Category: Uncategorized

Vegas Baby!

The first time I went to Las Vegas was in July 1994. I stayed at the Flamingo (then the Flamingo Hilton). This was one of the first Vegas casinos opened by Bugsy Siegel in 1946. Almost opposite the Flamingo stands the Bellagio, one of my favourites and where I got married at the end of the WSOP in 2005. Except back in 1994 the Bellagio wasn’t there – it was the site of the Dunes.

I can remember going for breakfast in the Flamingo back then on my first Vegas visit and the waitress asked me if I saw ‘it’ last night. I had no idea what she was talking about. Overnight the final Dunes tower was demolished, imploded, blown up and the entire site opposite was now just a pile of rubble. My bedroom window looked over where this had happened in the early hours – and yours truly slept through it!

Steve Wynn bought the Dunes and it’s site and built the Bellagio (very nearly called Beau Rivage; can you imagine?) which he sold to MGM in 2000. In 2005 he opened Wynn Las Vegas.

Last year I couldn’t travel with the Grosvenor qualifiers and team as two of my best friends were getting married right in the middle of the scheduled trip so I was really looking forward to it this year. There were 20 online qualifiers who won a Grosvenor Vegas ‘package’ including a buyin to the Colossus tournament, flight, 7 nights at the Linq hotel and a few extra drinks and nights out. We got to meet them all at the welcome party and they were a great bunch too! A real mix, some couples, some who had been to Vegas many times and for others it was their first visit.

There were a few Colossus cashes for our party in the 18,054 strong field but a big shout out to Blair Matheson who did the best from our group with a finish in 161^st place for $5,199 ! For a while Blair was chip leader in the event and was the first player to have his chip stack go through the 100,000 mark. Must have been a great buzz!

I got to break my beer-pong virginity one night in O’Sheas bar which was a laugh, especially as my team won!

Grosvenor also took everyone out to BeerPark one evening for dinner and drinks. It’s an open air bar with terraces overlooking the Strip and the Bellagio fountains. Over 100 different beers and BBQ style food served, with pool tables and foosball. We had a 15 man game of ‘killer’ on the pool table and that was a great laugh too.

In all I played about 5 or 6 tournaments. When all of Team Grosvenor went home after a week we moved on to stay at the Wynn for two weeks. It was the first time I have stayed there and it is my new Vegas favourite. Everything they do is done well. They even have a $28,000,000 statue of Popeye with his very own 24 hour security guard.

I had one very deep run when I played in the biggest field PLO tournament ever assembled. WSOP Event #18 $565 PLO had no less than 3,186 entrants. I ran very well on day 1, even winning two decent pots with Aces v Aces. I finally finished 14^th for $11,754 (when my AAxx lost to KKxx) which was nice but the first prize of $224,000 was definitely in reach for a while.

There are noticeably some very deep stack and deep structured events going on in Vegas during the WSOP; The Colossus, The Marathon, The Monster Stack and there is also a Goliath! We all know though there is only one Goliath and that is in Coventry from July 27^th to August 6^th 2017!

If you would like to take part in the event, see satellites and full Goliath details here 

I believe a number of the 2017 Vegas Team Grosvenor qualifiers will be there for a bit of a re-union and maybe even having a go to take away my beer-pong title! I hope to see some of you there, I’m there all week.

 

 

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Time may change me, but you can’t trace time.(Bowie, Dec 1971)

Casinos were not as common as they are now when I was starting out, they were hard to find. I remember writing a letter to the gambling commission to ask exactly how many Casinos were in the UK, and where they were, pretending to be a pupil working on a school project (yes, pre-internet)! In reality I was using winning strategies and simply wanted to find out where they all were.

As a youngster I played a lot of Blackjack with my late father, David. We played, quite successfully, in a blackjack team, and had a great time along the way. Funnily enough the Victoria Casino was one I would frequent regularly. It’s a good thing really. Where London’s biggest and best cardroom now stands used to be the casino high stakes area, £25 minimum blackjack tables were my home then rather than the £2/£5 PLO or round of each now.

