Archive for August 2005

London Open Trip Report

August 19, 2005

I have to say I had my doubts about the London Open from the start due to the tough restrictions given to us by the government of London. All players had to be registered and invited before they could participate. I know a good portion of all of the players even in Europe from my days at the WSOP so it was nice to see some old familiar faces. The London Open was kicked off with a celebrity tournament and party. The celebrities were mainly from England, but Mimi Rogers, Jennifer Tilly, Willie Garson, and Nicholas Gonzales competed in the event. Poker pros Antonio Esfandiari, Gus Hansen, and Phil Laak also played. The structure was really bad because we needed to be done by 10pm and we started at 8:45 with 22 players, but it was for a great cause (London bombings relief fund). Phil "Unibomber" Laak won the event and $44,000 was donated in his name to the Red Cross for the bombings. The Party itself was unbelievable there were about 800 people at the venue and it was open bar with food platters coming out and getting snapped up before they ever got to the back of the room. A band called Dirty Vegas performed after a short winner presentation given to Phil Laak by World Poker Exchange CEO Haden Ware. Dave Lamb, my wife Maryann, and I left the party a little early as we anticipated an early morning on the day of the main event.

Tournament Day- Breakfast with Chelsea Clinton

We started the day early as we ate breakfast in our hotel. Sitting to the table to the right of us was a girl that one of my assistants named Kyle Morris thought was Chelsea Clinton so of course bets broke out at the table and we all had a good laugh at his expense. He swore that it was her so before we stepped into a cab we had a woman walking down the street look through the window and what do you know she said I think it is her. Now I was curious so I went out of the cab and asked the concierge at our hotel. He was not very eager to give out the info that in fact it was the daughter of our former president. Kyle was so proud but later came clean that it had to be her because he said he had spent hours reading the enquirer while sitting on the toilet at his mother's house.
My phone had been ringing off the hook all night with people inquiring about how to get in the tournament and my previous guess of 132 players was looking good. We ended up with 140 players and that meant that WPX would be adding $600,000 because of the $2,000,000 guarantee. If that was not great enough it was open bar and free hot food for the entire day. Players really had nothing to complain about so they complained about the chairs. I let them know if they made it to the second day there would be better chairs. 79 players made it through with Randy Jensen the chip leader. Randy being chip leader is not a surprise as he is very aggressive and tends to talk his way into chips.

London is not expensive....... if you are a billionaire!

I am not really sure how the average person lives in London
Some of the things we paid while there (converted into dollars)

Diet coke $8
Cab from Airport $190
4 tickets to theater (Average seats-Lion King) $400
Omelet $26 (toast included)
Wireless internet in room $36 per day

Day two- Breakfast with Brooke

I was starting to realize that this must be a nice hotel they put me up at when our breakfast was interrupted by Brooke Shields, her nanny, and beautiful daughter. Maryann has been a big fan since The Blue Lagoon and wanted a photo. I resist, but lose the battle and have to ask; luckily for me she gets tied up with the concierge and sneaks out the front door.
I was well aware that we would not be to the final table by the end of the day so the goal was to get to the money. It took until about midnight to do so. A couple of interesting things happened during the day. Doyle went out, Mimi, Jennifer Tilly, and Willie Garson played very well but could not survive the day. Gus Hansen built up his small stack but then busted out. Chip leader Randy Jensen got into many, many confrontations with Chip Jett, Marcel Luske, and Henrik Joern. He eventually went down to Marcel's four of a kind and pounded the table with his fist. He would have received a penalty if he had any chips left. The developing story of the tournament was the Jett's Chip and Karina ended the day in first and third.

2005 London Open End of Day Two Chip Counts by Total

Place Player Chip Count Table Seat Hometown
1 Chip Jett $501,900 2 9 Las Vegas, Nevada
2 Willie Tann $322,800 1 6 Bovingdon, UK
3 Karina Jett $311,400 1 8 Las Vegas, Nevada
4 Marcel Luske $225,900 2 1 Amstradam
5 Henrik Joern $200,100 2 4 Copenhagen
6 Derrick Baxter $199,900 2 7 Birmingham, UK
7 Ken Lennard $196,000 1 9 Stockholm, Sweden
8 Ram Vaswani $178,100 1 3 Hendon, UK
9 Mikael Thuritz $169,400 1 4 Stockholm, Sweden
10 Jeff Duvall $92,000 2 8 London, UK
11 Dominic Tofani $87,100 1 5 Milton, Keynes
12 Iwan Jones $84,200 5 2 Cardiff, Wales
13 Richard Ashby $64,200 2 6 Watford, UK
14 Rob Picard $38,600 2 3 Tampa, Florida
15 Mike Svobodny $36,500 1 7 London, UK
16 Ross Boatman $35,400 1 1 Hendon, UK
17 Dino Bravati $31,500 1 2 London, UK
18 Peter Mayrand $25,100 2 2 Motley, Minnesota

Day three and the Final Table

We had a truly international field remaining with only four Americans. Karina got very short in chips early but rebounded well to come in 7th place. Chip started as the Chip leader and the favorite, the Hendon Mob was still lurking, Marcel Luske is dangerous, Willie Tann and Jeff Duvall are top players, Henrick Joern is well known in Europe, and a few players that were previously unknown to me were playing quite well. It came down to a three hour heads up match between Mikael Thuritz (Speed Poker champion) and Iwan Jones which kept the audience happy, not so much due the poker, but the open bar. Mikael and Iwan traded the lead back and forth many times and made a deal when they were even where both players took half a million and then played for $150,000. Iwan Jones went very short and then fought back and won it when Mikael turned a straight at the same time Iwan turned two pair. When the river came a pair Mikael bet $300,000 and Iwan moved all-in. Mikael pondered for 4-5 minutes and then made the tough call. I was all over and the Welshman Iwan Jones was the champion.

Final Results
2005 London Open End of Day Two Chip Counts
Place Player Prize
1 Iwan Jones $650,000
2 Michael Thuritz $500,000
3 Henrik Joern $200,000
4 Chip Jett $150,000
5 Ken Lennard $100,000
6 Willie Tann $75,000
7 Marcel Luske $60,000
8 Karina Jett $45,000
9 Dominic Topani $30,000
10 Derrick Baxter $20,000
11 Ram Vaswani $20,000
12 Ross Boatman $20,000
13 Rob Picard $20,000
14 Richard Ashby $20,000
15 Peter Mayrand $20,000
16 Jeff Duvall $20,000
17 Dino Brivati $20,000
18 Mike Svobodny $20,000