This would make the final table team event very interesting; as you could potentially have a team with 6000(all 8th) sat down to a team with 18000chips (all 1st)
The seating and chip stacks where as follows

Pos 1 Team 3’ Danny’s Army’ with 12.6k chips
Pos 2 Team 7 ‘The Mighty Ducks’ 11k chips
Pos 3 Team 8 ‘Blackley Champs’ 10.6k chips
Pos 4 Team 6’Any Two Will Do’ 9.2k chips
Pos 5 Team 2 ‘Dream Team’ 10.6k chips
Pos 6 Team 5 ‘Scholesy’s Angels’ 10.4k chips
Pos 7 Team 9 ‘Out of Towner’s’ 10.2k chips
Pos 8 Team 1 ‘Horwich Dirty Donkers’ 11.6k chips
Pos 9 Team 4 ‘The Usual Suspects’ 7.6k chips
The rules of the team event was that each player had one time out (where he could discuss the hand with the rest off the team.)
Each team member could only play for 1 blind level, and then had to change.
That a player could not play again until all of the team had had their go.
The Blinds started at 100/200

The first out was Team 4 ‘Usual Suspects’
With a board of Q99 J and being re raised holding 8 10
Richard Johnson calls for a time out.
When he comes back and pushes all in. Danny from team 3 calls with A 9
A on the rivers seals it and Team 4 ‘Usual Suspects are out in 9th
Next we have a big clash .Team 8 Blackley Champs push with A 10.Only to be called by Team 7 Mighty Ducks AQ and Team 2 Dream Team with QQ
With a board of K 10 6 5 2 Queens hold up and the Blackley Champs and Mighty Ducks hit the rail.
Next big move is when Badger (Out Of Towner’s) raises with KJ and Scholey’s Angels move all in with 89 suited. Board 10 J K 4 3
Out of Towner’s double up
Eugene is the next to hit the rails. With a board of 8s 6h 10h Eugene pushes all in holding 9h 5h
Danny call with 9 7 and the straight holds up, with no help for Eugene on the turn or the river
Any Two Will Do out in 6th
Next to leave the table is Danny’s Army
With a board of 489 7 Adam White pushes all in
Danny calls after a time out with 56
Adam has the higher straight with 6 10
No help on the river and Danny’s Army out in 5th
Andy Mac is the next to make a move when he pushes with A7 only to be called with Ashton’s pocket 7
K69 8 4
Scholesys Angels out in 4th
Danny McDermott makes the next move, when he pushes all in on a 663 board with A3
Only to be called by Ashtons pocket 8s
No help on the turn or the river and Danny’s Dream Team are out in 3rd
Down to heads up, but this did not last long as Carl pushed all in, and Badger looking at pocket 5.
Badger called, only for Carl to turn over pocket Q
273 10 J
Queens hold up and the Horwich Dirty Donkers win the first Tango Team Event

Hard luck the Out Of Towners.Running into a higher pocket pair heads up

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AJ Out in 12th

We eventually got down to the final table and into the money, with the following players
Seat 1 Chris Gallagher 210k
Seat 2 Alec Pagel 52k
Seat 3 Steve Francis 55k
Seat 4 Lewis Greenhalgh 53k
Seat 5 Faz Karodia 24k
Seat 6 Jonathon Howell 191k
Seat 7 Andy McGuigan 91k
Seat 8 Curt Cragg 58k
Seat 9 Malcolm Young 194k.

The first casualty was Faz. Who pushed with A8, only to be called by AJ.
AJ holds up and Faz is out in 9th, but £20 the richer.
The next out, is a regular on the final table, Steve Francis
Chris Gallagher raises and Steve comes over the top, all in.
Everybody else folds to the chip leader Chris.
Showdown
Chris AK suited Steve KK
Steve’s KK holds up to the turn, then the case A hits the river
Steve Francis out in 8th.
Curt Cragg was next out
Lewis raises Curt all in on the big blind. Curt being short stacked decides to call with K6 spades
Lewis has KQ and hits a straight on the flop. With no help on the turn or river, curt is out in 7th
This was Curt’s first final table, well done.
Next to hit the wire is Alex Pagel
Alex goes all in with pocket 3s and gets called by Jonathon with AQ
A on the river sees Alex Pagel out in 6th
This was Alex’s first Tango final, and what a good showing
Jonathon Howells is the next to hit the wire
He rises with A7 only to be rerased all in by Lewis with AJ
Jonathon calls, but with no help for either hand on the board, AJ wins
Jonathon is out in 5th, but with £60 a seat to the next Manchester Confidential poker game at the 235 Casino. Not a bad result
Lewis Greenhalgh now makes a move with Q10 and goes all in, only to be called by Malcolm on the big blind with A5
With a board of 334 7 8 Lewis Greenhalgh is out in 4th. Lewis has also won a seat to the Manchester Confidential and £80
Andy McGuigan is the next to go all in on a short stack, with 74
Chris calls with K8. The flop is 469. Andy is in front. A 5 on the turn gives Chris more out(any K 8 or 7)
7 on the river give Andy two pair, but gives the straight to Chris.
Andy McGuigan out in 3rd. Andy picks up £100 and a seat to Manchester Confidential.
We are finally down to heads up.
This is Malcolm’s first Tango Poker Final.
He has done well to get here. He took a big hit, when down to 5 players, and built his stack back up.
Chris has also done well. Although chip leader from the get go, He has managed to keep pressure on the smaller stacks, and not over played his hands.
We finally get down to the winning hand
Malcolm big blind is 10 2. When the flop J 9 8 hits the board, Malcolm is all in
Chris quickly calls having hit top pair with 4J
Turn is 4 river J

Malcolm misses his straight, but Chris has hit a full house
Malcolm Young picks up £240 plus a seat to Manchester Confidential
Chris Gallagher is the new Tango Poker League Champion, and wins £600 first prize

Albion Final

Well done Chris

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And Chris Bowker
Got presented the player for the month (June & July) they will be playing for the player of the year and a seat to Dusk Till Dawn 100k event next year.
A free draw was also carried out for a satellite seat at the 235 W.S.O.P.E. This was won by Paul Berrey:-see you Sunday Paul.

