The atmosphere on first day of the Beer Poker Tour at Genting Stratford was a happy-go-lucky one, which is exactly how this new addition to the UK’s live poker circuit has positioned itself. Banter and joviality were the defining features of the table chat, especially for those who were lucky/unlucky enough to be drawn on the same table as the tour’s ambassador pro Will ‘9-high like a boss’ Kassouf.
The day began with a freeroll, in which five tickets to the Main Event were won. There’s another one of these on Thursday at 1 pm. It’s free to enter, for which you get 5,000 chips, but technically it’s a free-buy rather than a freeroll, as £10 rebuys are available, for 10,000 chips.
The real action began in the evening, with many pints being served at the casino bar … and there were also a couple of poker tournaments taking place.
Nine Progress from Day 1a of poker.pro PLO
The opening flight of the poker.pro sponsored £150 4/5/6 Card Pot Limit Omaha was the first event of the evening to begin and it was a busier day than anticipated. Jason Glatzer had expected no more than 20 players would show up for this, but in the end 38 players took their seats and 19 of them had a re-entry.
The day started slowly, with only a handful of exits before the first break, by which time Will Kassouf had joined the tournament. In fact, it was a surprise to see him in this one, as he’s usually a Hold’em player, however, there was a waiting list to get into the £100 Beerpot side, so he decided to give it a spin.
In true Kassouf style, he got active immediately, playing as many hands as possible, chirping away constantly with some of his trademark table chat.
“Raise the potty”
“9-high like a boss”
‘I don’t even know how to spell Omaha”
He won the first five hands that he played, but it all went haywire in a 3-way all-in, in which both he and Glenn Brown hit the rail. The hand, won by Anthony Robert, was covered in the live blog, which will be running throughout the week.
Will then went off to take his seat in the Beerpot side event and shouts of “9-high like a boss” continued to echo throughout the room.
After the first break the pace of eliminations picked up and by the time late registration closed at the end of level 10, just 14 players remained. One more player re-entered before play resumed and that player was Will Kassouf, whose participation in the Beerpot side event had been short-lived. His second bullet in the Omaha was a quick one too as only nine places in Day 2 were available and he busted after a few hands.
Jason Glatzer almost squeaked into the money, but busted just short, in 12th place. He’ll be firing again for sure.
The runaway chip leader at the end of the day was Justin Kyriakides, whose 1.127m chip stack is equivalent to almost 23 of the 57 buy-ins in the flight, almost 40% of the chips in play. He accounted for Kassouf’s second bust-out and many others in the final few levels of the flight.
Anthony Robert, who had boosted his stack significantly in the double elimination hand, bagged up 726,000 and was the only other player to end the day with an above-average chip count. Sam Acheampong sits in third place with 247,500.
John Kelly Wins the Beerpot
Today’s NLH side event was the first outing for a new event, the £100 Beerpot, which is a regular NLH tournament, but with a twist. Whenever the blinds go up, a beer voucher is added to the pot. With the price of drinks in London being sky high these days, that’s equivalent to quite a lot of added prize money.
It was won by John Kelly, for £1,800, after a deal was done heads-up, with Ionut-Madalin Badea taking £1,590.
| Position | Name | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | John Kelly | £1,800 |
| 2 | Ionut Badea | £1,590 |
| 3 | Dillan Patel | £905 |
| 4 | Freddie Bogie | £635 |
| 5 | James Smith | £470 |
| 6 | Gideon Vecht | £360 |
| 7 | Alexandre Richardson | £285 |
| 8 | Deniz Orhan | £245 |
| 9 | Mingzhi Lai | £205 |
| 10 | Adrian Ming | £180 |
Wednesday’s Action at the Beer Poker Tour
There are four events taking place today, starting with another Main Event satellite at 1pm, which is £25 to enter and has 5 seats guaranteed. There are two flights of the poker.pro PLO, the first at 2pm, the second at 6pm.
The last event of the day is the £100 Beer KO at 7pm. It’s a regular tournament, but every player has a beer voucher on their head. Knock them out, drink their beer.
More – Live Coverage of the Beer Poker Tour
