Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
Three years on and I, along with the GUKPT, was back in Bolton for the new season, where it all began, notepad in hand, fry-up on lap, and a diminished glint in my eye. You’d forgive me for thinking I’d stepped into some kind of sadistic time warp, but this time my surroundings were different. For starters, the casino itself had enjoyed a revamp, despite only being a few years old, with a new, flashier layout. As for the GUKPT Main Event, numbers were down – and thus players were herded into one starting day – and the amount of ‘familiar’ faces was limited. Although clashes with the PCA and Aussie Million were unavoidable, I couldn’t help but feel that the combination of depleted field, prize pool and general razzmatazz accounted for some of the absences.
Ironically, as interest in the event dwindles, the AWOP team seem to have transformed their coverage into something more akin to a film studio with videos, interviews, commentary (albeit in broad Northern accent), and on-the-table cameras. Whilst I’d been promoted from pencil to pen, they seemed on path to conquering the world, and it made me wonder about the unfulfilled potential of blonde Poker as an update source. Sad, but true, AWOP won that battle, and they’re showing no signs of resting on their laurels. Watch out ESPN.
One change that was already in the works was that of the festival’s sponsor. Replacing Blue Square at the helm, the soon-to-be-launched cardroom gcasino.com will be taking over the reigns for the new season, and have already announced their first sponsored player in Stuart Rutter – an excellent choice, despite his tendency to frequent dodgy nightclubs. Jeff Kimber appeared to be in limbo, but will likely be wearing the G Casino logo soon.
Of course, some things never change: the place was still full of chavs.
Where’s There’s a Will There’s a Way
A few of the big name players may have fallen by the wayside, but the GUKPT still has some permanent fixtures in the likes of Ash Hussain, Joe Grech, Paul Parker, Ali Mallu, Chaz Chattha and Steve Jelinek. We were also by graced by the presence of an EPT winner in Will Fry, who took down Budapest 18 months ago for €595,840. Naturally, tackling Bolton was, ahem, small fry.
For those that know Will, you may already be are aware of his unorthodox, but ballsy opening strategies, which tend to involve creating a loose image by showing an outrageous early bluff. I’d like to say that the new 15,000 starting stacks might sedate him, but it had the reverse effect as within just a few hands, we reached the turn of a 9c-4d-Js-9h board with the pot already pulsating. Champion of Champions er… Champion Colin Wu was the opponent, and after calling a bet of 2,750, he decided to check the Ks river. Fry quickly reached for chips, and fired out 6,500. Wu tanked and grimaced like a gurning veteran before making the fold, only for Fry to table...
8d-6d.
Cue stunned silence.
What is the Dealer On?
Why repeat myself when can I just directly quote my report from the GUKPT blog:
More controversy now as the dealer suffers a mild case of beinginanotherworlditus and accidentally shuffles up the cards, despite there being an all-in showdown. Kanj Anwar was the man all in, pushing for 15,500 with K-7 and being snapped off by David Gardner’s American Airlines.
The big blind folded, showing the 2d in the process, and the two sets of cards were turned over. The dealer, however, had a slip in concentration and pulled in the mucked cards and shuffled the pack as if preparing for the next hand.
Once she recognised her error, she apologised for the mistake and a ruling was called. In the end, all remaining cards, including the exposed 2d (which, perhaps shouldn’t have been included as it was the only card players were certain wasn’t in the deck), were shuffled and the board dealt out.
The aces did ultimately hold, but it was close, the turn bringing a potential flush draw with Anwar’s seven, but thankfully for the dealer, perhaps, it failed to emerge on an otherwise blank river. Now, if that 2d had hit the river to bring a flush, we could have witnessed a bit of fun and perhaps an unscheduled homicide.
What a Kafuffle
Jeff Kimber arrived with a mysterious black eye (God damn those doors!), and seemed to be in feisty mood as he entered into a heated debate with Priyan de Mel. The impromptu kafuffle derived from poker’s infamous grey areas, blurred lines that could trigger international wars if the game were to one day reach Olympic status. On this occasion, it was a mucked hand that caused the stir, de Mel claiming that although his opponent had open folded, that Kimber still needed to show his hand before collecting the pot. “It doesn’t matter, he folded,” replied Kimber. What ensued was a handbags at dawn exchange with the two former champions telling each other to shut up and continuing to debate what was becoming a tired issue. In the end, the T.D. demanded they moved on to the next hand, but as the cards were dealt, it was clear that tensions had run worryingly high.
