Inaugural English Poker Open at DTD huge success
Dusk Till Dawn held it’s largest buy in event in their short 20 month history when during 15th – 17th September Europe’s premier card room hosted the inaugural English Poker Open sponsored by Rake the Rake.
The prize pool was guaranteed at $1,000,000 and this attracted 2 of pokers superstars Phil Hellmuth and Doyle Brunson to make the trip to Nottingham.
After a lavish pre event party held at the Crowne Plaza for all players 213 players took their seats at 2pm on Tuesday 15th. There were several spectators who had arrived to see the best field ever assembled for a poker tournament in the UK outside of London.
This included Marc Goodwin straight from his 2nd place at the EPT in Barcelona , Devilfish , Julian Thew , Ian Frazier , Michael Greco , Liam Flood , Annette Obrestad and Jon Kalmar , all of which had played at the venue before . Making their first visit were Joe Beevers , Ross Boatman , Surinder Sunar , Neil Channing , Praz Bansi and 2009 WSOP finalist James Akenhead.
The TV feature table was webcast live on the English Poker Open website with commentators Grub Smith , Matt Broughton and Barny Boatman while the final had full TV production ready to be broadcast later this year.
The event and televised final was hosted by Dusk Till Dawns Simon Trumper and on the final day there were all 3 EPO comps running , the $5300 Main Event , day 2 of the £500 and the final days £250 as well as in keeping with Dusk Till Dawns ethics of looking after their regulars the weekly £50 and £10 beginners comp , so 5 events simultaneously!
The final 9 included crowd favourites John Eames and James Moult but the two with the best results were Englishman David La Ronde who won £62,000 when 2nd in the £1000 Luton GUKPT and chip leader Michael Tureniec who also came 2nd last year but this was in the £5200 London EPT good for £525,000 . Having taken an early setback Michael fought back , his key hand was KQ v John Eames where he re-raised all in pre-flop only to be snap called by John with AA , flop was T J x J so now only a 9 could save him from virtual elimination , it came making John jump in his chair and leave the final table head shaking .
David meanwhile steadily built his chip lead and 3 handed we had an exciting pot between David and James Moult , all the chips in pre-flop with Davids TT v James AK , flop was A high all spades , neither player had a spade , turn was the T of spades but the river was the J of spades for a split pot . James was unlucky to finish 3rd when having made a courageous and correct call v Michael with A9 v A8 , a cruel 8 on the turn left him £73,000 richer and the final heads up.
With a 2 – 1 chip lead when Michael raised with KT , David re-raised with A7s and when Michael pushed David quickly called , his A7 stood up and the title of inaugural English Poker Champion and £208,363 went to David La Ronde , the exact same hand had cost him his 2nd place last year when heads up v Sam Trickett but this time it was David’s turn to triumph.
The whole event ran smooth as clockwork and everyone that played loved the Dusk Till Dawn experience , we hope to be able to announce the English Poker Open 2010 soon and are sure it will be even bigger and better next year and will become a fixture on the UK calendar.