Things have changed so much since then. I had a discussion with some younger players when I last played the GUKPT at the Vic and they thought that I was winding them up when I told them about the old days. Poker at the Vic (and everywhere) has changed an awful lot.

Our success was an issue back in those days, casinos did not want big winners. As our options became more limited we saw a casino in Luton just up the M1 from Hendon, Sergeant Yorke’s, now the Grosvenor.

We played there for a while and did well for a number of reasons (that’s a complete other blog in the making). It was at Yorke’s that I played my first poker tournament, a £10 seven card stud rebuy thingy, I was 23. (That’s an even longer other blog to be written).

When I played my first event at Yorke’s there wasn’t any rake or charges in tournaments, the casinos did them from the kindness of their hearts (well, they did them for free because they weren’t allowed to charge under the Gaming Act that existed at that time). There were lots of player dealt tournaments as a result, but we usually got a dealer for the finals (and the festivals).

Never Leave The Stream…

You had to be sat in your seat for the first hand of the tournament or you couldn’t play! No late reg, no regging on time and leaving chips on the table and skipping the first two levels, and no buying in friends. I have seen players running, fast up the stairs, and flying across the card room to make it but miss the first hand by 30 seconds and not be allowed in – they were the rules.

No alcohol at the tables! I imagine Ludo and Warbs wouldn’t be the players they are today because they would never have made it out of the bar to the poker table!

The regular tournaments were £10 unlimited rebuys. You started with 500 in points and blinds of 25/25 with a 15 or 20 minute clock. The good news was they started at 730pm and finished about 3am. Casinos then had to close at 4am – those were the rules!

Then there was the 48 hour rule – try and explain that to an American. In order to get into the casino you had to be a member, or guest of a member. To be a member you had to sign up with ID and then wait 48 hours before you were allowed in, yes really! A cooling off period.

Shuffle Up And Deal!

The 2017 GUKPT Tour is about to start and Jeff Kimber are I are both very happy to on board as sponsored Grosvenor pros playing the best tour in the UK. Andy Hills will also be joining us as winner of the Passport promotion where he gets entry to all the GUKPT 2017 main events.

Ian Bryan, GUKPT maestro and leader, has come up with a few ch…ch…changes to the Tour. I do feel that they are improvements too.

All the live RFID tables, hosted by Andy Booth of Cardroom Direct, are now streamed in HD (and there isn’t any additional premium to pay as with Sky HD, it’s still free to watch). The mini-main is now a firm two day event (instead of 2 or 3 as it happened last year) and it has a 2pm start time.

Side events are back in town! There is a £300 two day event, during the £1000 main event festivals, £150 in the £500s and a £500 two day event at the grand final festival at the Vic. There is also a new £150 Win The Button comp (£75 in the £500s).

Qualify Now For The GUKPT

All positive changes from my point of view. It sounds like Grosvenor are listening to their players, and focusing on players in the UK. With masses of new online satellites and a soft “steps” system in place to let players qualify for major events from as little as £0.25, we should see many more new faces on the block this year.

Fundamentally, this means new players enjoying the great game, hopefully having good experiences and telling their friends, keeping poker fresh and fun for everyone.

Full GUKPT schedules can be found here.

Information on satellites can be found here.

Trivia: Did you know that Changes was the last song Bowie ever performed live? Yep, it’s true.

Cheers,

Joe

I have been meaning to do a Goliath update for a while and seeing as I’m not in the GUKPT Luton final today I’ve got a spare couple of hours to do it now.

What a great week the Goliath was, kind of. It was a success in so many ways. There were a record 5,232 entries creating a £523,000 prize pool and a £62,750 first prize – not bad for £100 entry!