We eventually got down to the final table
Seat 1 Joe Power 79k Seat 2 Martin Heywood 161k
Seat 3 Andy Bell 72k Seat 4 Sharon Weldon 135k
Seat 5 Eric Dewhurst jnr 206k Seat 6 Gary Whitty 48k
Seat 7 Scott Jiminiz 307k Seat 8 Andy Duff 54k
Seat 9 Joe Abbott 115k Seat 10 John Georgeson 22k
1st to hit the rails was John Georgeson who went all in with KQ called by Gary with JQ
Flop K26 Turn 10 River 9
Gary hits the straight on the river, John out in 10th
Andy Duff is the next out. Andy is all in with 10 4 on a board of 10 6 3.Called by Joe Abbott with KK
Kings hold up. Andy out in 9th
Gary pushes with AJ .Sharon goes on in on the big blind with JQ
Gary call and the A stands up. Sharon out in 8th
Scott is the next to hit the wire. He makes a move with K2 but gets called by Joe Abbott with 45 of spades. Joe hits the straight. Scott out in 7th
Martin is next to hit the wire, when his A3 gets called by Andy’s pocket As. Pocket rockets stand up.
Martin out in 6th
Gary now makes a move with A2; Andy calls with pocket 5s, and hits a flush on the river.
Gary out in 5th
Joe Abbott now pushes with A7.Called by Joe Power with pocket QQ
Joe Abbott hits the A on the flop
Joe Power out in 4th
Joe now goes all in with AQ against Eric’s big blind. Eric call with QK
A stands up
Eric out in 3rd
Joe goes all in with J9 suited, called by Andy with pocket 7s
/Andy hits a 7 on the flop and wins the W.S.O.P. Seat
Well done Andy Bell

“no, i only want 2 pints luv” i hear the big fella say to the barmaid, “yes i know” she says, then very politely tells him again “that’s £7.80 please” now i’ve never seen a Rhino knocked down with a feather before, but i reckon if i would of had one with me it may well have been possible!

The tiny “Barbie-doll” looking barmaid was anxiously waiting for this giant of a man to pay her & once she had given the change she disappeared quicker than a bucket of freshly salted slugs! To make matters worse for Johnny, i informed him that this trip was a waste of time because Doug wasn’t even on duty that evening!

THREE OR 3?

Anyway we arrive at the Three Arrows in Middleton, 2 tables for the end of month game. Most players put a £5 bounty on their own head in this 13,000 stack game. I get the beer in on arrival and paid a lot less than £7.80 & tasted a lot better for it lol.

With Johnny’s wallet still smarting from our stop off at the Casino i offer to get him another pint to balance things up while i go for a quick chat with the poker lads & take the name card round, this cheered him up immensely & he posted another 2 for good measure!….. good job i’m doing the driving tonight. A good game was in progress and a lot of action on nearly every pot with the bounties in play but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves bounty or not.

Off To Alti..

“i’m not ice skating” the big fella informs me when i pick him up & tell him we’re off to Altrincham.

Once again it’s the month end game but this time Lee, the Landlord of the Bridge puts up £50 for Tango player who have played 3 out of 4 games in the month (or 4 out of 5 if there’s 5 Thursdays in the month) now i think this is a fantastic idea and my BIG THANKS goes out to Lee for making ‘this’ Tango venue even better for Tommy & his band of regulars to play in.

The Toll Point was our next port of call, where it all began for Tango. The ‘Tolly’ was the first pub to sign up for the TPL & we had our launch-come-opening game here in July 09, a few of the usual suspects are still on parade plus new members are always directed to the Tolly to ease them into a Tango game night mainly because there’s ALWAYS sausages laid on at the break!

The Rhino is in some sort of text conversation that is making him rather too giddy for my liking, and after the final text he then tells me “i can’t make tomorrow night, i have to meet someone called Debbie & 11 other student nurses and show them around Manchester!” I demand to know why i’m not invited on this excursion. “it’s ok mate” he says “i’ve got this one covered, i don’t think there’s any need for a wing-man”

So Friday i’m off to the Hare & Hounds in Gorton for one of Tango’s deep stack games. Andy ‘the rebel’ Duff is the TD & starts everyone on 25k as it’s not a school night, we all pay a £2 bounty to put on our own heads, and a further 50p is collected off everyone & a name is picked at random for the ‘super bounty’… all good fun!

COME AND RESCUE ME!!!  The text reads on my phone, with a rather puzzled look on my face i decide to ring the Rhino for an explanation of his text. “what’s up fella? Too many chickens in your coop?” i ask.. “I WISH!” the big fella barks back at me, “let me put it this way, other than Debbie all the rest aint chickens, they’ve ALL got budgie smugglers on! And i’m stuck in the middle of the gay village because they ALL wanted to come here!”

I drop my phone laughing at my friends predicament and think to myself how glad i am not to be on this ‘nurse’s tour of Manchester’ where there seemed to be more mince than even Mr. Kippling could handle at Christmas, and i let him stew for about an hour before i send the text “Don’t worry… help is on the way!”