Their verbal spat reminded me of an incident that had occurred the day prior when a young lad was found lying unconscious on the ground by a roulette wheel having been clobbered from behind. Security guard Jacob, a gargantuan, foreboding figure who used to be a member of the Chad army, was summoned, and despite his near seven foot frame, sprinted across the room like Lindford Christie on crack (or Ben Johnson, perhaps). Sadly, he was too late, and the youth had already fled, and wisely so… Jacob would have destroyed him, and anyone else who dared to stand in his path.
Priyan Deux Mel (headline unscrupulously stolen from Jonathan Raab)
OK, it’s not the most exciting of developments, but the Main Event final table was the first – yes, the first in history! – to feature 10 players, thus making Priyan de Mel the first ever player to sit in seat 10 on a GUKPT final table. See, I told you it wasn’t excicting.
If that wasn’t statistically riveting enough for you, then we also had two former champions in de Mel and Kimber, as well as former finalists Terry Owens and Aaron Barry, both of whom finalled when Kimber won his Walsall title. One player who didn’t have final table experience, however, was Phillip Booth. In fact, apart from the satellite that he played to qualify for the Main Event, this was Booth’s first live tournament full stop! A 30-year old construction worker from Preston, Booth was clearly out of his depth, but proved that you could be an absolute beginner but still run well enough to final. I recall at one point seeing him check the nuts (well, second nuts, although first required the big blind to have checked aces in the big blind) on the river, much to the shock of both opponents.
Anyhow… the line-up was as follows:
Seat 1: Marc Wright – 225,500
Seat 2: Terry Owens – 425,000
Seat 3: Jeff Kimber – 207,000
Seat 4: Mark Robinson – 129,000
Seat 5: Andrew Purser – 128,000
Seat 6: Justin Devonport – 318,500
Seat 7: Phillip Booth – 102,500
Seat 8: Aaron Barry – 163,000
Seat 9: James Sykes – 252,000
Seat 10: Priay de Mel – 225,000
The favourites were likely the two previous winners, and that prediction didn’t fail to deliver. Although Kimber was bad beated into eighth, de Mel rampaged his way to heads-up before toppling Margate’s Andrew Purser to complete a quite magnificent achievement and become the first ever back-to-back (in – cough - £1,000 events) winner in GUKPT history, thus making him the third player behind Julian Thew and Tony Cascarino to win multiple GUKPT titles.
Whilst de Mel might suggest in the aftermath that it wasn’t easy, I think he may secretly confess that heads-up was a little more comfortable that expected. Despite a plucky performance that would make Rocky Balboa look like a quitter, Purser’s heads-up game didn’t quite match that of de Mel’s, and whilst Purser put up a brave fight, he would be the first to admit that he was perhaps out-played. De Mel, who, incidentally, seemed to fall in love with the camera and hammed it up for the armchair audience, was doing his utmost to keep pots small, play position, and grind his foe down gradually. Eventually, Purser cracked and started open shoving, but, and after warning “It’s only a matter of time,” de Mel finally got his man with As-4c holding up against Kc-Th on an ensuing Qd-Qs-4h-9s-9d board.
The final results were as follows:
1st Priyan de Mel -- £44,600
2nd Andy Purser -- £30,300
3rd Jamie Sykes -- £19,000
4th Terry Owens -- £11,700
5th Marc Wright -- £9,100
6th Justin Devonport -- £6,900
7th Philip Booth -- £5,500
8th Jeff Kimber -- £4,000
9th Aaron Barry -- £2,900
10th Mark Robinson -- £2,200
In Conclusion…
I commenced this piece talking somewhat negatively about the GUKPT, but there are plenty of positives to take from the new season. Whilst the Main Event seems to have lost its fanfare and is suffering from depleted numbers, this is to be expected from a Tour entering into its fourth season (check out the WPT for a classic example), and I still believe the GUKPT has a lot to offer the poker circuit. The Main Event is also only half the story, and at Bolton, the side events were pulsating, suggesting that demand for the smaller tournaments remains high. Running my finger through the schedule, it would appear Raab and co. are acutely aware of this and are looking to cater for the 2010 poker player with bigger stacks and plenty of £100-300 freezeouts. They’ve also extended the Summer Series which, whilst concerns me that the Tour itself is taking on too much and taking something away from their staple events, should successfully satisfy the thirst of their second tier players.
With online qualifiers now available network wide, it’ll be interesting to see how many turn up to Walsall for Leg Two. Let’s hope for the sake of the Tour and its future that numbers are high and the GUKPT can remain prevalent in what is, with the recent addition of the UKIPT, fast becoming an over saturated market in a country still recovering from a recession. We might not get the 360 we enjoyed in 2007 when Black Belt Poker’s Jerome Bradpiece snatched gold, but bettering Bolton’s 146 would certainly be a start.