I say ‘kind of’ because although I had a great week with some great people it was frustrating for me. You need to successfully navigate sixteen levels to make day two at the Goliath. I played four day 1s and bust levels 13, 16, 13 and 16 again. I had six bullets altogether as I took two rebuys as well and I probably played more levels in the Goliath than the eventual winner Vamshi Vandanapu.

Grosvenorpoker online ran a great fun ‘Joker Bounty’ event (details in previous blog) and aside from a few technical issues with sign ups it was also an amazing success. There was limited space and all tables in the massive conference room were used with 15 allocated for this. Alternate queues were long and the event was oversold but they managed to get 256 entries and 27 rebuys in the end.

The added joker brought a few discussions on tactics. Would you prefer the Joker and a deuce or two aces? It’s a tough one to work out. If you can work out the math let me know at [email protected]. If you want a side bet and to run a few hundred hands hot and cold with a live deck I’ll happily take the joker and the two.

For just a £25 buyin and with five random bounties you would expect players to try and knock me out at any opportunity. There was a particularly interesting hand that eliminated me and I’ll share that in a moment. I had a fun table, everyone was drinking and enjoying themselves. Two to my right was WSOP bracelet holder Lawrence Gosney and on my immediate left was Joan Roberts, a lovely lady who usually plays small stakes tournaments at the Grosvenor Coventry. She told me that she once won the £20 PLO tournament at the UK Student Poker Championship. She didn’t look much like a student to me though (see photo below). Joan had a handbag like a tardis. Someone asked for a cigarette and she produced five different brands. She asked if anyone was hungry and produced four bags of crisps. Mints? Just the polos, the softmints and the extra strong ones. Sweets? Chocolate? Five choices of each. I jokingly said ‘ I don’t suppose you have any tuna and cucumber sandwiches in there do you?’ She produced two.

Anyway I got dealt pocket kings UTG and moved all in. Joan on my left moved all in as well. It passed around to Lawrence on the small blind and he passed. The big blind picked up his hand and paused. He starting thinking, two minutes passed. He had me covered, as did Joan. Lawrence saw his hand and mouthed to me ‘he’s got the joker’. His other card was a deuce. He finally passed his hand. Joan turned over Ad10d and the flop ran out A45. The big blind would have flopped a straight and won the bounty, instead Joan won it. She got my sealed gold envelope and everyone urged her to open it. She could win a £500 seat and a variety of prizes down to a Bounty Bar (she didn’t need one of those, there was one in the handbag). She opened it and put her hand to her mouth in shock. She had never played anything bigger than a £25 event before and now she would be playing a £500 GUKPT event for free! She has a couple of daughters who are dealers in Coventry that some of you may know. She spent the next half an hour excitedly walking around showing her prize to her friends around the room.

Quite a few people asked me during the week if the Goliath could be a twice a year event rather than just the once. The good news is that GrosvenorPoker online now sponsor the IPO in Dublin. It runs later this month from 27^th – 31^st October and the Facebook page for it is here

There is an expected prize pool of Euro 400,000 and the buy in is just E260+40. It’s aimed at a similar audience as the Goliath and I’m off there with the Grosvenor crew later this month. Join us, it’s going to be great craic!

There are loads of packages to be won and all this week online all the guarantees have been doubled. There are also some £500 freerolls at 8pm daily up until Wednesday for players.

Open your account here or please click on the Grosvenor banner at the top of this page to open your Grosvenor account and see all the satellites on offer.

 

The WSOP main event is just about to enter day 3 with 2,176 players remaining out of the 6,737 that entered! No sooner does the seven week WSOP festival start than the main event creeps up and then it seems all over for another year. My first trip was back in 1995 and I just worked out that I have spent over a whole year of my life playing tournaments and cash games at the WSOP.