Step 1, I pick up Kev-2-Legs on my way to the City centre telling him we have to save Johnny from 12 student nurses, he blurts out that ‘he’ would look after them if i want to take the Rhino back to the pub with me.

Step 2, pulling up outside the pub i tell him to go inside, find the Rhino and he will point out Debbie “and after that it’s up to you mate”

Step 3, quick splash of Brute & the boy goes in! The car door didn’t get chance to close before the big fella was in shouting DRIVE, DRIVE, DRIVE! Lol, not heard off Kev since but i’m sure he’s ok wherever he is!

Day off on Saturday, but it’s the Tango Final Sunday!

We called in on The Gardeners Arms on Sunday to see if they were actually playing outside because of the warm weather! No, was the answer as all 22 runners seemed to have the pub to themselves because everyone else was in the beer garden!

15,000 starting stack at the Gardeners starting at 8pm but all the talk in the place was about Tango upping the 1^st prize of the 2-month final to a $1,500 seat at the next W.S.O.P. with hotel & flights in Vegas. The top 70 players in the league will be invited to the fantastic 235 Casino in Manchester to play for the fantastic 1^st prize worth over £2,000!

The Rhino, my beer monster chum , asked me “if i come to Vegas with you, do i have to play poker?” not what you would call a lover of the game my friend, but saying that he doesn’t really like anything that gets in the way of discovering his own “perfect pint” never mind Carling’s!

“Don’t worry” i told him “your job when we’re over there next year, is to find out what’s best, Bud or Coors!” he seemed delighted by this and ordered a couple of beers to celebrate.

I spotted Alan Kinsey on table 2 and went over for a quick chat, ‘AK’ keeps telling me i’m much older than he is but i can’t see it myself as he has 8 grandchildren and tells me he’s only 46! Who’s he trying to kid? He told me he’s 47 in August, so from August Mr. Kinsey shall be known as AK47!

Over The Border…

Monday night seen us landing at The Victoria in Horwich, Bolton. It seemed really quiet in the massive vault at the Vic, mind you last time i was there on a Monday night Bolton Wanderers were at home & the Reebok stadium is just around the corner.  

Andy Winning runs the games at the Vic on Mondays & Wednesdays, both nights start at 8pm with 10,000 chips. The Bolton crowd got the ball rolling by starting a fresh name card i’m taking out & about with me. £1 per square and the winner will get a seat at Manchester’s 235 Casino on Sunday 4^th Sept. In their first £50 W.S.O.P.E. feeder games! So make sure you have a spare couple of quid with you for when i turn up at your game.

Off to The Albion in Middleton next for another of Tango’s Monday night games. Howard started with 15,000 in chips for his 18 players & we turned up just as the players went on a 10 minute break at the end of level 3, perfect timing! I thought, whipped out my name card and the smoking area was now full of players searching their pockets for £1 coins.

The Rhino taps me on the shoulder, then pointing a finger at Howard he said to me “first time i’ve seen ‘H’ at a poker game still awake” not as crazy as it sounds actually, i’m up to 9 different pictures of ‘H’ asleep in 9 different pubs! I’ve told him, as soon as i get 12 i’m making a calendar to raffle off for charity!

Back at the bar, The Rhino was sorting a few quid out for his Vegas Club. In case you’re new to Tango, “Vegas Club” is a savings club for anyone interested in going to Vegas next year in the middle 2 weeks of June, the idea being.. the more of us there is going then the cheaper it will be! If you want any more info on Tango’s Vegas Club check out our Facebook page.

Tuesday..

A quick visit to the 235 Casino to confirm a few details for Tango’s final on the 28^th August, only to find out that Doug, the card room manager is in Vegas! Oh well, fingers crossed that all is good for the 28^th, don’t want to start changing anything now the dates & prizes have all been arranged. (regular Tango players are not used to things being changed at the last minute! LOL LOL LOL LOL!!)  

So me & the big fella set off for Cheers Bar in Prestwich singing the theme song from the famous rubbish TV show. “i wonder if everyone really will know my name when we get there” the Rhino says to me when we got to that point in the lyrics, “doubt it” i said “people are usually just scared of you”

Johnny goes into Cheers while i pose for a photo with the sign outside, i decide to ‘dance’ my way into the place for some reason & thinking i was alone bustin’ moves, there was a couple who i hadn’t spotted in the corner who found this hilarious! In fact the young lady was suffering from some sort of breathing problem from my Elvis impression & found it hard to hold back some sort of bodily function???

The league’s Guv’, “Tango Dave” runs this game and his head popped up saying “behave yourself! Just tell people we start at 8 with 13,000 but the venue is subject to change on Champions League nights now both City & United are in it” so there you go, i’ve told you…… T1L

After a couple of meetings with Manchester Confidential, who are a HUGE on-line magazine with over 100,000 readers in & around Manchester, they have asked me to write a weekly blog about pub poker namely Tango poker.

Man.Conf. are very well connected with various people (and possible sponsors) but mainly from our point of view they are connected to Manchester’s 235 casino. Together with the 235 they will be holding £50+£7 “deep stack freeze out” tourney’s every month to send people to the WSOPE tourneys all over Europe. The buy-ins will pay for the seats and Man.Conf. will be putting up flights & hotels.

The 235….

