WSOP Europe / Dave Allan / 05 October 2009 / Leave a comment

In his penultimate entry from the World Series of Poker Europe, Simon Zammit reveals more behind the scenes gossip from the prestigious tournament.

Days 15, 16, & 17

Another early start had me scrambling back to the casino after the usual quick shower and Iced Mocha breakfast. The late nights and early mornings have really started to take affect on me having the Main Event start at 12:00 each time wasn't helping at all.

By the time Day 3 was due to start, Richard and I had everything under control as Media accreditations were starting to decrease. Annette was first at the Casino and after taking part in the 2+2 Radio Show live at the Empire, made her way to the table. Unfortunately, the next bit was not too great.

John turned up looking like a bus ran over him. It seemed like the food the night before didn't help his small cold and he was not in too good a shape. Thankfully, Julian was on the scene and with his girlfriend being a pharmacist, he knew exactly what to do! A banana, a cereal bar and green tea were soon consumed by Mr Taba and he actually was starting to look a bit better.

Once the "shuffle up and deal" was announced, the sound of chips rattling against each other started to fill the room and we both stuck next to John to see how he was progressing. Although the all-natural remedy was proving limited success, poor Taba was visibly not in full concentration and couldn't focus as much as he wanted to.

By the time the first break came along, John had lost about 30% of his stack whilst Annette was pretty much the same as she started. The four of us headed up into Leicester Square from some fresh air and orange juice to encourage John and not give up.

Twenty minutes quickly went by and the players started to get back to their seats, including my beloved two Pros. Julian and Richard agreed to keep an eye on things whilst I headed out with Rachel as I needed to run a very important errand - pick up Dawn's present! A fifteen minute walk saw us turn right and into Old Bond Street and my heart nearly stopped when I saw the brands that set up shop there - Gucci, Armani, Versace, etc!

Rachel pointed me towards our destination and after nearly being run over by a Bentley, we made our way into Tiffany & Co and I was impressed by how well she knew the place (in other words; poor Richard - hehe). Anyways, we took the lift up to the first floor and the place was filled with all sorts of stuff: necklaces, bracelets, ear rings, house warming gifts, etc.

Now I am not a picky person and I hate shopping so I did not give much for Rachel to work with - my exact words are "A necklace that won't rust, is shiny and will not turn her neck green" but she made a great effort and we narrowed it down to three beautiful necklaces. The one I really liked had to be taken away as I would have had to sell my last remaining kidney (long story, different blog) to be able to afford it.

Down to two and we surprisingly agreed that the same one is perfect and after parting with my money (which I was happy to do - in case she reads this later) and getting it wrapped, we then rushed back into the Empire to be on time for some coffee before the second break. The Icon was fairly quiet so I enjoyed sipping my cappuccino on the terrace in peace whilst smoking yet another cigarette. A few minutes later the room started filling with players and John, although not at his best, was doing well, having just over 110k in chips.

Annette had about 95k in front of her but she wasn't too happy about the crazy people on her table. As usual, we barely had time to catch up as the break was over and between sorting out some emails and helping out with other stuff; break three was upon us and John was not looking to well. Julian and I told him that he is more than welcome to go home and forget about the event but he insisted and wanted to go on.

During Level 4 of Day 3, I sat down and had breakfast around 18:00 and was so glad to stuff myself with some good chicken kebab! An hour later, dinner time was upon us but before this came up, Annette had unfortunately busted out and went back to her room. John was not looking good and Julian took him to the hotel room to get some sleep.

I took the opportunity to rest a bit myself and fell asleep in my own room. The alarm went off around 22:00 and I woke up, showered and made my way back to the Empire. John was down to about 95k and looking very tired. Julian was there too, cheering him on and encouraging the poor Welshman and I felt obliged to do the same. About an hour later, Jack Effel announced that the bubble was next out and that each hand would be dealt only when he says so.

