In the summertime
when the weather is high, you can stretch right up and touch the sky.
When the weather’s fine – you got poker, you got poker on your mind….

While the worlds attention maybe focused on some small town poker
tournament called the World Poker Series or something held in the
depths of the Nevada desert (it’ll never catch on if you ask me…) there
is still plenty of poker out there in the UK for you discerning poker
junkies to sate your urges.

Both Grosvenor Casinos and Coral are keeping Britain as the land of
poker hope and glory with their GUKPT Summer Series and the Coral
British Masters Poker Tour for those of you not flush enough to pony up
$10,000 or just plain not lucky enough to win a WSOP seat online.

With the events ranging from £100 freeze-outs (at the CBMPT), £200
Freeze-outs (GUKPT & CBMPT), £300 freeze-outs (GUKPT) and the £500
main events (both the GUKPT & CBMPT) this summer is a pretty good
one for you British poker players.

British Master Class

After being fortunate enough to win myself a seat online at  www.eurobetpoker.netfor the princely sum of $75+5 (well, technically nothing as this was
just a small fraction of my online profit this month after a successful
assault on the Pot-Limit Omaha tables courtesy of Rolf Slotboom’s
short-stack PLO strategy ;-) ) I was in sunny Leeds last weekend (19–21 June) for the Coral British Masters.

While I was unable to convert my online success into a cash – I
busted in 50th out of the main event when my short-stacked shove for
6,500 at the 300/600 level with Pocket Kings ran into the mighty
Ace-Jack with all the money in the middle pre-flop (guess the first
card out…) – another Welshman in the form of Carl Williams managed to
cash.

Admittedly it was only for £250, but being as Carl had qualified
online for next-to-nothing (around $10 I believe) this was still a
pretty decent ROI, and being as I had 10% of him I managed to earn
myself £25 as well. Granted that’s not quite as impressive as winning a
World Series bracelet, but money won is still twice as sweet as money
earned.

CBMPT Leeds Champion Tom MacDonald. Image courtesy of A World of Poker.

Congratulations go to 18-year-old Tom MacDonald who saw off 93 other
players to reach heads-up with over a 3–1 chip lead. After seeing off a
spirited challenge from runner-up Jamie Sykes he bagged a bankroll
boosting £15,400 for his troubles, with Mr Sykes earning himself a cool
£10,000 in the process for second place.

My disastrous run of tournament form continued in the £100
freeze-out and after getting down to the final 20 with around 35k in
chips at the 800/1,600 level the wheels fell off…

I managed to lose two massive back-to-back pots, both while holding
Ace Queen; the first was pretty standard, a guy with around 20k shoved
my blind from the button and being as he had looked eager to get his
chips in the middle for a while, when I looked down to see Ace Queen of
spades in the Big Blind I was pretty sure I was in front.

Sure enough after making the call my big chick was dominating the gentleman’s Ace Four of diamonds, until he flopped a Four…

Running Ten’s and Seven’s saw me chop the pot (apparently I’m the lucky
bastard here…) so one 72% v 23% (the other 5% is a chop) down, one more
to go…

Just a scant two hands later I find myself on the Button with… Ace
Queen. I raise to 4,000 the Big Blind glances at his cards and
instantly moves all-in. Now personally, I don’t think that he’s doing
this with a hand here, maybe a rag Ace or small pocket pair at best so
it doesn’t take long for me to make the call.

‘Fucking hell, I’m in bad shape’ mumbles the gent in question as I
call and he’s sees my Ace Queen, and he turns over Ace Nine off…

Blank, blank, blank, blank… Nine on the river sees me left with just
one Big Blind and a bad taste in my mouth and I’m out in 19th on the
next hand when my bag of spanners fails to connect with the flop.

But then, that’s tournament poker for you…

You can read all about the action and adventure at uk.pokernews.com as I’ve just submitted a feature for their website.

On the plus side I managed to come away with a £500 profit from my
escapades on the cash tables (£350 of which I made in 10 minutes at one
table…) so life’s not all bad.

The atmosphere surrounding the Tour is as friendly as the Gala Tour,
and with a lot of the same faces and the fact that you can play in all
three tournaments and pay for your hotel for the price of just one
GUKPT, it is a pretty good value poker weekend.

The next leg is 24–26 July in Teeside, followed by the Nottingham leg on 14–16 August. 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 or visit  www.britishmasterspokertour.co.ukfor more details.

GUKPT Summer Series

GUKPT Aberdeen Summer Series Champion John Angus. Image courtesy of BlueSquare/GUKPT

Not to be outdone, Grosvenor Casino’s are also running their Summer
Series. Their second event was held up in Aberdeen last weekend (yes,
an unfortunate schedule clash with the CBMPT which probably explained
the low number of runners) where retired accountant John Angus (insert
Burger King joke here…) saw off the 41 other runners to win himself
£7,870. Congratulations to Black Belt Poker blue belt and Poker Player
Strategy Editor Nick Wright on his third place finish for £3,780. It’s
always nice to see a fellow poker journo win some glory, and Nick is an
all round nice guy anyway.

The last event of the Summer Series will be running this coming
weekend (25–18 June) in Walsall so you can still get your Summer of
Shove tournament fix here.

Needless to say I and several other members of Cardiff’s poker mafia (the Tafia ) will be attending and will be writing an article on it for Poker News.

The quality of play and the value at these tournaments is immense,
so while the majority of the poker world focuses on Las Vegas, don’t
forget there is still poker to be played and money to be made on this
side of the pond as well.

Visit  http://www.grosvenorukpokertour.com/summer_series.shtml

for more info or qualify online at  BlueSquare.com.

Micro-stakes madness…

Unfortunately as my focus both online and live has been on the above
I have not had a chance to play any poker relating to my Micro-stakes
Mission, but as this is a work in progress, rest assured I will be
grinding it out at the lower levels in an attempt to win fortune and
glory in the coming weeks. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Well I’ve got me a few features to write before the weekend so I’ll
sign off until Monday where I’ll let you know all about the GUKPT
Summer Series in Walsall and probably bitch about my bad beats

Keep it real folks, and if all else fails… try Wales.

Tidy.