The 235 casino has had a re-furb over the past few months and they now have a very impressive card room, i’ve been down there for a tour & a meeting with the staff who told me that they intend to follow the WSOPE by running games each month for seats at the next game on the tour. WSOPE feeders will be dealer-dealt tourneys with a free buffet for the players (hence the £7 rake lol)

The 235 is more relaxed than the G casino or any other casino by the way you don’t have to provide ID to join, it works like any other pub or club, if your dressed smart and you don’t look under age then you’re in!

Also keeping “in” with 235 we get to find out about anything else they might start doing and maybe some freebies off them if we keep filling up the WSOPE seats…. who knows??

Using This Blog….

My idea for this blog is for it to work in a few different ways, i will be visiting all the venues on the Tango calendar taking a few photos & jotting a few things down, not only about the poker but the pub itself. I think this will be good advertising for pubs on the circuit when you think of the amount of people reading the blog via the Man.Conf. tab.

Also if a pub is holding a charity night or some other sort of fund raising activity then i can push it into that week’s blog. Most pubs seem to be taking name cards or raffle tickets round each week raising money for someone or something local so why not use this to let 1000’s know about the cause? Speaking of good cause’s…..

I will be “replacing” Tango league games for fund raising games across the fixture list about every 2 weeks or so, the 1st will be at the Strawberry Duck on Wed. 13th July. just for one night the normal league game will become a fund raiser where players can win £50(+£7) seats to the WSOPE game at the 235 as well as seats for Manchester Confidential’s £20(+£5) double chance game also at the 235. All Tango players that attend will be given 150 league points plus all non Tango members will be given instant membership and 150 points! (hopefully this will kick start these people into becoming regular players in the TPL and maybe introducing some new venues) contact me direct for buy-in details by email at  tony1leg@gmail.com  or PM me on facebook  Tony OneLeg

I will be trying to attract a bigger audience with this blog than just poker players, i’ve enlisted the help of my beer monster chum Johnny “The Rhino” who will be giving his “drunk’s eye view” of pubs & venues we visit. The last blog i did was about the up’s & down’s of Droylsden FC. we built up quite a following from people who didn’t care less about the football, they just wanted more of what we was getting up to & slagging off! but as the saying goes, any advertising is good advertising! so if i write this blog in the same sort of way hopefully more people will be bookmarking the address at the top of this page. This means if you are somewhat of a character in the TPL your photo plus whatever slander i choose to write about you will end up all over Man. Conf’s. website for 1000′s to see! lol lol…………. you know who you are !!!

Finally…

Pokershark is a free on-line magazine and they have a website promoting all local pub poker in Manchester and advertise Tango games (here) worth a look and don’t forget…. it’s FREE!

Read about Manchester Confidential’s Poker tourneys (also where this blog will appear) on the new poker tab (here)

To give you an idea of how this blog will look my Bloods (Droylsden FC) blog is still open for now (here)

Thanks for reading this folks… please add to the discussion page on Tango’s Facebook as ALL and ANY feedback is both wanted & welcome…… T1L.

Well it must of been the weather outside getting to people as players started falling thick & fast!  We got the cards in the air for 2pm half an hour later than usual because of the last minute venue change, but by 2.15 we had our 1st casualty when Stevie G pushed on a flop of K-8-Q with his K-Q off into pocket Kings and Stevie was our 1st sun-bather! the news of this filled Ian “bingo” Burnett’s heart with joy after being 1st out in the last 2 finals vowed he was NOT going to get the hat-trick! however it wouldn’t be too long before he was in the sunshine.

There was no more exits in level 1 & non in level 2 either, it was just before 3pm we lost Burkey closely followed by Andy Cal, Drew Finney, Bingo & Kristian Thornley. This gave us 39 runners going into level 4 but this also gave Kristian far too much time at the “friendly” table which he owned for about the next 6 hours or so!

During level 4 we lost “mad” Richard, “vicious” Steve, Adam Doyley, Eugean Wilcox, Chris Petcu and about 4.05pm we lost our Blackpool Grand Final winner Lewis Skelhorn.

Level 5 seemed a little tighter as we only lost Dave Griffin Snr. & Dave “tango” Thompson left us about 4.30pm leaving 31 runners left going into Level 6.

This turned out to be the quick fire round! with the blinds at 400 / 800 we lost Lee Taylor & seconds later Chris Lee called for all his chips on a Jack high flop with AJ only to find Kelly holding KK. in the next 10 minutes out go Howard Thompson, Harry Wright, Alan Kinsey & Tom Erentz. and when Carl Norris left us at 5.15pm i just had time to close a table leaving the 24 that were left re-seated before the second break of the day.

Break over and we’re into level 7. Out go Joe Abbott & Pat Harris closely followed by Mark Fraser. I had lost count how many times Mark had been all in pre flop but he finalyleft us around 5.45pm pushing his A-9 into Paul Griffin slow playing AA.

6pm on the clock & the blinds at 800 / 1,600 we lose 4 players in 5 minutes! off to the rail go Billy Boag, Simon Brady, Andy McGuigan& Paul Field. only 10 minutes later sees Les Harrison join them followed by Dave Erentz & Gary Bunbury. Only 14 players left and we haven’t had the food break yet! at this point i was thinking i would be back in my local for last orders with time to spare!

with the blinds now at 1,000 / 2,000 we only lost John Mortimer & Mike Morris, the clock ticks round to 7pm and we break for 45 mins with 12 players left.

We return on level 10, a repeat of the 1,000 / 2,000 but now with a 200 ante and next to go is Steve O,D. i have now officially lost count of how many times i’ve known Steve bust out with pocket Aces     and it wasn’t any different here! with his chips all in against the J Q of Kelly Milward the board came out King high but unfortunately for Steve this gave the Gorton girl the straight & Steve was out.