I didn’t make the pilgrimage this year. Grosvenor were hosting some online qualifiers for the Colossus having run online satellites to Vegas for the first time in a few years. This followed their move from the sad state of online poker that is the iPoker network to the much improved and fast growing Microgaming network. I was due to be there on June 4^th with fellow Grosvenor pro Jeff Kimber but sadly one of my best friends from university was getting married and the dates clashed. Vegas will still be there next year and hopefully this will be his last wedding. The ideas for Vegas next year are amazing with plans to take a much bigger contingent over and I’m really looking forward to that.

I considered going over just for the main event but I left it too late so good luck to all the Brits and all our friends that are playing – especially those that are still in! You can see the up to date chip counts and coverage here

One thing that people always tell me amazes them is the first time they go, the first time they walk into the Rio Pavillion and all they can see are poker tables, poker tables and more poker tables. All they can hear are poker chips being riffled and all the poker chatter. It is an amazing place to be. It is very different to many of the card rooms in the UK and around Europe that we have become accustomed to…except for…

The Goliath in Coventry. The Grosvenor Casino in Coventry is part of the Ricoh Arena and although the casino is pretty big with a decent card room it can’t compete with the Rio for numbers. It does have it’s own palm trees and waterfalls just like the Mirage though! However during Goliath week the casino and the Ricoh conference area become one. There would be no other way to try and host nearly 5,000 players for one live event in the UK. As you walk through the casino into the Goliath area it is as close as you are ever going to get as to walking into the Rio; the poker tables, the cards, the chips being riffled, it’s a sight for a poker players senses to take in and enjoy.

Last year the Goliath got 4,120 entries – a record outside of Vegas! Hopefully this year it could beat the magic number of 5,000!

The Goliath is an amateur deepstack poker tournament, now in its sixth consecutive year, designed to give new and experienced players a taste of what it’s like to play in a ‘Las Vegas’ style event. This year the guarantee is £250,000 for a buyin of just £100.

There are great cash games throughout the week (28th July – 7th August 2016) and many other tournaments including a 25/50 that I will also be playing the first weekend.

On Thursday 4^th August there is a Joker’s Wild tournament (played with a 53 card deck and one joker). It is just a £25 buy-in event but has some great promotions. There will be 5 bounties (including Jeff and yours truly) and the ‘mystery’ bounties include added prizes of a £500 GUKPT seat, a 25/25 seat and a bar of chocolate. Grosvenor are also giving away a total of £1000 in high hand bonuses to 20 lucky players and every finalist will get extra online cash. It will be capped at 250 entrants and is sure to be popular. You have to register online and you can do that here.

Full schedule: Goliath 2016

For the Goliath there are loads of online sats with 350 satellite seats guaranteed and there are some big overlays expected. Open your Grosvenor account here and join us (all 5,000 of us) at the Goliath this year!

A Poker Rule I Believe Needs Changing

There is a rule that has become commonplace at major poker tournaments in recent times. It was a rule in place at the recent Irish Open, it’s a GUKPT rule and I believe it is a TDA rule too. It’s a fairly recent rule implementation, I don’t remember it being there back in the day.

It usually involves the 5,000 value chip.

Imagine this scenario. With blinds at 100/200 a player raises to 500 preflop and gets a caller. On the flop he bets 1,100 and is called. On the turn he bets again, 1,600 and is called. On the river he throws a 5,000 chip into the pot and announces ‘three’. The rule at the Irish Open is that this bet goes as three hundred and not three thousand. I am told that even should the player say ‘two and a half’ the bet goes as 250 – even though a player would rarely say ‘two and a half’ when betting 250. In this spot he would usually say ‘two hundred and fifty’ as usual English.

When I first discussed this with Nick O’Hara, an excellent TD and the TD at the Irish Open, he told me that he thought it was a good rule. He says the most important thing when making rulings is consistency, and I totally agree with that. He continues that in order to be consistent the bet either has to always be the lower amount (300) or the higher amount (3000) and to be consistent the ruling must always go the same way. However after some consideration Nick now tells me that he thinks the rule does need revisiting and perhaps a change would be an improvement to the way it is now.

