Grosvenor Grand Prix Grows (bigger)
After 6 weeks of qualifying heats at 8 casinos around the UK, the Grand Prix Final competition saw the top 15% of the players from each of the qualification heats meet at Grosvenor Casino Walsall to play for all the money raised at these heats, a massive £198,300. Not a bad prize pool for a £100 entry competition.
This, the third annual Grosvenor Grand Prix, saw regular heat providers Blackpool, Luton, Salford, Southampton, Walsall and the Victoria in London joined by newcoming venues Cardiff and Swansea. Over the course of 31 heats 142 players qualified for a shot at the prize pool, and on Saturday 16th October they descended on Walsall for the first of 2 days on Poker Battle. After a slow start during the first 2 hours of play where the low antes gave plenty of room for play with the 10,000 points they all started with, action heated up and the casualties began to fall. By midnight over 90 players had fallen by the wayside with the antes barely reaching 1000pts. When action closed on day one there were 30 players left in contention for the money.
Day two began with Chip leader (and home field player) Ash Pervaiz’s stacks of 104,000 dwarfing the short stacks around the tables. Due to the rate at which players had been eliminated on Day one the Antes were rolled back slightly and the levels were extended from 45 minutes to an hour. The Day started slowly but after three and a half-hours there were 10 players left and it was final time.
The chip lead had now passed to James Reid, who had qualified at Luton, with 314,000 of the 1,400,000+ chips followed by Steven Frew (who had only just qualified in the last heat, held 2 days previously in Walsall) with 231,000. With a crowd looking on the game was under way. After a valiant attempt the short stack on the table was the first to fall, his 22,000 points having only just enabled him to scrape into the final (antes being 3000/6000 at the time). Over the next 4 hours 3 more players fell to Fate’s cruel hand, Allan McLean going out 9th followed by Andy Louca (8th) and John Trivett (7th). With the excitement and tension growing it was looking like being a long and hard fought final but the last hand was quick in coming. With 6 players left, most evenly stacked, a deal was struck. The chip leader, James Reid, who had maintained his lead throughout the final, took £40,400 and the crystalware, while the rest took £22,000 each.
With the smoke cleared thoughts turn towards next year. With other clubs in the Grosvenor group expressing interest in the Grand Prix we should expect more venues for the qualifying heats, enabling more players to find a heat near to them and there will be several online heats in the build up to next years event. |
