National Final 2010
85,000 players started their quest on February 8th 2009 to become the next UK Pub Poker Champion. Each player would ride the poker roller coaster that is variance throughout the whole year, experiencing bad beats, outdraws and numerous 50/50 shots. Naturally bemoaning about them all before dishing out bad beats themselves and forgetting they ever inflicted this injustice on their opponent 10 minutes later, but their memory of losing with those Aces would stay with them for days. This is poker, the greatest game in the world!
So, on March 28th 2010 we had our final 384 players, all ready to compete in our National Final. Almost 800 people would turn up to experience the pinnacle of pub poker, but only one would leave as our champion.
Special guests on the day included Teddy Sheringham and Jessica-Jane Clement, they were both on hand for pre-tournament photos and autographs. Jessica would present the winner with £5,000, a crystal glass trophy, a chip set and a magnum of champagne.
Play got underway at around 12:30 and it didn’t take long to lose our first player, Dean Wilson from The Longsborough Arms in Market Weighton was the unlucky player and he received a wooden spoon courtesy of Redtooth.
Once we’d got the first elimination out of the way, the players loosened up and further eliminations soon followed as an earlier finish than expected was looking on the cards. That expectation soon disappeared as we got down to our final couple of tables, each player being more cautious as the UK Pub Poker Champion title, £5000 and numerous other prizes got closer and closer.
At about 9pm we were down to our final table, these were, in seat order, 1. Johnny Crangle 2. Andrew Sheardown 3. Vincent Cook 4. Richard Makin 5. Lee Reynolds 6. David Ferguson 7. Darren Eastlake 8. Daniel Blackburn 9. Thomas Rimmer.
This was the 2nd successive year that Darren Eastlake had made it to the business end of the National Final. Last year Darren just fell short of the final table by finishing in 16th place. But unfortunately for Darren he couldn’t quite make it all the way this year as he finished in a very respectable 3rd place.
Almost 4 hours after the final table had started, we reached the moment we’d all been waiting for. We were down to the heads-up match between Daniel Blackburn and Richard Makin with an all-in that was followed by a swift call. Richard must of felt good as he tabled JJ, but then unbelievably Daniel flipped over QQ to put Richard in terrible shape! Daniel’s QQ held as a chip count soon followed, it turned out that there was only 4,000 chips in it with nearly 2,000,000 chips in play, so the hand was to prove decisive and make Daniel Blackburn from the Airedale Heifer in Mirfield the UK’s new pub poker champion!
“Congratulations to Daniel, I hope to be there again next year. Well done to Redtooth on making it such a great day!!” – Martin ‘Billy’ Bremner
“What a mint day it was, well done to the winner and thanks to everyone involved for a fab day!! I did awful myself but won £920 in the £40 tourney in the evening, happy days!! Watch out for me next year because that trophy has got my name on it.” – Carl Percy
“Had such agood day, thank you Redtooth” – Paul Hayler
“It was an awesome day and I enjoyed it so much! I met some great people and had a blast! I want to thank everybody involved, the players, their guests and especially Redtooth for a well organised event and for making it a very memorable day! It was a great final and i enjoyed every minute of it!" - Daniel Blackburn (UK Pub Poker Champion)
Previous National Final reports can be found by visiting:
http://www.redtoothpoker.com/national2009.asp
http://www.redtoothpoker.com/national2008.asp