Grandmaster Maxime Vachier-Lagrave suffered the first bad beat of his poker career. “Apparently because for the first time in my life I played a decent hand!” he said.

Maxime, known as “MVL” is one of the top ten chessplayers in the World, known for his aggressive and uncompromising play. Maxime explained the hand history that eliminated him from the first ever combined chess/poker tournament, held as an official side event (£200+20) at the UKIPT at PokerStars headquarters in Isle of Man:

“I raised preflop to 600 (at 100/200/25), only the button calls. Flop 9s6d5d, I bet one thousand something, call. Turn Qs, I check, guy (overbets) shoves I snap call with QQ. Button had AsKs, and got the Js on the river.”

Dozens of chess players responded to this hand history, including seven-time Russian Chess Champion Peter Svidler and chess/poker pro Alex Barnett, who liked Maxime’s turn check.
Grandmaster David Gormally the recipient of Maxime’s chips, ended up in fifth place, for £450. Gormally, who described himself as “skint”, joked “Good thing I cashed as otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to afford to eat the (delicious) kabobs here!”

“This was my Main Event,” said Gaby Livshitz, a Supernova from Israel, who is also an International Master in chess. Gaby traveled to the Isle of Man specifically so he could participate in the official chess/poker UKIPT side event. After bagging UKIPT Main chips on 1A, Gaby played his dream tournament and was in sights of the official trophy, before ultimately finishing in 4th place for £570. “Playing a mixed poker and chess event enabled me to prove my skill in both skill games, to prove to my family/wife, who don’t understand poker and just call me a card player!”

As PokerStars Mind Sports ambassador, the festivities started that morning for me, with a speech to the IOM Junior Chamber of Congress on the intersections of chess, poker and business. I then played a unique six-player combined poker/chess simul. My opponents included two of my favorite poker players Team Online pros Ike Haxton (fortunately, I faced him in Heads-up chess) and Mickey Peterson.

I also played against Alex Dreyfus of the Global Poker Index in both poker and a chess warm-up. Dreyfus bubbled the combined event, but the highlight for him was an attacking victory in the chess competition, checkmating with just a few seconds left on his clock.

I was happy to score 5 points in the simul, as I determined my expected score to a little over 4. Baard Dahl was the sole winner, as evidenced by the grin in this photo. A premonition of a larger triumph that evening!

Baard Dahl is the Sit n Go manager at PokerStars, and the combined poker chess tournament was perfect for him. He grew up in Norway, as one of the most talented young players. He’s naturally a fan of Magnus Carlsen, the reigning World Champion who hails from Norway: “I like the way he makes chess like a sport. Some people criticize him for just “outlasting” his opponents, but I admire how he squeezes every drop from a position.”
Dahl was also a professional poker players for several years before he began working for PokerStars. Baard was one of the first players on Stars, signing up in 2001. Baard also holds claim to the ultimate humble brag: “I won a Sunday Million long before it was a Sunday Million.”

Every entrant to the chess/poker event was guaranteed 8000 chips, even if they bombed the chess portion, which offered a max of 5K bonus chips. Several poker professionals who had never played a serious game of chess participated because they knew that at worst, they’d start with a stack around 20% below average. I played one such player, the defending UKIPT Isle of Man champ Duncan McLellan. After our game, I showed him rules like castling and en passant. Later at the poker table, a similar exchange took place. Baard Dahl explained to poker newcomer Grandmaster Daniel Fridman of Germany about minimum raise amounts and the concept behind “tight is right.” Baard then stacked the Grandmaster with aces a few orbits later. “I should have known he was never bluffing there,” Fridman told me later. The cross-game learning was what it was all about!

Alex Dreyfus of GPI and GM Mark Hebden Photo Fiona Steil-Antoni

Baard scored 2/5 in the blitz chess tournament, so he started the poker with 10000 chips. At around one AM, he was heads-up with Grandmaster Mark Hebden. IM and supernova elite PLO player Simon Ansell was rooting on his friend Mark till late in the night, and described Hebden as the “ultimate chess grinder.” Baard concurred: “Mark has been able to make a living from it for a very long time….so you have to respect that.” In the final hand, Baard’s ace-four triumphed over Mark’s king-five suited. Mark won £1240 for his second place finish while Baard took £1800 and the trophy.

Baard says it’s a thrill to have some of the top chessplayers in the world in the Isle of Man for the PokerStars IOM Chess International, and he’s particularly excited to see Grandmaster Julio Granda Zuniga of Peru. “In 1986 in Norway, I met him at the World Junior Championship. No one had heard of him at that time. He was playing such clean positional chess and he was our favorite player, even more than former World Champion Anand, also playing in the event.”

After buzz spread about the combined poker/chess event, Vicky Coren and Chris Moneymaker of Team Pro said they wish they had played.

Whee!!! RT @nigelshortchess Met the delightful @VictoriaCoren at the chess event! Popped into the poker afterwards to see her playing.

— Victoria Coren M. (@VictoriaCoren) October 4, 2014

After meeting Vicky, everything started to go well for Nigel. As the UKIPT wrapped up, the chessplayers battled through nine rounds of the 1st PokerStars Isle of Man International. Though Nigel Short was only ranked 9th going into the event, he is one of the most famous Grandmasters, due to his World Championship title match vs. Garry Kasparov in 1993. Nigel won the International with 7.5 points out of 9 games. A great performance in such a strong field. “”I am ecstatic,” Nigel said after his last round victory over young British GM David Howell.

Find all the games and details on the event here.