Thursday, 28th March 2024 15:18
Home / Uncategorized / UKIP Galway, Day 1B: Levels 5-6 updates (150-300 ante 25)
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Move!
Action from the final two levels of today can be found in this post over here. Not here. Here.

6.45pm: Jorephani hits, stays alive
Just on the stroke of the break, Nadir Jorephani managed to more than double his stack, putting what looked like something of a beat on Brendan McDermott. After what must have been some prior action, Jorephani was all in for 7,100. McDermott re-shoved for 18,350 and the third player in the hand, Declan Rynne (who had invested about 2,500 by this point), made what would prove to be a disciplined fold.

Jorephani said, “I hope you have kings and not aces,” before turning over his Aâ™  9â™  . McDermott actually had Q♣ Q♦ . “Not too bad,” said Jorephani.

He was right to be happy. Although McDermott was a 68% chance to win the hand, Jorephani definitely had hope and the A♦ 2♥ 9♦ 7♠ 3♥ board certainly helped. At this point Rynne told the table that he had folded the other two queens.

Jorephani is back with more than his starting stack.

That was the last telling action of level six, and players have now departed for their final break of the day. They’ll take 20 minutes and then return to play the last two levels of the day. — HS

6.35pm: Gone
Gary Ludgate, Surinder Sunar and Sam Macdonald are three of the latest casualties. — NW

6.30pm: Docherty and Grafton no longer grating
David Docherty, who came eighth at UKIPT Dublin, is the latest casualty his chips going to Nick Abou Risk in the most classic of poker races, pocket queens versus ace-king. In this instance the pair held up to boost Abou Risk’s stack to 49,000 and the Canadian is now very much a force to be reckoned with.

And Sam Grafton filled me in on his exit hand saying that Gareth-Lee Smith had raised under-the-gun and he decided to ‘trap’ by just calling with A♥ K♥ in the big blind. The flop was [K][7][4] with two clubs, Grafton checked, Smith bet, Grafton check-raised, Smith set him in and Grafton called all-in for around 11,000. Smith had [J][10] with one club and hit running clubs to make a flush.

The latter now has around 80,000 and is the chip leader. — NW

6.25pm: Quick Silver
Max Silver’s tournament life was hanging by a thread, but he won a huge flip to put himself right back on track. The UKIPT Dublin champion opened to 700 from early position and Daniel Smyth called from two spots to his left. Ross Jarvis, on the button, made it 2,200, but possibly wished he hadn’t. Max Silver moved all in, for 10,425, and Smyth went all in over the top of that.

Jarvis let his hand go, which left just the two of them. They were flipping. Smyth showed Jâ™  J♦ to Silver’s Aâ™  K♣ . This time, the over-cards were good as the board ran 9â™  9♦ 3â™  A♦ K♦ .

Silver is now comfortably close to 25,000, while Smyth has closer to 6,000. — HS

6.10pm: Risk-y business
Nick Abou Risk has won two UKIPT events, and you don’t do that without having some game about you. He just took down a lovely pot, although I can’t tell you what he had since neither of his adversaries were prepared to pay the price to find out.

Simon Deadman got things started, raising to 650 from the cut off. Abou Risk called on the button, but Anthony Lynch saw a squeezing opportunity and made it 1,975 to play.

However if Lynch had wanted both of his opponents to fold, he will have been disappointed to see both of them calling, taking the trio to a flop of 3♣ K♣ 5♥ . Lynch was undeterred and bet 4,275. But even that didn’t persuade Deadman out of it. He called.

But when it came back to Abou Risk, he counted out his entire stack, of 19,400, and slid it into the middle. It covered both his opponents.

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Would you fold to this man’s jam?

Lynch looked deeply pained to have to fold. But fold he did. And Deadman looked none too happy about it either, but he too let it go. Abou Risk slid his cards into the muck, began stacking his 34,000 pile of chips and took straight to Twitter.

