Welcome
back poker fans, apologies for the long time no post. I’ve been up to
my eyeballs in work, some poker related, some not and have been
working, writing and networking like a trooper in a successful attempt
clear my workload before taking a well deserved working holiday to the
poker Mecca that is Las Vegas.

On a work related note I’ve got a couple of articles due for
publication soon. The first is a piece for WPT magazine on 6-card Pot
Limit Omaha. Yes that’s right folks, all the mischief and mayhem of its
4-card brother only harder, sicker, faster and more swingy with bigger
pots… While it may sound insane it’s also loads of fun and believe it
or not, there is some skill involved. Read the feature to find out
more; it’s in issue 43 out this month I believe.

I’ve just sold WPT a profile on Phil ‘Unabomber’ Laak, which should be out in issue 44.

Phil is an off-the-wall kinda guy, so we have an off-the-wall kind of
feature – it was a fun one to write so I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

I submitted a ‘Heads Up’ interview with Roland De Wolfe and Juha
Helppi to Poker Pro Europe, which should be out soon – I’ll let you
know the details just as soon as I find out when it’ll be in print.

Congratulations to Barry Carter who has just be made the new editor of the UK’s Poker News.
This can only be a good thing as Barry is one of the UK poker scene’s
more prolific writers and I’m sure the website will go from strength to
strength. Check out his ‘Get Carter’ poker blog.

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

Vegas Baby! Vegas!

On a slightly less work related note I just got back from Vegas this
week after a ‘working’ holiday, well actually that’s not strictly true,
more a holiday that I intended to combine with work but the interview I
had scheduled has been delayed to some other point in the (hopefully)
not to distant future.

This is not such a bad thing however as it gave me ample time to
indulge in second favourite pastime, playing poker (the first being
writing about poker obviously).

While I’m not going to go into details about bad beats and winnings,
I came back with more money than I went with and have a few interesting
statistics for you:

Out of the 8 Tafia members who went on the trip only four of us were
poker players, that being said we did alright for ourselves and learned
that the Yanks don’t like to fold middle pair much.

Welsh Busted: 5

Yanks Busted: 34

Brazilians Busted: 1 (I met two, one of whom was a professional pool
player who is friends with Maltese snooker pro Tony Drago whom I didn’t
bust, the other was called Hannibal – which I thought was quite a cool
name, unfortunately for him he didn’t eat me alive…)

Of course take note that ‘Busted’ means taken down to the felt, not just beaten in a pot.

Hours played: 37

So that’s nearly a Yank an hour, rest assured folks next time we’ll do better .

A big hello to some of the American guys I ended up playing with,
they were a friendly bunch. Most specifically Casey, a Vegas DJ who
looked like Seth Rogan and showed my brother and I a great time taking
us to an after-hours nightclub at 6am after a 7 hour poker session and
getting us in for free.

Casey, if you’re out there bud you’ve got my business card, drop me
a line as I managed to lose my wallet that night with your business
card in it. Any fan of Human Traffic is always welcome in Cardiff, and
yes, it’s just like it is in the film…

Also thanks to Boston Dan, a guy myself and Alan ‘Wheel Warrior’
Wicks ended up playing with all night. We got the whole table gambling
like crazies and drinking Jagerbombs – a truly tremendous evening,
especially as Alan and myself ended up with most of the money on the
table when we finished playing at around 6.30am.

It’s a tough job but someone’s gotta do it

One Way Poker

What goes up must come down. It took me three days to get over my
jetlag but I did manage to finish third in my local deep-stack
tournament (at the Grosvenor, Cardiff Bay – location of the August leg
of the GUKPT ) the day after getting home, which was nice.

I was in Swansea over the weekend at Aspers casino for the launch of
the Romanello family’s (yes Roberto and his brothers have decided to
make their mark on the world of online poker) new poker website launch.

OneWayPoker.comis an iPoker skin so not only can you play on one of the internets’
largest poker networks you can also find some of Wales’ finest butting
heads over the poker tables – and yes we do have some good players…

I spent most of the night ‘networking’ (a posh word for work-related
drinking) and had an entertaining evening hanging around with Jon
Kalmar who is a thoroughly nice guy. He’ll be hitting up Las Vegas from
next Wednesday hoping to repeat chance with another great finish in the
Main Event so I wish him the best of luck.

Aside from the Romanello family (including Roberto, obviously…) also
in attendance were some of Cardiff and Swansea’s finest including Rana
Gurnham, Marko Clarke and Neil ‘Six-card’ Shellard, Full-Tilt sponsored
red pro Andrew Feldman, Marc Goodwin, Mickey Wernick and many more who
I didn’t get a chance to chat to.

To Leeds and beyond…

Unless the poker gods smile on me in the next four weeks and grant
me a WSOP package I will unfortunately be UK grounded for the duration
of the Series.

I will however be keeping a close eye on the action and hope that the UK contingent do us proud.

We should have a fighting chance for bracelets this year what with Mr Channing and Mr Persaud’s  Blackbeltpoker.com qualifiers.

Congratulations to Cardiff (well Newport actually, but if I was from
there then I’d want people to say I was from Cardiff…) player Henry
Griffiths who qualified for blue belt. While he won’t be going to Vegas
(that was brown belt and above) he has got himself a nice deal for
playing in some of the UK poker tours fine side events so we wish him
the best of luck.

On a UK poker related note I’ll be heading up to Leeds next month to cover the  Coral British Masters Poker Tour where I will be hoping for a shot at fortune and glory myself.

Qualify online at www.coralpoker.com, www.galapoker.co.uk and  www.eurobetpoker.netfor as little as nothing as they are running a series of freerolls from 6pm every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

There are a whole host of other qualifiers and the main event itself is only £500+£50 for a two-day deep-stack.

There’s also a £200 and £100 side event so for those without the
bankroll to hit up Sin City, try Leeds. It might not be as glamorous
but for quality British poker they’ll be some good play and the chance
to win some cash… Show me a downside.

I’ll either be posting next on Friday or Monday (depending on my work schedule) so stay tuned poker fans.

And if all else fails, try Wales…