Mark Shonick was next to leaveat around 8pm when he pushed all in on a bluff / draw hand into Paul Griffin holding top pair who made the call after a long time in the tank. 10 left in and it’s bubble time!

It’s 8.50pm the blinds are 1,500 / 3,000 – 300Ante. and table 2 folds round to Andy “fluffy feet” Winning in the small blind, he looks down at 2 7 off, takes a moment then in his best-ist poker style moves ALL IN!!! Paul Griffin in the big blind is having non of it, with a stack of well over 100k he wakes up with Ad 9d and quickly calls the 42k shove, a 9 hits the flop and with no help on the turn Fluffy is drawing dead. in a couple of races earlier Andy would hit the table shouting “BANG BABY” when his card came down on the flop or river but this time “BYE BYE BABY” would be the shout from the rest of the room lol lol.  we’re off to the final table………

The last 9 players drew for seat numbers with the chip leader having 1st pick the so on according to chip stacks….

Seat 1 …..  Paul Griffin   161,600

Seat 2 …..  Kelly Milward   85,700

Seat 3 ….. Donna Long   20,900

Seat 4 ….. Nick Evans   27,000

Seat 5 ….. Paul Taylor   155,100

Seat 6 ….. Dave Griffin   8,100

Seat 7 ….. Andy Bell   36,600

Seat 8 ….. Aston Wiggans   114,000

Seat 9 ….. Graham Richardson   61,900

The clock was re-started and at 9.15pm we lost our short stack at the table Dave Griffin, with the blinds at 2,000 / 4,000 – 400Ante. Dave looks down at A-4 off and makes the move, Kelly isolates the pot by going all in herself with A-Q off but no player hit anything so her Queen played.

9.45pm level 13 we see Graham Richardson bow out, Graham wakes up with pocket Aces & raises up. Paul Griffin from the big blind makes the call with J-Q off and the flop comes J-Q-8. all the chips end up in the pot at this point and Graham needs help but a King turns then a 9 on the river sees Paul’s2 pair stand up.

Next to go was Kelly Milward. Kelly had been card dead since her AQ for about an hour when she looked down at A-10 clubs in early position, she makes the move & sends Donna into the tank for a long time. Donna said later she was holding A-K but was sure Kelly had a pocket pair and in the end decided not to race. next to act was Paul Taylor who made the call with pocket 5′s, Andy Bell in the small blind quickly folded A-9 as did Aston Wiggans in the big blind with AQ! a big fold with the blinds at 4,000 / 8,000 posted along with the ante’s of 800. the flop came 4-6-7 and an 8 on the turn makes Kelly dead to a 9, but the 6 on the river sees Paul take the pot & Kelly out in 7th.

Another hour goes by before Aston Wiggans bowed out, he makes his move with A-6 off pre flop but Donna wakes up with A-J off and makes the call.  A Jack hits the flop putting Aston futher behind and with no help from the turn & river he was gone.

At this point i was torn between 2 plyers left as to who would be my M.V.P. for the day, remembering that Donna came to the final table 8th in chips with just over 20k there was only  5 players left and the blinds were now 10,000 / 20,000 – 2,000 Ante, Donna had played really well to get this far.

Midnight rolled around and any thoughts i had earlier of an early bath had now long since gone. 1st time at a TPL final, Andy Bell was faced with Nick Evans raising his BB, Andy holding A-7 off re-raises all in & Nick makes the call with K-J off, still live after a flop of 3-10-4 Nick sees a Queen turn giving him the up & down draw as well, he then hits the draw with a 9 on the river.

Just before the blinds go up Paul Taylor has his 10k SB posted and only has 14k back, he puts them in and it’s only another 4k for Nick to call which he does holding Q-9 off, he’s up against the 8-3 off in Paul’s hand but a Queen on the turn gives Nick 2 pair after hitting his 9 on the flop and we’re down to the last 3.

With the blinds at 15,000 / 30,000 – 3,000 ante & coming thick & fast Paul Griffin decides he has no choice but to go all in with his 9-2 off, Nick has to make the call with his pocket 9′s and Paul takes our Bronze medal leaving Nick & Donna to fight it out.

An epic heads-up battle takes place lasting well over an hour! Donna just about had the chip lead on the 1st show down when she moved all in after a flop of 7-Q-3 with J-Q. Nick had raised pre flop and quickly called with Q-10, a harmless 2 on the turn sees Donna with one hand on the title until a 10 floats on the river! The next show down sees Nick push his massive chip lead with K-Q, Donna makes the call with A-6 and although Nick finds a King on the river Donna had already nailed an Ace on the flop to make the chip lead swing back in her favour.

After a few small pot wins without showing, the chip lead was just with Nick when the end came, a raise, an all in…. a call from Donna with K-Q! Nick flips over 10d 10c and the race is on! flop.. 9d-3s-2d the turn is 3d taking away 2 of Donna’s outs & the final card of the day was 4d and Nicks pocket 10′s make the flush and the title is his! i’m also giving him the M.V.P. on the day because with 12 runners left at the food break he was back on his starting stack of exactly 15,000 with the closest to him over 30k. this was also his 1st ever TPL final just giving him the edge for the M.V.P. for which he won a very nice pair of Tango sunglsses! lol lol

3rd place Paul Griffin

2nd Place Donna Long

The Winner & May Champ 2010 Nick Evans

well done to all who played, we’ll do it all again at The Smithy on Fathers Day 20th June at 1 o’clock….. see you there… T1L.

