First off a big apology to Matthew Wood! This is what was just about to be put somewhere down at the bottom of this Latest News: “He managed one four figure result on PokerStars, taking a $2200 win in a $5 rebuy no-limit hold ’em event. He says he needs to work on not blowing up in tournaments so much [bound to happen with such a super-aggressive style – Ed].” And then just before the editorial deadline, in the early hours of the 29th of February, he took down the Genting Poker Series Mini £220 NLHE at Genting Sheffield for £10,000.
So the practice at not blowing up in tournaments has obviously paid off, and a big humble pie for your correspondent. Fabulous result and pride of place in the results – especially as, degenerate gambler that he is, he apparently won his way into the 200-runner tournament in a 10-man £22 flip for a seat! Now THAT is how to run it up. Well played sir, well played indeed. I make that a 45,000% ROI, which you’ll agree is not unimpressive.
Tim Wright came an excellent 10th in the Winter Classic at the Hippodrome in London’s Leicester Square, just bubbling the final table but turned his £275 entry into £1118 so a great effort. He then went even better at the Genting Club Reading Quarterly Special £110 NLHE just before the end of the month, coming an excellent 3rd out of 136 for £3200. Two quality results.
Steve Redfern is mostly a cash pot-limit Omaha player but does play tournaments in both no-limit hold ’em and PLO and has had a string of good results this year: he won a €5 PLO rebuy on Coral for €303, and has finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th there in NLHE €10 tournaments for €446, €347 and €201, and also managed that elusive thing, a PokerStars final table: he was 4th in a $33 PLO tournament for $728.
Blue Blood’s lovely and hard working membership secretary Di Farrell has been putting together some decent live results: she played the Newcastle leg of the Grosvenor 25/25 no limit hold ’em series, turning her £225 entry fee into 15th place from 273 and £650. She also wants it to be known that she isn’t just a no limit hold ’em machine, she can play the complex split-pot poker variant pot-limit Omaha hi-lo too, finishing 7th at the APAT Luton £30 side event for £80.
Gordon ‘GMac’ McArthur played the same Newcastle 25/25 and did even better – he final tabled and eventually finished 7/273 for £1700. He also managed 4th in the £3k guaranteed at Stockton for £300. He says he’s not had a lot of time to play this year but seems to be proving that quality is better than quantity.
Mark England is concentrating on grinding multi-table tournaments this year and has had a good start: he’s had several final tables on PokerStars, the significant ones being 3rd from 302 in a $16.50 8-max tournament for $498, and then his biggest online win for a while: after a marathon 13 hours he was unlucky to finish only 3rd from a starting field of 10,268 in the Sunday night Bigger $8.80 for $6116. He also managed to cash the £50 NLHE freezeout tournament on the Friday night of the APAT weekend in Luton, finishing 11th for £185, which won him half of the last longer bet, paid for the hotel for the weekend and went some way to compensating for his frustration in the APAT team event where he bubbled the points in 103rd. Mark says that at least part of the credit for his success so far this year is from the expert one-to-one tutoring and analysis he is receiving from Ben Agombar, a full time online mtt pro and coach, which is being provided by Blue Blood Poker.
Will Messenger won a 411 person $27 hyper-turbo NLHE tournament on PokerStars for $2230. Hyper turbos are a very difficult way of making money, with lots of variance, so this is an excellent result.
Dawn Cooke managed to chop first place at Aspers Stratford in the £30 NLHE for £210 not once but twice! She also had a £220 score finishing 13/161 in a £50 tournament there. Dawn is a quality consistent player and it’s good to see her back out and winning again.
Simon Hyde came 14th at the Dusk Till Dawn XXL £25 Monster for £175, and managed a satellite win of a $1000 seat into one of the PokerStars Turbo Championship Of Online Poker events, but sensibly cashed it in to use it for lots of smaller tournament entries rather than risk the variance of one big fast structure event. Simon is a keen student of poker and has been working hard on his game lately and the big results are certain to follow.
And finally, Steve Ball hasn’t been able to play a lot lately but did manage an impressive 2nd from 128 players in the Sky Poker 2015/16 Heads-Up Championship online (I think this is a freeroll, but I’m sure someone will correct me if it isn’t?), winning 2 Sky Main Event tickets. He was very unlucky in the end not to win the whole thing. I’m hearing that he managed to get to G Walsall over the last weekend in February and cashed too – well played Steve and great to see you’re out and about playing poker.
