Neil Channing quits!

Bloggers / Matthew Pitt / 03 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

Many parts of the UK poker scene were rocked last month when Neil 'badbeat' Channing announced he was quitting. Thankfully, the likeable high-stakes guru is not quitting poker but instead has decided to stop him famous staking of other players.

Channing is almost as well-known for his backing of players as he is his own poker success, even attracting numerous jokes in poker publications about the number of horses he has in certain tournaments.

However, he commented that staking people distracted him throughout the past year and as a result his own game suffered. Writing on his blog on Blackbelt Poker, Channing said he only started staking people with the end goal of business in mind, namely his Blackbelt Poker community and recently launched poker room.

He also stated that he feels uneasy about the fact he asked a number of players, including Steve Holden who blogged here on Betfair, to put in considerable effort to be staked during the infamous grading process yet he bought some players into tournaments with nothing asked in return.

Nobody apart from Mr Channing knows how lucrative his backing of players was but it is now public knowledge that his final staked player is none other than November Nine finalist, James Akenhead, who he has 25% of.

Akenhead returns to Las Vegas on November 9 as the short-stack with just 6,800,000 chips but is guaranteed $1,263,602 in prize money, meaning Channing will benefit to the tune of $315,900 but should Akenhead do the unthinkable and win the World Series of Poker Main Event, his backer would receive a very healthy $2,136,608! Not a bad way to end your staking days if I do say so myself!