The thing is that, from a players perspective, it makes sense for the bet to be 3000. My limited canvassing of players opinion agrees. I have found it hard to find a player that agrees with the rule the way it is. Dealers don’t like it either. I have seen the situation happen many times where a player announces ‘three’, the calling player throws in three 1000 chips and calls, and the pot is pushed without comment. Talking to dealers they tell me that it was obvious and it would just cause issues if they enforced the ruling or called the floor to do so. In fact it happened four times that I saw in Dublin. Twice it was pulled up and enforced and twice the dealer let it go. It would appear the rule is creating inconsistencies rather than the opposite. I would add that all four times the intended bet was 3000 and not 300. I never saw a player say ‘three’ and mean 300.

Again from a player’s view consider this. How often does a player throw in a 5000 chip announcing ‘three’ and actually mean three hundred and how often does he throw in a 5000 chip announcing ‘three’ and mean 3000? The truth is the first rarely if ever happens, the latter happens frequently. So is the rule creating an unnatural situation? I think it is.

There are other things to consider. One is that the rule creates bad feeling when enforced. Another is that it creates an angleshoot. When I look at rules I like to consider the possible angle shoots both ways. With the rule in place and the situation I outline at the beginning consider the aggressor has a busted draw. On the river when he bets ‘three’ most if not all players, in the context of the pot, would consider the bet three thousand. However if called the aggressor can get away with a ruling and a loss of only 300 chips. If the rule is that the bet always goes as 3000 in this spot the angleshoot doesn’t work. There can also be issues with language and it would be unfair to penalise a player just because his English isn’t very good.

Think of it as if you were playing and you did it. Just imagine you ever wanted to throw in the 5000 chip and bet 300. You would say ‘three hundred’ wouldn’t you? I know I would. If you only wanted to bet 300 you wouldn’t want to risk the bet going as 3000 would you? Betting 300 with a 5000 chip would be odd so you would make it clear.

Good rules rarely need clarification or announcing and repeating again and again. The fact that this rule is constantly broadcast over the microphone and re-iterated just about more than any other rule just goes to show that it doesn’t work and should be changed. It’s a pain.

My preference is to have an ‘in context’ or common sense rule but if they have to rule one exact way or the other then I would opt for the higher amount. I am going to put up a poll on Twitter to get numbers for and against a change back to the way it used to be. There will be two options to vote:

• It’s a good rule keep it.
• It’s a bad rule, change it.

Please vote so we can find out @joebeevers

Still Got The Balls?

I would like to apologise in advance if this blog seems a bit of a rant. I think some of the things that have happened recently are actually quite funny and all show what a sad state some UK bookmaking businesses are in.

Before I get onto the stuff that is really absurd I would like to reflect on my previous blog, ‘Are Coral Bookmakers Acting Illegally?‘

So Coral ignore emails from customers, they ignore customer requests, great customer service that.

I Tweeted Simon Clare @SiClare who is the Corals ‘PR Man’ for his comments and offered him a right to reply. The Tweets to him were re-Tweeted many times. What do you think he said? He acted very Coral-like – he ignored them and blocked me. So can they also ignore their legal responsibilities as well as ignoring their customers? A few readers on my Facebook page suggested taking it further:

…maybe we’ll have some more fun with that another time. I have a few ideas.

Some of you may know about the proposed merger of Coral with Ladbrokes. One of Bettingemporium’s customers opened a Ladbrokes account. He liked a punt. So much so that they put him on their VIP scheme. Many won’t know about this scheme, I couldn’t find much on their website about it. He got emails offering him bonuses. Cash bonuses of up to £200 with no or very little play through – absolutely free money. They really liked him. Then one day he got restricted, not sure exactly why but his max bet was now about a fiver (he regularly bet four figure sums on soccer and racing). So he withdrew his balance. Then he got an email from the VIP club:

