Ladbrokes-sponsored pro Jeff Kimber who took home £83,910 after outlasting 286 other players and just pipping Mr. Charalambous again for the top spot. Third was Dharminder Buttar, while Nik Persaud, often close-but-not-quite in these events, took fourth. Also gracing the final were Craig Metcalf, Charles Denton, Aaron Berry, Terence Owens, and Luke Patten (in descending order of finish).

The number of runners at the London leg of the GUKPT hit the maximum 424. Last season this leg was stretched by an extra day to accommodate all the players living in or swarming to the capital city, but this time round with only two start days a few latecomers (over to "theme two") had the disappointment of being an alternate with little to no chance of getting in within the first two levels (the cut off point for new entrants). Some mild grumbling ensued from the rail but given that the final was not, this time round, to be filmed for television, the organisers were probably correct in assuming that the numbers wouldn't quite fill three initial days.

This bumper tournament saw a top prize of £119,790 heading in the direction of Ketul Nathwani, whose giant stack single-handedly toppled those of runner up Tony Phillips, third place Dan Samson, fourth David Rudling, fifth Maria "Chili" Demetriou, and sixth Steve Jelinek. Phillips eliminated Irishman Fran Egan and Lloyd Rees in seventh and eighth, while Colin Kennedy exited the final first (but still took £9,540). Nathwani's apparent shift to sixth gear on the final table put him in the position of table destroyer, and while the deck hit him pretty squarely, he was clearly playing to win, and will probably pop up at more of these events in future. During the course of the long three days, the chip lead had started with Jerome Bradpiece, but then somehow his 160,000 in chips going into day two became zero going in to the dinner break. The big stacks remained in front of Maria Demetriou and Tony Phillips through much of the crucial late stages, as the bubble, in the form of Ian "Crapper" Cox, burst. This surprised us somewhat; as Adam "Snoopy" Goulding remarked, "You can't get him out of his chair, even with a small stack. You're going to need a crowbar." Or a crucial lost race.

People here are already talking about their World Series of Poker plans -- much of which in fact revolve around qualifying online for the main event. I have no idea whether this will result in a slowdown in live tournaments in the next few months as people grow bankrolls to turn into dollars, or whether they'll be practising on anything resembling a large field. The only thing which comes close to the scale of the WSOP might be the Irish Open, where a potential four figures of runners could be accommodated in the biggest tournament in Europe. It would be surprising if they sold out, but just in case, I recommend booking early.

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