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Poker News Round-up: Week #39

By Adam Noone, 25/09/2009

P Kelly wins bracelet no. 2

Round of each winner Erik Cajelais

A jovial gent you don't want at your table

With the WSOP Europe setting up camp in Leicester Square again this week for the third year in its short history, it really was about time the host nation provided a bracelet winner for one of these tournaments. Just as well then that of only 89 players from 608 starters in event number one who carried chips forward into day two, the top four stacks were all held by UK players with JP Kelly leading the way. With only 3000 chips to start with it was no wonder so many fell on the first day, and by the time the second day’s play had taken its toll a domestic win was looking even more likely with UK players still sitting on all the big stacks. Having beaten a similar sized field to take down event 20 at the WSOP in June, JP Kelly had already shown he has what it takes to close out this sort of tournament and once again he proved himself on the big stage by finishing off Fabien Dunlop heads up to seal victory. Congratulations to JP Kelly who becomes the first player from these shores to win two WSOP bracelets, securing another £136,803 in the process.

The £2,500 round of each proved less popular than hold’em alone and only 158 players signed up for event two when Omaha was added to the mix. Mats Gavatin from Sweden looked to be running away with this one in the early stages of the final table, but he was gradually reeled in and had to make way as Erik Cajelais instead assumed the role of chip monster. It was these two who sat as the final pair of players to do battle but the big stack of Cajelais made it a rather one sided affair and he duly put the Swede to the sword. After a couple of second places in recent years Cajelais picks up his first major title plus £104,677.

In the online scene Pokerstars’ World Championship of Online Poker has now finished, with the headline two day event being won by Yevgeniy Timoshenko aka Jovial Gent. It’s been a fantastic year for Timoshenko who also won the WPT $25,000 championship event for over $2 million in April, and now another $1,715,200 is his for the WCOOP win. Incredibly he was simultaneously playing in Full Tilt’s Monday $1,000 event and within an hour of his first win had also scooped another $75,000 for first place in a very tough field on Full Tilt. His combined tournament winnings from live and online play is known to now be in excess of $7 million – not bad for a 21 year old.
Someone else who can’t seem to stop winning big these days is Bertrand Grospellier aka Elky. Having repeatedly posted big live tournament wins for the past two years, he further cemented his reputation as one of the top few tournament players in the world with victory in two separate WCOOP events. Having already won the $500 rebuy event, Grospellier then picked his way through a mammoth field of 9220 two days later to also win the $200 event. His final table finish in the $1,000 event the very same day almost seems not worth mentioning in comparison as somehow he managed to not win it.

So there has been plenty of good news this week for a lot of people, but that has not been the case for former world champion Jamie Gold, who seems to have nothing but bad news since about August 2006. An almost exact carbon copy of the Bruce Crispin Leyser situation has arisen, whereby a media consultant claims that he is owed a percentage of Gold’s winnings from the 2006 main event. Francis Dellavechia claims that he worked with Gold to sign up celebrity players to represent Bodog and was promised 1% of Gold’s winnings as part of the deal. It seems strange that these claims have only surfaced publically three years after Gold’s win, but Dellavechia is saying that repeated attempts to make contact with Gold have been unsuccessful. It’s hard to know how much credibility these claims have, but this sort of controversy which has constantly surrounded Gold since his big win is surely a major factor in his current lack of sponsorship from a poker site.

Multiple personality disorder strikes again

On the subject of the WSOP main event, Phil Hellmuth’s involvement at the final table has been limited to head shaving publicity stunts since his last playing appearance in 2001, but this year he will be watching with special interest. He has taken on the role of coach for Jeff Shulman who will return to the Rio in November in fourth place. Shulman is the first of the nine at the final table to publically announce that they have taken on a coach, and it is questionable whether it’s a good idea to let the rest of the table know that his play will be more Hellmuth like in future. Nobody in poker has the WSOP final table experience that Hellmuth has and his knowledge of how others react as the big prize approaches could prove extremely valuable. Having said that, others may have already started work with a coach and feel that it makes more sense not to broadcast their intentions, but keeping quiet about things is not exactly Phil Hellmuth’s forte. That much will be in stark evidence in a few days as he says he plans to make another spectacular entrance to the WSOPE main event (seemingly oblivious to the public perception of how such previous stunts have gone.) Dressing up as a big baby might actually get more of the public onside but seeing as how self aggrandising previous personae have been (Caesar, an army general and a racing driver) it’s unlikely. Don’t be surprised if we see him dressed as the king of England this weekend.

Adam Noone is a Full Tilt Pro, Play with him and the Mob at Full Tilt Poker

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