–

“Following a recent review of your account, we are aware of a reduction in your levels of play with Ladbrokes. As your VIP privileges are awarded in line with your play, your account is regrettably no longer eligible to receive your current offering. Your level of play must be maintained in order to be considered for the VIP Service. Please be assured that we are constantly monitoring accounts and should your account situation change we will adjust your VIP status offering accordingly. “

–

Too funny. They might be monitoring a long time. One department wants him to bet and penalises him when he doesn’t. The other stops him betting. I wonder if the two Ladbrokes departments involved are in the same building. He wrote back saying he wanted to bet with them and to lift the ridiculous limits. They acted Coral-like. They ignored him. I think this merger might work.

You might think Coral/Ladbrokes are bad here, wait until you hear about the jokers at Bwin.

Another Bettingemporium customer opens a new Bwin account and deposits £300 that he wants to bet on Michael van Gerwen in the Premier League Darts. They offered him £30! So he bet the £30 and the bet won. Maximum bet now £5! What, really? Then he gets this email a short while later:

–

“Still got the balls? You still have credit at bwin.

Find a bet for your credit.

Hi xxx,

We would like to remind you that you still have £xxx in your account.

Bet Now!”

–

How ironic.

Anyway, Bwin don’t have the balls for an even £300 on the darts so he decides to withdraw and then receives this:

Dear bwin customer,
We have received your withdrawal request for xxx.xx GBP.
However, we noticed that you are requesting a withdrawal without adequate game play after your recent deposits.
We encourage our players to make deposits with an intention to play and not to withdraw soon after.

‘Encourage’ yeah right! It makes you wonder how many bad business decisions these firms make on a regular basis throughout their whole businesses.

[End rant]

Are Corals Acting Illegally? Coral Bookmakers and the Freedom of Information Act

Restricted accounts are a common subject of discussion among punters. At Bettingemporium.com we have several thousand members and we often get support emails asking questions on this subject. One of our registered users (let’s call him Mr P), not a professional and someone who likes to bet on a variety of popular sports, opened an account with Corals. He ran the account for over a year, not winning or losing much. Then immediately after a withdrawal, the first in several months, his maximum bet was set at £5 on anything. From all objectiveness it would appear that the withdrawal triggered the restriction. I would assume that Coral have something in place to look at accounts with withdrawals over a certain amount. I believe this particular withdrawal was around £2,000.

Bookmakers are always telling us there are two sides to the restricted account discussion. However punters have yet to hear the ‘other’ side as bookmakers won’t come forward to put their ‘other side’ arguments. In fact as this article will come to show they actually don’t like sharing much information even when they (in my opinion) legally have to.

Neil Channing did a great podcast on account restrictions here: PODCAST

So Mr P wrote to Corals asking about his account restrictions. He made it clear that he was making a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and that he was entitled to know what information was held on him by Coral under the Data Protection Act. They chose to ignore this in their replies. He even quoted their own terms and conditions that say that you can obtain a copy of personal information and it will be provided within 40 days. The latest communication from Mr P to Coral on this matter dated September 8^th 2015 was completely ignored by Corals and never replied to.

My question is are Coral entitled to stonewall someone like this? I would appreciate any comments on the forum here or by email to me at [email protected]. If there are any FOIA experts or lawyers out there who can help please let me know what you think. Please tell us are Coral Bookmakers breaking the law?

Information regarding the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) can be found here

…and this is how the communications went:

---

From: Mr P to [email protected] Aug 16 2015

Hi there,

For some reason the maximum bet that I can have on my Coral account following my recent withdrawal is £5 on anything – even Premiership football games on TV.

Can you please tell me why and can you fix this for me please?

Kind regards,

Mr P

---

Coral reply to Mr P Aug 26, 2015
Dear Mr P,

Thank you for contacting Coral Customer Support.

Please be advised that our Trading Department have the right to refuse, restrict or alter any bets that they see fit, without giving a reason to the customer.

