With the World Series fast becoming a distant memory, this bank holiday weekend brought poker back to life with the innaugral GSOP (Gutshot Series of Poker), a truly applaudable event that catered for the less wealthy player with a rather more affordable £300 entry fee.
Although many £300 Freezouts are your bog-standard several thousand chips, one hour clock, 2 day affair, the Gutshot bravely decided to raise the bar by hosting a 4 Day tourney that ran parallel with the World Series' Main Event structure - that is to say that players were treated to a starting stack of 10,000 and a 2 hour clock.
Whilst the majority of Team blonde (tikay, RED-DOG, Djinn, myself and co) fell within the first few hurdles, a few fishes escaped though the net, most notably Bloodshoteyes, Wardonkey, and Chili Pepper, the latter a big big favourite on blonde and heavily supported by all her fans.
In fact, as the final approached, Maria 'Chili Pepper' Demetriou was on a threatening stack of 230,00 chips, in 4th position and tipped by many to take the title, not to mention the shiny GSOP bracelet.
With the final table raring to go, the top 9 looked like this:
Orhan Tevfik -- 488,800
Ade Bayo -- 314,600
Jamie Lillywhite -- 272,000
Maria Demetriou -- 231,000
Praz Bansi -- 108,000
Robert Karasek -- 93,700
Rupom Pal -- 83,400
A very tough line-up indeed, and one which inlcuded a WSOP bracelet winner in London's Praz Bansi, fresh off his 6 figure scoop in Vegas.
Also of notable presence was the infamous Ade Bayo, a Gutshot regular who seems to possess Marmite qualities with onlookers split down the middle to whether he is one to support or jeer. Either way, Ade's record is quite an impressive one, and whilst some suggest that this is predominantly due to his amazing speech-play skills, we must also consider that this fellow can actually play.
Whilst Praz took 9th for a paltry £1,000, Ade is still plugging away with 230,000, over 750,000 chips behind current leader Orhan Tevfik.
And, as the headline concedes, Chili was forced to settle for 6th place and a cheque for £2,700 when her K-5 on a K-5-J board was cold-decked by Orhan's K-J - a near impossible predicament to escape from and one that was sure to result in her inevitable exit.
A big round of applause for Maria whose hot run continues. 4k in Brighton, another 4 plus in Sheffield, and now this - what's next, the World?...