J.P. Kelly Wins Opening Event at 2009 WSOPE
I am not sure how to feel about it but JP Kelly has won the £1000 NLH opening event at the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe. You see i was at his table and playing well – with about 55,000 chips when he raised my big blind. I looked down at pocket QQ and re-raised three times his original raise. To cut a long story short and frankly one I do not want to reminisce too long over, i hit my set and he hit a flush and my chips went on to help him claim first prize – had my QQ held up against his 5-6 clubs I would have been chip leader. Anyway, I shall fight on at the Main Event next week and will keep you posted.
The event which set a new WSOP Europe attendance record as largest poker tournament in London history attracted 608 Entrants. The WSOPE is taking place at the Empire Casino in Leicester Square as the world’s top poker players descend on London.
Twenty three year old Kelly, from Aylesbury, became the First English player to win a WSOP event on home turf
He is a former student who now plays professionally, mostly online and in Europe. This was his second WSOP gold bracelet victory. He won his first gold bracelet on June 11, 2009 in Las Vegas. He won first place in the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Hold’em event and collected $194,434 for that win. His win in this tournament exceeded that dollar figure.
Prior to winning at the WSOP Kelly had enjoyed great success at tournaments in Europe, particularly the UK. He won seven tournaments within a 15-month span in 2005-2006. His combined lifetime live tournament earnings (all major tournaments worldwide) amounts to nearly $900,000.
Kelly collected £136,803 for first place. The cash prize is equal to about $222,398 in U.S. dollars.
Kelly said; “I had to play tight early on. Fabien had a big chip lead. I know if I got heads up with him I would do well as I am a better heads-ip player. I thought if I got there with 400,000 in chips that would be plenty (Kelly began heads-up play with 498,000 and was down 3 to 1). It’s not my style to wait it out, but you have to do that sometimes.”
“Obviously, you are going to go out early a lot of times. When you start with 3,000 in chips, you have to play a bit tight in the beginning. And if you can double up and once the tournament starts going properly, then you can start playing poker. I really enjoyed it. Obviously, I had a really good Day One. And I ran pretty well during the whole tournament.”
“I think the Las Vegas one, because that came first. But this one (in London) means a lot to take down one of these events. It’s hard to compare them. They are quite different. This is better in some ways because there are a lot more of my friends around. So, I look forward to celebrating.”
Final table play began at 2:20 pm and lasted until 6:45 pm – clocking in at slightly over four hours. Oddly enough, prior to this event no English player had yet won an event at WSOP Europe. Based on the composition of the final table, it was almost certain to produce a British winner, since eight of the nine finalists were from the UK.
Fabien Dunlop arrived at the finale as the chip leader and maintained his advantage throughout play, until heads-up competition.
When heads-up play began, Fabien Dunlop enjoyed about a 3 to 1 chip lead over J.P. Kelly. Dunlop had 1,365,000 to Kelly’s 498,000. Shortly into the duel, Kelly doubled up against Dunlop and seized the chip lead for the first time. On one of the tournament’s most exciting hands, Kelly was all-in with A-10 of clubs versus Dunlop’s A-5 of diamonds. Dunlop flopped a diamond flush draw, while Kelly hit a pair of tens. The pair held up, giving Kelly the million-chip pot.
The final hand came about an hour into heads-up play. The decisive hand which crippled Dunlop was an all-in bluff, which failed miserably. Kelly flopped the nut straight (10-9) and bet out when the board showed (Q-J-8). Dunlop decided to make a move (with A-3) and announced “all in.” Kelly snap called and took down the massive pot. Dunlop was crippled and went out a short time later. Kelly ended up winning the tournament with a higher flush on the final hand when both players made five diamonds, but Kelly’s king-high flush bested Dunlop’s jack-high.
The runner up was Fabien Dunlop, originally from France. He now lives in London. He is a 30-year-old poker pro. The chess and bridge player was previously a financial advisor. As runner up, Dunlop collected £84,512.
The third-place finisher was Adnan “Eddy” Alshamah, from Damascus, Syria. Alshamah was low on chips throughout play, but clawed and scratched his way to an impressive third-place finish. The 52-year-old business came close to becoming the first Syrian WSOP winner in history. Nonetheless, his finish was the highest by a Syrian national in the 40-year history of the WSOP.
The top 63 finishers collected prize money which includes yours truly – I won £2060.00.
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