“Up to 34k. Won a massive pot where I jam over bet and call on K53cc in 3b pot and both fold #UKIPT Galway.” Followers of @nickabourisk can get much more of that from the self-styled “Canadian luckbox living in Ireland eh”. — HS

6.05pm: Exits
There’s been another 15 eliminations in the last hour with Paul Carr and Sam Grafton amongst those knocked out. — NW

6pm: Silver tank folds
I joined the action to see a complete board of 6â™  6♣ J♦ 10♥ K♣ and Ross Jarvis betting 5,375 into a pot of around 12,000. The decision was on Max Silver, who had exactly 11,400 left. The UKIPT Dublin champion cut out the calling chips and then tanked, pondering his decision for several minutes, whilst talking outloud. Although the words were inaudible, he was clearly working his way back through the hand to work out his course of action. Eventually his head told him to fold and the pot went to Jarvis who’s now up to 27,000. — NW

5.50pm: Chip counts
Some more counts of the names and notables: Dave O’Connor (29,000), Jason Tompkins (21,000), Richard Sinclair (6,500), RIchie Lawlor (6,300), Steve O’Dwyer (12,500), Tim Bettingen (20,700), Tim Slater (47,000), Gareth-Lee Smith (63,000). — NW

5.40pm: Lyall ruptures Achillea’s stack
I only saw the showdown but George Achillea was all-in and had been called in two spots creating a pot of around 25,000. The full board was exposed on the felt and it was 8♣ 6♠ 4♠ Q♣ 7♣ , Dean Lyall showed 6♦ 6♥ , Achillea mucked what I believe was K♦ Q♦ and the other player in the hand had Q♠ 10♠ .

Post hand analysis with Lyall revealed that he had bet the flop for 1,900 and the turn for 6,500 at which point Achillea called all-in. After that hand Lyall is of the chip leaders as he has 58,000. — NW

LEVEL UP. PLAYING BLINDS OF 150-300 (ANTE 25) IN LEVEL 6

5.30pm: Back to the grind for Lawlor
Richard Lawlor opened to 600 from the hijack, and the min-raise attracted David Cleary and Marty Smyth along from small and big blind, respectively. The dealer delivered what’s known as an action flop: 10♦ J♦ K♦ and after both Cleary and Smyth checked, Lawlor bet 1,000. Cleary called; Smyth did not.

The turn was the 3♥ and I’m not totally sure who made the first move. It was quickly evident, however, that both men wanted to get all their chips in here, and Lawlor had Cleary’s 6,150 well covered.

However Cleary had the real goods, tabling A♦ 9♦ . Lawlor said that the flop was pretty good for his K♥ Q♦ , but little did he know that both his straight flush outs were in Cleary’s hand.

The river was an irrelevance, Cleary doubled up, Lawlor slipped to about 6,000 and muttered, “Back to the grind.” — HS

5.20pm: Also out
Joining Liv on the rail are: Niail Henderson, Paul Brown and Thomas Dunwoodie. Approximately 75 players have been knocked out so far. — NW

5.10pm: Boeree busted
Team PokerStars pro Liv Boeree is out and it’s fair to say that she never really go anything going today. She tweeted (@Liv_Boeree ) her exit saying: ‘Waited patiently for a hand.. got 99… ran into QQ. gg me.’ — NW

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It was not to be for Boeree

5pm: Set over set accounts for Newbury
Well, not really. There were three pocket pairs dealt in one hand, the first to Nuno G Pereira Ascensão, who raised to 600 from the cut off. Paul Newbury shoved for what was about 5,000 from the small blind, but then Neividas Biriukovas over-shoved from the big blind, covering Ascensão.

Ascensão folded his pocket sevens, flashing them to his table-mates, but it was the right move. Newbury showed 8♥ 8♣ and Biriukovas Q♦ Q♠ .

The board ran Q♥ 5â™  10♥ 2â™  8â™  so both active players hit their sets. But by the time that eight appeared on the river, Newbury was drawing dead and Biriukovas was preparing to stack up something like 25,000 total. — HS

4.55pm: Chip counts
Older brothers know best, or something like that. Anyway, Barny (30,300) has overtaken Ross (25,600) in the Boatman stakes. Neil Rawnsley (50,000), Andrew Teng (34,000) and Mickey Petersen (31,000) are all well above the average stack (18,450). Whilst those falling the other side of the tracks include: Surinder Sunar (12,000), Grzegorz Mikielewicz (16,800) and Sam Grafton (12,575). — NW

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Sam ‘The Glove’ Grafton

4.45pm: Prizes
As promised, the payout structure for UKIPT Galway has been announced and it can be seen in all its glory on the prizes and payouts page. The short version is that 81 players will be paid, from a starting field of 698, and the winner is set for a payday of €114,900. — HS

4.25pm: Back from the break
The players are back in their seats and the blinds are now 150 – 300. One player with a UKIPT pedigree is Ollie Schaffmann who was runner-up at UKIPT Nottingham in Season One. The German, who lives in Scotland has got more big blinds to play with than he did a short time ago.

At one point he was down to 6,000 but he now has spun that up to 19,000. — NW

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Ollie Schaffmann

Reporting team in Galway: Howard Swains and Nick Wright. Photos by Mickey May.

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