I went for the stelth look and tried to blend in with all the poker wannabe’s so i could get my camera out and get a few snaps of the guys in action, but the managment frowned upon this so i had to just snap a few quickies before a doorman pounced on me telling me he would insert my camera into a part of my body that i didn’t really want to take photo’s of!! well not after a curry anyway!!

With 15,000 chips to start with the 1st level was 25 / 50 and all levels were 1 hour long so plenty of time for sitting back & taking it all in.  not for our March final winner Stu Magrath! no nerves or being bowled over by the occasion what so ever! raising pre flop, Stu gets 1 caller & the flop comes, 7 A 2 Stu bets out and his opponent takes a few moments then makes the call. another 7 on the turn sees Stu check & the other guy spots this as weakness and bets out, Stu then raises him, makes the guy fold, scoops in the pot and shows his QQ! check / raising an Ace high board with QQ…. NICE!!!

Our Blackpool r/u Dave ‘Badger’ Sidebotham had a fairly uneventful 1^st hour or so,

apart from losing a good few chips in a pot where his big blind of Q4 hadn’t been raised for once, so checking the flop of A 4 4 there was some action on the turn & river with Badger calling the river bet from the small blind only to see him holding K4! But still his very lay back look had the table struggling to get any sort of read from him. Badger soon got to grips with the event though and didn’t let the occasion get the better of him as i watched from the rail he slowly got the chips back that his Q4 had lost him.

Our Feb. Champ, and in my opinion “Mr Poker Face” Graham Richardson seemed well up for this, as i asked the question to all 3 players on the journey down, “on the first hand there’s an all in & a call, you look down at AA what do you do?” Badger wasn’t sure, Stu said “i think i’d call” Graham said “there would be smoke & skid marks on the table my chips would be in that fast!” Graham took the 1st level to try and sort out the players at the table and soon found 2 or 3 he could pick on with that wicked poker stare he has and kept his chip stack just above the average.

the end of level 2 (50 / 100) came round and this was the first chance i could get all 3 of the guys together and get there thoughts & stories of the event. all 3 seemed to be enjoying it big time and Badger was impressed with the play of PokerStars Pro Jude Ainsworth who was sat on his table. Jude was to leave during level 3 after losing about a 3rd of his stack raising As 8s pre flop and seeing the big blind make the call, the flop comes down with Qs Js Ks and the BB checks.. Jude with the nut flush bets out and after a bit of Hollywood the BB calls. 2h on the turn sees the same pattern of check, bet from Jude, Hollywood…. call. the river comes 7d and this time after the check Jude bets big style, the guy in the BB says “well your pretty much putting me in so i might as well put them all in” Jude insta-calls only to see his nut flush battered by 9s 10s his opponent was holding.

level 3 started with the blinds at 75 / 150 and Stu seemed to be playing every hand and for the 2nd time in the day this photo shows him all in against AK. there was a pre flop raise and from the BB Stu calls with A4, the flop comes A Q 4 and Stu checks, his opponent bets out and he moves all in, after some time in the tank he finally gets the call but the Jack on the turn gives the other guy a lot more outs but the 4 on the river fills Stu up and he’s back to about 12,000 chips.

After 4 hours of play we reach the half way point and all 3 are still in with a shout of making it to day 2 if they can last another 4 hours. there’s 220 runners left from the 266 that started and the average chip stack is 17,500. we have Graham on 17,700, Stu with 10,500 & Badger on 11,500.

Level 5 gets underway with  150 / 300 blinds and after a short time into this level we have a man down when Stu raises his AK to 1,400, he gets re-raised to 2,800 and when both the blinds muck Stu decides to shove his 10k+ pre flop. the re-raiser holding AQ calls and hits the queen on the turn after an ace high flop sending Stu to the rail. or in his case and to everyone else’s misfortune Stu hit the bar, i mean if it was a nice drink they wouldn’t call it Sambuca!

Level 6 comes round with a repeat of the 150 / 300 blinds but now with a 25 ante off each player. Badger has had a bit of bad luck with a few small pots being out-kicked & the other guy rivering 2 pair, the worst being a short stack moving all in for about 5,300 into Badger’s BB when he has pocket Queens, he calls to find he’s up against KK and they stand up. But i really felt for the guy when he called a raise with 10 10 and checked the flop of 4 10 7, the other guy bet about half of Badgers stack so he moved all in. he gets insta-called by AA and he missed the turn but hit the Ace on the river! gutted for the man who looked so cool & in control all day.

It’s now about 8pm and day 1a will finish at the end of level 8 (300 / 600 75 ante) and Graham just has to hang on till 8.45pm when everyone left will come back with the chips they have left. Graham had took a pretty bad hit in the last level when he raised up to 2,600 with AA after the table chip leader had limped in. the small blind folded but the big blind put in the extra 2,200 as did the limper, flop comes a rainbow 9 10 J and they both check to Graham, he bets hard with a pot size bet of about 7,400, after a bit of Hollywood-ing they both call to see a queen hit the turn! at this point the big blind leads out with about 6,000 & the monster chip leader moves all in, Graham looks down at his 13k+ stack and knowing his bullets have been busted he mucks them, to make it worse the big blind folds leaving the chip leader scooping the pot without showing. Graham now goes card dead until he finds A 10 in the big blind, he pushes pre flop with 9,200 and the 2 limpers get out of the way leaving the small blind the only one left to call, after a long time he calls with 88 and the first card out is an 8 even though an ace came on the flop it was still the end of the day for Graham with only 30 minutes left on the clock.

