PartyPoker.com Premier League III Diary Part I

November 22, 2008

I've just finished a week at the PartyPoker.com Grand Slam of Darts in Wolverhampton and via my father's birthday celebrations and eventually made it, just in time, to the media reception for the Matchroom Sport organised PartyPoker.com Premier League III. The majority of players were in attendance but we are still waiting for Phil Hellmuth and Tom 'Durrrr' Dwan. Excellent turn out and there's little doubt that it's the strongest line-up ever. I talk at length to Roland de Wolfe and Juha Helppi - both are more determined than ever to take the title down busting each other while they are at it. Perhaps the only person they want to bust more than each other is the "Poker Brat," but that's natural isn't it? Dwan is an interesting character - after accepting our invitation, the challenge is to get him on a flight. He hadn't even thought about booking yet. I suppose when you are dealing in six figure pots online everything else can be a bit of a distraction!

November 25

Dwan and Hellmuth have arrived and day 1 and 2 go off without a hitch. The quality of poker is spellbinding, with newcomers Tom Dwan, Annette Obrestad, Peter Eastgate, and J.C. Tran all making a great impression. The Chinese poker action seems to be a little tame compared to Premier League II but it is early days yet. Then, David "Chino" Rheem arrives to spectate and Roland definitely has someone to play with in addition to Hellmuth, Helppi, and Nenad Medic.
Roland is playing rock, paper, scissors with J.C. Tran but isn't having much luck and four figure sums are moving around like wildfire. Tran is dominating the tournament and the side action. Perhaps, however, there is one man that may be able to stop him running so good and that is tournament director "Mad" Marty Wilson.

Even he fails however, as Tran is triumphant in "Win with Wilson", and then proceeds to show him that he can throw cards further than him. Both Marty and J.C. were throwing the cards so far there wasn't enough room in the green room, so they took it outside and again Tran came out the winner. For the rest of the week Marty calls J.C. "TJ" in a mock American accent while J.C. calls him Billy all the time.

One small problem the whole week was that no player, understandably, wanted to come down to the studio if they were going to have a long wait because another player was holding everything up. One time a player was waiting in reception only to find that the other hadn't come down yet and was going in a different car. The said player went upstairs and must have narrowly missed the other on the way down. The drivers for the week had to be blessed with huge patience. It seemed like they were all trying to put each other on tilt and that the last to arrive had some kind of advantage. Call times for the studio for the Premier League event have always been challenging and there is always a massive debate in the green room when the last player arrives about who is to blame!

November 26

The green room has a strange and varied atmosphere but it is certainly lively. Andy Black's girlfriend is painting a Buddhist figure, the Chinese and rock, paper, scissors, is relentless, Devilfish is ranting about a sports bet and Tran has a posse with him. When Hellmuth walked in for the first time, he asked J.C why he brought a posse. "I don't need a posse," said the Madison Kid. "What is a posse?" asked Finland's Juha Helppi. J.C.'s friends are more than a posse however, they are an elite poker team created by the Asian Poker Tour called the "Poker Pack". With multi-million dollar winners like Nam Le and Quinn Do watching the hands in the green room, J.C. certainly had some excellent people to bounce ideas off about how he played a hand. While the banter flies Tom Dwan is quietly sitting in the corner playing online for stupid amounts of money.

Read about who I lent my shoes to, Tony G singing, and Devilfish's bad luck in the next installment from my Premier League diary.