Great British Poker Tour

The first leg of the Great British Poker Tour took place at the Gala Maybury in Edinburgh in mid February. The £500 NLH main event was sold out at 130 entrants the week before. Gala added £5,000 to the prize-pool bringing it to £70,000.

A host of celebrities joined Gala to celebrate the launch of the tour. Liberty X star Michelle Heaton and snooker player Matthew Stevens joined a number of pros including Dave Colclough, Liam Flood, Iwan Jones, Surindar Sunar, Arshad Hussein, Ross and Barny Boatman and Joe Beevers. The tournament didnt start until 8pm on Saturday which made for a late finish and an even later final table the following day. There were 46 players which made it back for Day 2. Among the chip leaders were Henning Granstad with 79,525 and Dave Colclough with 58,525. It was late evening when the final table was reached shortly after Dave Colclough bubbled in twelfth.

The televised final table was an eight-seater affair with the only female player left, Irinia Leipina, leading with 249,700. Eddie Gaines was in second with 226,600. Steve Jelinek, Jerry OFerrell, Tony Croalla, Stan Essen, Andrew Feenan and Scott Morrisson were all sitting with average stacks of around 150k. The blinds (3k!6k) were rolled back to allow for more play and the TV final table finally got underway just after 11 pm.

Andrew Feenan was the first to exit and took £1,890. Irinia was next to leave after coming up against Jerry OFerrells aces taking £3,500. Tony Croalla, after playing a very aggressive game at the final table, ended up in sixth place for £3,500. Down to five and Stan Essen was leading with 448,000 chips. Scott Morrison was nursing the short stack at 139,000. Steve Jelinek was next to exit in fifth place taking £4,550 shortly followed by Scott Morrison in four (£6,300). Scot Stan Essen had his stack slowly chipping away until he too was out in third taking £9,240.

The heads-up between Eddie Gaines and Jen OFerrell began with Jerry as chip leader with 460k m(l than Eddie. After a few slow hands of raising and passing Eddie took down a monster pot and began to claw his W1 back up for the lead until he whittled Jerry down to 1 With Jerry all-in with A-10, Eddie had a pair of sevens board showing 7-8-4-K-10 gave Eddie the £24,500 fin prize and the title. Jerry OFarrell from Ireland took £14,50 for runner-up spot.

American born Eddie Gaines, who lives in Dundee a runs his own poker club Caplins, also picked up the £2,5 entry into the Grand Final. Eddie said Im over the moon• the Great British Poker Tour is the best chance UK players have to show off their skills at home. There is a lot of U poker talent to face, but Im hoping I can bring the title home to Scotland. I felt very comfortable playing, e on the final table. I had a strategy that fitted the style game being played and fortunately it all came together the right time. He said he would spend his winnings primarily on treating his family but keep back a bit to in his poker. He has been playing poker for nearly se years and mainly plays at live events.