So to sum up, all 3 had a good few hours of poker in a big event and all 3 went out fighting, A really fantastically  structured  event in what i will now be calling the Mecca of poker at Dusk till Dawn. The worst 3 hours of my life was to follow in the car journey home…….. but that’s another story. T1L.

Withington Bowling Club

first things first….. THE CLOCKS GO FORWARD!!!!

registration will open for this game at 12pm Sunday 28th March until 1.15pm. PROMPT! the game will start at 1.30pm & each player will start with 15,000 chips with the following format….

the payout on the day will be…………

1st   =   UKIPT seat at Dusk till Dawn

2nd   =   180 kudos

3rd   =   120 kudos

4th   =   80 kudos

5th   =   60 kudos

6th   =   40 kudos

7th   =   30 kudos

8th   =   20 kudos

9th   =   10 kudos

Lewis Skelhorn

Lewis played his way through 66 runners at The Skye Hotel in Blackpool to claim his seat at the W.S.O.P. in fabulous Las Vegas.

We finally got underway at 1.50pm on Saturday 30th January at the Skye Hotel in Blackpool. With 65 players plus a seat and chip stack allocated for Allen Gregory (RIP) it was going to be a long day for me but fortunately I had my girlfriend helping me out, thanks Jon x.  

The first 2 levels of the day were set at 45 minutes long and we only lost 1 player during the 50 / 100 level, with the poker gods showing the room just how nasty they can be when they want! Lee Chapman wakes up with pocket kings and raises the pot pre flop Neil Davenport looks down at pocket Queens and calls.

With no one else at the table in the hand the flop comes down with Kc, 5h, 5c with Lee now flopping a monster he puts out a small bet, Neil having none of it thinking Lee’s raised with A-? calls the bet. The turn sees 4c hit the board, Lee now wanting Neil to be flushing in clubs bets again, Neil calls again and the Qc floats down on the river! All the money goes in at this point with both players wanting a flush from each other & both holding a massive hand! Lee just about had Neil covered and we were a man down.

Allen Gregory’s chips were removed from play at the end of level 1 and after he had qualified with ease it was nice to see he wasn’t first out.

With 2 out the 100 / 200 level started with 64 players left on 8 tables of 8.

After starting the day with 9 tables we were now down to a nice round 64 players and table 5 was the first to break and become the ‘ring game’ table. A few TPL members had come along just for this game and the game quickly got started.  Later on in the day Mike “The Most Dangerous Man In Poker” Morris, would join this table and…… OWN IT!… Well done Mike.

During this level we also lost Warren Todd and Peter Andrews. Peter betting on a rags & rainbow flop with his pocket Jacks only to find his opponent holding AA putting him all in! Unlucky Peter. 

62 left as we entered 150 / 300 and all blind levels from now on would be 30 minutes long. Just Woody leaves us before the 1st break and after 2 hours of play we’re down to 61 runners, the purple chips are off the tables and smoker’s corner is packed out!

Play resumed on level 4 at about 4.05pm and we only lost Helen Thompson about 20 minutes into it.

Helens chip stack had took a beating early on and she was finally gone around half 4 in the afternoon, but it was her first final and told Jon & myself she had had a great day and took a purple chip as a memento of the day.

Welcome to the TPL Helen, we hope to see you at many more finals.

Level 5 starts with 60 playing and with the blinds at 300 / 600 the chips start flying about as players start making moves & building chip stacks. Out go – Jon Dugdale, Mike Morris, Bob Davidson along with our leader Dave ‘Tango’ Thompson.

As we are now down to 56 playing, table 9 is broken to fill up the other 7 tables. Also out at this level go – Steve Riley, Billy Boag, David Cassidy and Howard ‘H’ Thompson joins his brother at the rail.. well more like at the bar really!

52 left as we start level 6 and with the blinds at 400 /800 the first to fall was our February TPL final host Les Harrison from the Victoria in Horwich.

See you on the 28th Les. And yes, we know it’s the Carling cup final day!

With Ian Hunter, Ivan Ilyin and ex TPL champ Gareth Handley stumbling at this level, Table 8 is broken leaving 48 runners on 6 full tables of 8.

Level 7 comes around and with the blinds now at 600 / 1,200 the time came for Stewart ‘stay safe’ Dawson to leave us, his chip stack crippled in an earlier pot he was up against it in the end and left us at 5.45pm.

Next to leave us was one of the pre-tourney favourites Andy ‘man bag’ Winning.

Andy has been crowned TPL champ twice before and must of fancied his chances to take this one down as well!

Others to fall at this level were – Vicious Steve, Aron James, John Mortimore, Stephen Raftry, Mark Shonick and Anna Hearn. With 40 left in, table 8 was broken to fill up the other 5 tables.  

Before we move on to level 8

i would just like to award Christine ‘O’ or CJ to her friends, the MVP for the tournament.

Although you don’t win anything for being the MVP, Jon & myself decided she was well worthy of this after raising pre flop with AA and being called by pocket 7’s. All the money went in after a flop of 6 – 8 – 6. With a 5 on the turn and of course a 9 on the river, CJ’s stack was crippled down to about 2,000 during level 7 but she fought back to make the final table!

 Don’t forget the last final at the Toll Point she was all in on level 1 with AA against Tango Dave’s KK only to see a King hit the turn! And just for good measure CJ went to the Blackpool ‘G’ casino on the Friday night to get her pocket Aces busted yet again by pocket 5’s making the flush. Even i’m not that unlucky an i’ve lost a leg!!! Very well played though.