This was a proper knock in the teeth for John as he just wanted the day to end and go to sleep. After about forty agonising minutes, John, in Seat 8, announced All In after Seat 3 had made a raise of about 50,000 and the rest of the table had folded. The dude didn't even hesitate and a pot of about 230,000 was about to play out. Everyone assumed that John would only move All In with Aces and we were not wrong..

What surprised us were the cards of the other guy, Pocket 7's...Ok, he was getting almost 5:1 to call but he must have known he wasn't a favourite going to the Flop! Of course, the first card on the table was a 7 and with no help from the remaining four cards, poor John had bubbled the Main Event of the WSOPE! Exhausted, sick and gutted, John shook everyone's hand and even gave a small interview with ESPN before we took him to his friend's car to be driven home.

Julian and I then hit Burger King for a quick meal and parted ways in the lift. I could not believe how unlucky John was and I was absolutely gutted for him. He achieved an amazing thing in the condition he was in and deserved to at least cash in after such an effort. That is poker I guess and with that, I leave you to Day 16 of my adventure in London....

Wednesday 30th September

The day started in an ugly way as I woke up with a slight cold, not ideal considering a long shift at the casino awaited me. I had arranged to meet Julian around 10:30 outside the hotel for a quick breakfast and he was on time as usual. We walked for a few minutes until we reached Starbucks and got some coffee and muffins in our systems. Once back at our desks at the Empire, we booted up our laptops and whilst he dealt with his own queries, I proceeded to upload the bucket-loads of videos and pictures onto the Betfair website.

The Main Event Day 4 was already underway by the time I was done with the pictures. Unfortunately, the beautiful task of Buy In reconciliation for the entire WSOPE was next on the agenda so it was back to my hotel room and after six hours of Excel, I was done. Of course, a headache was to be expected to go along with the cold but I was determined not to let it spoil my day.

It was almost 17:00 and Richard gave me the rest of the day off, which was great and Julian and I went for a long walk across the streets of London which really did wonders in forgetting the stress accumulated over the day. At about 20:00, we made it back to the hotel and after refreshing, we met once again at the lobby to go pick up a KFC meal and head back to the room to watch the mighty United take on Wolfsburg!

I hadn't eaten KFC for a while and I have to say the BBQ Meal was amazing. Back in the room, the television was switched on and I prepared myself for an intense ninety minutes. Of course, Wolfsburg had to score first but Berbatov was amazing after coming in for the injured Owen and was just as inspiring as Giggs in the previous two games!

Thankfully, just three minutes later Mr Giggs put United back on track and soon after Carrick placed a beautiful shot into the back of the net to make it 2/2 in the Champions League! After the game, Julian went back to his room whilst I caught up with Dawn on the phone and went to bed.

Thursday 1st October

Here we go - as Man United were showing what they are made of, nine players inside the Empire Casino did just the same and made it to the Final Table. Over £800,000 awaited the eventual winner whilst the 9th place finisher would pick up approximately £60,000 - not bad for less than a week's work!

Before everything kicked off, Richard and I, along with a bunch of others had a meeting to make sure the day would run smoothly. Close to noon, Jack Effel started introducing the players to the huge crowd that had amassed. Familiar faces such as Daniel Negraenu and 2009 November Nine player, James Akenhead formed part of the elite group. Popular Briton Praz Bansi as well as young gun Jason Mercier started the day with most of the chips but "kidpoker" was not going to remain shortstack for long!

Before the first break, Daniel had finally gone over the 1,000,000 chip mark and a lot of action was going on between Mercier and Betfair player, Markus Ristola. Hour after hour, the chips started changing hands and I also had the opportunity to go into the ESPN Command Centre and watch the action from lots of different angles!

First to bust was James Akenhead and soon after, Matt Hawrilenko followed suit, leaving us with just seven players remaining. Sitting quietly was Barry Shulman who finally decided to take a piece of the action and win a few hands. The man with the most support, Praz, was playing well too but Daniel Negraenu was on fire and was soon in command.

