Littlewoods World Heads-up Poker Championship Day 3Semi-final Players are Produced on Day 3 after Many Ups and Downs |
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The semi-finals of the Littlewoods Poker World Heads-Up Poker Championship are happening now in the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, and the final will also be happening later on, but you can watch it live at PokerinEuropeLive.com.
Only four players remain and today determines who gets the top prize of £65,000, the runner-up prize of £30,000, or the £15,500 each for the two who are defeated.
Yesterday the field was halved from eight to four. Things got off to a flying start in the first battle which featured Victor Ilyukhin and Thor Drexel. The two had only sat down when Ilyukhin moved all in preflop and was called by Drexel. It was a pocket pair each for the two – tens for the Russian and aces for the Dane. Ilyukhin celebrated as he watched a 10 drop on the flop and Drexel took it on the chin as his aces were crushed.
“All my life I’ve been unlucky, but I woke up this morning and was so confident. I never crack aces. I could crack two jokers today, even if you had quad jokers,” Ilyukhin said to Bambos Xanthos who went on to beat Richard Gryko.
Xanthos dominated Gryko from the word go, but the Brit was not going down without a fight and he clawed his way back so there was only a couple of thousand between them. With not a lot going on on a board showing J
J
6 4
, all hell broke loose when Xanthos check-raised a bet from Gryko, triggering Gryko to then move all in. Xanthos made the call and showed the winning hand, J
6. Gryko revealed Q 6 and it was all over for the Brit as even the river could not help him out.
The final two matches both lasted one hour and 10 minutes. The first saw Tony Cascarino take on Laurence Houghton. The match went in Cascarino’s favour at first, and then changed direction towards Houghton. With Houghton in the lead, the final hand came when Cascarino shoved all in with K 6 on an 8 5 4 flop. Houghton called with K K and the turn and river were diamond-less and meaningless. No straight or flush could better Cascarino’s cards and Houghton moved on to the semi-final.
The next match would see Italian boy wonder Dario Minieri up against James Mitchell and when Houghton was asked who he would prefer to play, he said, “I’m friends with James and would prefer Dario”.
That, however, was not to be as in the last match of the day, Mitchell quickly built a 3 to 1 chip lead over Minieri. Minieri’s A-Q versus Mitchell’s A-8 helped the Italian increase his stack but he could not maintain it for very long and eventually moved all in with A 5 on an 8 3 2 flop. Mitchell made the call with pocket sixes and they held up when the turn and river did not bring an ace, a four, or running clubs.
The winner will be found today, but first some matches must be played.
The line up is:
Victor Ilyukhin (RUSSIA) VERSUS Bambos Xanthos (GREECE)
Laurence Houghton (ENGLAND) VERSUS James Mitchell (ENGLAND)
Check it out now on PokerinEuropeLive.com. The final results can also be found here tomorrow.
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