The blinds are now at 800 / 1,600 as we approach the dinner break. 1st to leave us was Danny McCarrick at 6.15pm closely followed by Chris Aaron.

 Even though he had come dressed to kill Ian ‘Bingo-Bob’ Burnett was next to fall after his chip stack seemed to be going up and down like a bride’s nighty! But going just before the break gets you in a good position for the buffet!

Other players to leave us at level 8 were Chatsworth Girl – Kellie 1, Laura Robinson and everybody’s friend Jonathan Addison, taking us into the 1 ½ hour dinner break with 34 players left, the green ‘100’ chips taken out of play and the grey ’10,000’ chips coming in.

Level 9 – the blinds are at 1,000 / 2,000 and out goes Big Danny, who is now to be known as Danny Big Spuds after his wild antics at the Friday night ring game in the hotel lounge. At 8.30pm we lost Tasha Broad and we were down to 32 playing on 4 full tables. Stevie ‘O’ was next to leave then Chris Armstrong. At this point with only 30 left it was hard to see where the winner was coming from as nobody seemed to be way out in front. Martin Heywood, Bergin and Riz Kler also fell at this level.

Level 10 – the blinds at 1,500 / 3,000 and we lost ‘Hitler’ Dave at 8.45pm. Followed by  ‘H-2-O’ and Stevie Greer and we are on 3 tables with 24 left. It was another pre-tourney favourite who was next to leave when Kristian Thornley crashed out.

As some of you may remember Kristian has won the Vegas seat before in a field of over 100 players but not on this occasion as another one of my hot picks heads to the rail.

So with 23 runners left on 3 tables Michael Harrison departed along with Rob Clifford and Matt Taylor.

Level 11 – 2,000 / 4,000 this is when you find out who your friends are! There’s an old saying in this game, “your only friends at the poker table are your chips”

This is imprinted now on Paul Griffin’s brain as he moves all in on Brother Dave’s big blind with J-8off

only to be called by Dave with J-10suited! No Brotherly love or any of that cobblers in this game as Dave’s 10 holds sending Paul to the rail.

Also out in this level go Lee Chapman and Danny Bridge and we’re down to 17 looking for one more casualty to make 2 tables left.

Blinds are up to 3,000 / 6,000 on level 12 and to get down to 2 tables we lost yet another favourite when Walter Nisbett moved all in with QQ

he gets a call from A8. An ace hits the flop sending the 3 time final winner out and we’re 16 left on 2 tables.

It wasn’t too long before Devan Joined him and then Chris Calderley bombed out around 10.20pm and we moved into level 13 which proved to be lucky 13 because it was the only level on the day where we didn’t lose anyone!

Level 14 seen the blinds up to 6,000 / 12,000 and not much poker was being played, then at 11.05pm we lost another past winner when Mich ‘Vegas’ Good left us,

Mich beat off 50+ in the “Bad Beat” final a couple of years ago and played a solid game all day at Blackpool only to fall short as the blinds increased. Amanda Clarke, Ben Taylor and Dom Abraham were soon to follow leaving 10 players on 2 tables that were now on the bubble.

Level 15 seen Gary Wilson get his pin out and burst in 10th place. There’s a bubble guy in every game and my heart goes out to Gary who went at 11.35pm. A long, long day for you fella, unlucky.

The Final Table!

Seat 1 – Aston Wiggans………….182,000

Seat 2 – Graham Richardson……104,000

Seat 3 – Dave ‘Badger’ Side…….186,000

Seat 4 – Andy Shuck……………….136,000

Seat 5 – Christine (CJ)………………42,000

Seat 6 – Dave Griffin……………….49,000

Seat 7 – Jason Julien……………….20,000

Seat 8 – Ian Grainger…………….166,000

Seat 9 – Lewis Skelhorn…………115,000

Our first casualty at the final table was Dave Griffin. Dave moved all in pre flop with his A 10 and was called by Aston with A Q.

Then on a board of 5 – 9– 4 – 2 – K, Aston’s queen played and Dave was gone in 9th at 12.25am.

The players all decided to cap the blinds that were now at 10,000 / 20,000. This was all Jason Julien had come to the table with and when he was forced all in on his big blind he was next to leave at 12.30am. Closely followed by our MVP for the day CJ, who’s chip stack was not enough to keep up at this level.

We lost Andy Shuck just after 1am pushing his AJ into AQ and at 1.15am Aston Wiggans went out and we were down to 4 players.

Next we see the “no friends at the table” rule come into play again when Graham Richardson pushed all in pre flop with his A7.

Lewis, Grahams lift to Blackpool and back, looks down at Qd 10d and says “oh stuff it, I fancy a gamble!” the board comes 5-6-Q-8-2 and at 1.45am Graham was gone.

Just 10 minutes later Ian Grainger makes the move from the small blind with 2s 7s, Lewis in the big blind with a huge chip stack calls with Jc 10h

with the flop coming down – Jd Qh Jh Ian was our bronze medallist and we are heads up!

Dave ‘Badger’ Side was chip leader over Lewis until his money went in with the flop showing 5h 6c 10h. Badger  had Jc 10c and Lewis calls with Jh 8h.

The turn brings 7s giving Lewis more out’s and the Qh on the river gave Lewis 80% of the chips in play!

The tourney finally came to an end at 2.25am with Badger pushing all in pre flop with pocket 6’s

Lewis calls with pocket 10’s which held on a board of 4-K-Q-7-J. Sending Lewis to Vegas and Badger off to Dusk Till Dawn for the PokerStars UKIPT.               

WELL DONE LEWIS!