| "Day 1"
92 paid entrants sat down in The "Vic" at about 4:30 pm yesterday to do battle for a £70,000 first prize. With the number of starters 18 in total would be paid. Satellites had been spirited and almost non-stop for the past three days. About 30 had won their way in so it was very encouraging to see so many part with the full amount at the booth. The final single table satellite, in what seems to be the new tradition in poker was a single hand single table game. The crowd around the "true gamblers" of the poker world was three deep, high card for the button, deal. Special note to a good friend of mine in Australia, Brian Hull, A K wins single hand, single table event a King on board, best hand going in best hand coming out.
10 tables set - 920,000 in chips. 12 minutes later, Mr. I Hammond makes it an early day and we are down to 91- 89 "hard nosed" male players and two ladies shinning like search lights in the darkest fog. Vick Lincoln and Lieu Aku represented the fairer sex today and I'm quite glad to report Lieu made the money for the second time this week.
Play progresses and to my great surprise recent winner Ram Vaswani was second out. Jac Arama also found himself short and lost all his chips in the second period and someone I have had great pleasure talking to, Patrice Leplage had gone for "just one more coffee" and a cigarette upstairs. I noticed Simon Eastwood wandering around and asked why, as I could still see his chip stack. Simply to stop "steaming" the rest away he explained briefly (you learn something everyday from the top players if you take the time to listen.) John Kabbaj had pulled up to 16K and the chip lead fairly early in this period. Phillip Marmostein (clearly the most in form player this week) made trips in successive hands eliminating a player each time.
The 3rd period brought the first broken table and we were down to 81. Players lost in this period included Lally, Garry Jones, Barny Boatman, Paul Alterman and surprisingly Bruce Atkinson who had been a chip leader in the previous period. John Kabbaj, F Mansour, Bruno Fitoussi, the ubiquitous Phillip Marmostein and Marcel Luske had pulled well ahead of average in this period.
The 4th level of play, antes 200 / 400, saw the demise of Surinder Sunar. Mr. Mansour jumped to 40K, Bruno got to 35K and Dave "The Devilfish" Ulliot found 30K sitting in front of him. The pace picked up somewhat and shortly into the 5th period only 6 tables remained; 54 runners. Marcel made a huge hand with Aces against Russian Kirill Garasimov, coat on, coat off, standing up, shoulder shrug, staring at each other, both breaking out with laughter at one stage, eye-brow raising, chips half pushed, cards half thrown away, singing etc. - a hand played out in true animated poker style with no malice whatsoever. The total pot was more than 67K and took Marcel to a clear chip lead. John Kabbaj had increased his stack to 55K and Mr. R Jouzdani now had 70+K in his keeping.
Round 6 bade farewell to Simon Trumper, Carlo Citrone, Kirk Morrison, George McKeever, and Sean Murphy his AA hand losing to fellow countryman Patrick McCloskey's Qh 8h - 3 hearts in board. This hand placed 90+K in Patrick's keeping. Round 7 600 / 1200 in antes and only 28 left in. "The Devilfish" took down a large pot early. Others to have been slowly progressing were Ross Boatman (the last of TheHendonMob) Ben Roberts, T McDonald and Ramin Sai. The last aussie out for the day was Jacob Horowitz going all-in with Jacks against Phillip Marmostein's K Q, a Queen on the turn ending Jacob's day just out of the money.
The 19th placing ultimately going to (and I'm sorry I didn't get his name) a player "foolish" enough to take on "The Devilfish's" 8c 6c with only Q Q. 4 3 5 7 on board and we are finished for the night at 18 players.
Back at 4:00 pm today, with the following standings and draw
Table K
Seat
1. Dave Ulliot 97,000
2. A Vinsor 47,100
3. Ramin Sai 52,300
4. John Kabbaj 88,000
5. J Bailie 26,200
6. Ben Roberts 56,000
7. D Wahl 43,200
8. J Matthews 41,000
9. Phillip Marmostein 78,600
Table L
Seat
1.T McDonald 15,100
2. Lieu Aku 23,600
3. Marcel Luske 100,600
4. J Stawski 21,800
5. R Kuen 10,800
6. Ross Boatman 75,100
7. R Jouzdani 92,600
8. I Donaghi 7,900
9. Patrick McCloskey 53,100
Good luck to all
Catch u soon,
Chris "The Barracuda" Newton
barracuda_oz@hotmail.com
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