Gala £100 (+£10) NLH F/O w/£1,000 Added

Yo Guys. Reporting on my monthly Teesside visit, which I travelled to alone for the 2nd month in a row as Mark was exhausted from the Nottingham drive home & wanted to spend the day with his family. Speaking of Mark I would like to open by commiserating with him about his day 2 exit in the UKIPT, I know how excited & confident after his recent success he was going into the event. I’m his biggest fan & nothing more satisfying than watching him crush these festival events, unlucky bro, chin up, & better luck next time. I knew a lot of the accomplished Teesside players (Paul ‘swampy’ Gardener, Dave Maudlin, etc) were at DTD joining Mark for the PokerStars UKIPT, so I kind of expected the field to be a little smaller & softer than usual.

Upon arriving I notice that usual tournament director Mark Dobson isn’t collecting payment, so being nosy I ask about this & learn that he took a redundancy package earlier in the month. Everybody in Teesside knows Mark’s a top guy & I for one would like to wish him the very best of luck in the future, I speak for my brother (Mark) as well who was good friends with Mark.


So with Mark’s departure we had the beautiful Jaclyn Airriess directing the tournament, who made me promise not to write anything derogatory about her in my synopsis ;-). I’m not sure if she’ll be in the card room permanently, but certainly not a bad word here & she done an exceptional job from what I could see.


Anyway I’m drawn T5-S1 along with Susan Scarce (4), Xenophon Constantinou (7), Snr. Lataif (8), & Danny Oakley (D) the only guys I recognized on the table, as expected a smaller field of 64 generated a prize pool of £7,400 including the added £1,000 which was divided between the final table;

1) £2,570
2) £1,540
3) £1,050
4) £610
5) £460
6) £360
7) £290
8) £220
9) £170
10) £130

So although the smaller field it’s still the biggest monthly pot in the north east by a considerable distance, anyways I find myself AIPF vs. late entrant James McCulloch (10) in the 1st orbit;

QQ vs. James McCulloch Ax: 50/100 “19,000” (Passed round to James in the SB who come’s in for 4x making it 400, I 3BET to 1200 which prompts James to push his stack over line. I have zero hesitation in committing the chips, board runs xQxxx ensuring no sweat as I practically double up as James leaves the table saying he didn’t expect me to call.)

I’ve played with him James a handful of time’s & he’s a very nice guy & generally pretty solid player, I guess he just wanted to go big or go broke.


So now my only complaint for the evening, our table (5) waited an hour & 40 minutes before we had any attention from the valets. This was whilst table 1 had been served a minimum of twice, then by the time the drinks arrived we had gone on a break so I came back to a lukewarm cup of tea. This is completely unacceptable if you ask me, if I had of been fortunate enough to win/cash I certainly wouldn’t have been very generous with my valet tips.


Anyway during the break I catch up with Dave & Paul, who I said earlier I expected to be absent as they were down Nottingham. This unfortunately wasn’t the case as both had bust out & travelled back north, which I’m sure all will agree are two of the more dangerous players in the field. Paul tells me he managed to last approximately half an hour in the UKIPT as he got QQ AIPF vs. AQo only to be flushed out, unlucky old boy & better luck next time.

Shortly after returning our table is broke & I’m sent over T1-S9 along with Martin Turnbull (2), Terry 'The Tiger' (4), Ross ‘roscopiko’ Johnson (5), & George Brown (7). Nothing much to report as my stack fluctuates between 18,000 & 28,000 as I remain active, I play a small pot with Martin where he tanks on a 3xK board after I had 2BET the BB lead & I jokingly say I hope your not nitrolling me with bottom set again (In reference to a previous hand I played with him, detailed in my most recent Circus £75 review). Martin passes & show’s KQo after BB also folded, I declared I had AK but didn’t show (I almost never do) so as to keep the young boy guessing. Moving on & after raise/folding a couple of time’s I’m a little shy of chip average when COGB Snr. Portanus joined the table & we play this pot;

99 vs. Richard Sewell K9o: 500/1,000/100 “37,000” (Portanus opens 4x UTG+2 & I'm familiar with his LAG style & wide range so when I find 99 with 17,500 it’s a great resteal stack & auto shove from next position. Everybody folds around to Richard who tank calls & flips K9o, so I’m delight to see I’m a 70% favourite PF. However I’m dead on the xKK flop which to make things worse the case 9 hit’s the river, giving me a smaller house.)

I’ve had 99 lose twice now vs. Portanus as he knocked me out the ‘Grosvenor £300 (+£55) Team Game’ back in November 2009 holding KQ vs. my 99, sigh never mind. So I’m 0/5 in this Gala event, although I did have 50% of Mark’s £1350 for 3rd back in January so I'm still running at a small profit. But yeah I thought this would be my 1st cash however that’s just the way it goes sometimes, & happy for my chips to head in Richard’s direction who is a 1st class bloke who always makes every effort to see how I am every time I see him on the felt.


As I leave the table busting in 28th I catch up with John Bousfield & Sammy (Not familiar with his surname) who are both Teesside locals & seen my exit hand, they joke that at least I have something to write about. Which I was quite pleased about as they obviously know of FTP, so I hope your reading & enjoying chaps. I also congratulated Kieran Appleby on his 15th place finish in the UKIPT, Kieran had literally just walked through the doors after the drive north from Nottingham & bought a well earned pint. An awesome run in an event with 650 players & although just missing out on mega money still a tidy £2,700 to show for it, brilliant display buddy & both Mark & I are delighted for you.


Anyway I hit the road & headed home approximately 22:30, which turned out to be a most unpleasant experience. The A19 was closed & diverted the north bound traffic towards the A1, so after navigating through some old village with a 30 limit. I emerge at the A1 to find due to maintenance the limit is reduced to 50 to just shy of the MetroCentre, FML. Then to rub salt into the wound I had to make my way from west to east through the busy Saturday night city centre traffic, ultimately taking a usual 50 minute journey to just shy of an hour & half as I get home for 23:55. Oh well look on the bright side, at least I avoided the £1.20 tunnel toll charge.


Ian ‘2-cats’ Woods posted the results up over NPF & I understand a 5 way split was done at 2:00am, with Snr. Lataif taking the lion’s share with £2,000 whilst the other 4 took £1,030 each. Mohammed Lataif can be a pest at the table & his constant talking can be enough to tilt you, but in general he's harmless & means well. The only other guy I recognized ITM was 10th place (£130) finisher Colin Pearson, so well done to those two & of course all the rest who made the final table.


So unfortunately Mark’s weekend was cut short after a day 2 exit in the PokerStars UKIPT down Nottingham, however my busy poker weekend concludes 15:00 this afternoon as both George & I have qualified for the ‘Circus League Final £4,000 Freeroll’. I’ll likely play the 20:00 ‘£20 (+£2) +1 Rebuy’ if I’m bust from league final in time, which FYI has a £2,000 guarantee with 50 players & is the best weekly scheduled game in Newcastle. Well worth getting yourself over Circus for what I’m sure will be a great day with lots of side action, so watch out tomorrow for my synopsis of both these events.

Thanks for reading ladies & gentleman.