We all knew a really long night was ahead of us so before burning out too early, Richard and I headed into the Icon bar to work in a relax environment. Dan, Julian, Rachel and a few others were also there and it was good to finally say a few words without the stress and urgency of the last two weeks! Betfair kindly provided our players with a Wii and obviously Mr Bloch and I had to have a go or five.

He wanted to play tennis but since I suck at it, I chose Bowling and am happy to report that some ass was kicked and I won all three games. We then had a few rounds of golf which he beat me at and so it was decided that a game of Baseball would determine who the best virtual athlete was. It was hard at first but thankfully, I beat Blochy by a massive score of 1-0, proving that I am the man - lol..

At about 17:00, members of Threepipe, the PR Company hired to help us out, showed up and this allowed us to go for a quick lunch in an Italian Restaurant. Julian opted for a simple Caesar Salad, Richard chose something weird whilst I had a salmon pasta, which was amazing. Straight after lunch, I then left the guys to go meet with Annette to discuss here offline activities for October and the girl is going to be busy!

The Queen of Europe will be playing the EPT London as well as taking part in the World Heads Up Championship, Poker Millions and WPT Marrakech all before the 18th of October. Not to give up so easy, Annette will also be flying to Vegas to participate in either the $15k Bellagio event or the Poker After Dark Series - or maybe both!! She is one busy lady!

Since I was already in the hotel, I took the opportunity to quickly shower, put on some decent clothes, catch up with my family and Dawn (who was staying over) and make my way back into the Casino around 20:00. Soon after I got there, Betfair player Ristola ended his journey in 5th place, ahead of Christer Bjorin and Antoine Saout respectively, collecting £200,000 for his efforts!

The last four players; Mercier, Bansi, Shulman and Negraenu kept the crowd and media entertained whilst I had a nice pizza at the Icon followed by a beer or two. Videos and pictures from the Final Table kept on pouring in so this kept me busy till around 01:00.

We had to leave the Icon so all of the remaining people went downstairs and I headed towards the feature table itself. Having a Staff Pass is awesome cause I could go wherever I wanted so I found a place behind Mr Negraenu and followed the action along with Julian with just two remaining - the latter of course and Barry Shulman.

A few minutes later, Sorel came over and made sure Daniel was aware of his support. ESPN cameras all turned towards Sorel and I managed to snap on a Betfair Poker badge just in time J I then was needed upstairs to help out with even more photos and finally Richard pulled me away for a ciggy! At around 03:00, I was starting to get tired and managed to get a thirty minute nap hidden away from everyone else.

Nothing had changed apart from a few good hands and the best place to watch the action was at the ESPN station so I went in, had a seat and enjoyed the play. Since you can see the hole cards in there, I was nearly trampled when Daniel looked down on Pocket Rockets and Barry Shulman had called a raise by Daniel pre-flop. Cameramen took their positions as they anticipated and All In and a call as Barry had flopped a Flush draw with four Hearts so far... All In they went and Daniel went from happy to gutted as the Turn gave Barry the Flush whilst an Ace on the River just was insulting!

Negraenu was clearly upset and had a massive disadvantage in chips as he was below 1,000,000 whilst Barry had more than 9,000,000! However, being a true Pro, the Canadian fought his way back and was up to around 4 million by about 04:30. Exhaustion had literally taken over my body and by 05:15, I was a dead man walking so Richard sent me to my room.

I felt so bad to leave my fearless leader on his own but I just could not go any further.. Usually, the walk from the Casino to the Hotel would take just a minute but my back hurt so much and my feet were so weak it took almost ten for me to cross Leicester Square! After waiting a painful minute for the receptionist to open the door, I made my way into the room and collapsed in bed.

Don't think that's the end of it - lots more to come in my last entry here in London. Till then, thanks for reading!