This can be seen within the Terms and Conditions of our website, which I have included below:

17. REFUSAL OF BETS

17.1 We reserve the right to refuse any bet that is submitted to us, without giving a reason.

17.2 If we are willing to accept a part of a bet, or accept a bet but at different odds or terms, we will always propose a revised bet which you can then decide to accept or decline. There will always be a limited time within which you must make this decision and if you do not respond in time the bet will not be placed.

I apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

Should you require any further assistance on this or any other matter, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Support Team on 0800 44 00 11 or via Live Chat between 07:00 – 23:30.

Kind Regards,

Kirsty

Coral Customer Support

---

 

26th Aug from Mr P to Coral

Dear Coral,

FAO the manager of your customer services department.

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

Thank you for yet again another standard response quoting your terms and conditions. You are ignoring my request simply sending general emails. You may be entitled, according to your terms and conditions, to ‘refuse, restrict or alter any bets that they see fit’ but you can not ignore your obligations under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Data Protection Act. The Data Protection Act gives the right to find out what information organisations store about individuals. The FOIA gives me the right to access information that you hold on me.

I would also point out that the line in your t&c that you refer to relates to restricting individual bets. You have restricted my account. There is a difference to wanting to limit a liability or restrict a wager and what you are doing here. You are being disingenuous ignoring that.

This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and if I do not receive a satisfactory response within 21 days it may be necessary to report your organisation to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

I realise that this is a decision taken by someone in your company. I want to know exactly the reasons why, specifically relating to my account. You need to share this information with me, it is my legal right.

Please tell me why you have specifically restricted my account and are effectively refusing to take any bets from me.

Please can you forward to me all the data, notes (internal or otherwise) and information that you hold on me and my account?

Kind regards,

Mr P

---

From Coral to Mr P Sep 3, 2015
Dear Mr P,

Thank you for contacting Coral Customer Support.

Unfortunately, as previously stated this is a decision taken by our trading team purely based on a business decision and as such we are under no obligation to provide any further information to you.
I do apologise if you feel aggrieved however, we are under no legal obligation to provide you with a reason for our decision.

Should you require any further assistance regarding this or any other issue, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Support Team on 0800 44 00 11 or Live Chat (available Monday-Sunday 7:00am – 12:00am).

Kind Regards,

Adam
Coral Customer Support

---

From Mr P to Coral Sep 8, 2015

Dear Adam at Coral Customer Support,

I have requested you to refer this to your manager. I have made it clear that this is a request under the Freedom of Information Act and Data Protection Act and I do not accept it when you say:

“we are under no obligation to provide any further information to you.”

Furthermore your own terms and conditions privacy policy section 5.1 reads as follows:

“5 – ACCESS TO PERSONAL INFORMATION
obtain a copy of Your Personal Information held by us following completion of the appropriate forms. We are entitled by law to make an administrative charge (payable by cheque or bank transfer) for providing such information. Your Personal Information will be provided within 40 days of the appropriate request and payment.”

Please provide a copy of all my personal information, notes internal and otherwise, and any data that you hold on me. The FOI Act details that you should do this within 20 days and my original request is now over 20 days old.

Regards,

Mr P

---

The above email dated September 8th was never replied to by Corals.

ends

Blackpool G Casino, on the sea front, is one of my favourite casinos in the UK. It has a real party atmosphere, people enjoy themselves there. They also have some of the best cash games that I have seen since Holland 1996.

I would like to give a special mention to the waitresses there as well. There are usually only three or four working at a time but it seems like there are a whole army of them. You never have to wait long to order and then the drinks and food arrive quickly. Even though the card room is packed with tables close together and the room may sometimes be hard to navigate they still clear the tables – constantly. I have played in many card rooms where the empties only get moved when there is no space left for a fresh drink to go!

As some of you may already know I have identical twin girls (the odds on a natural twin birth is 1 in 70 and the odds of identical twins is 1 in 1000). Two of Blackpool’s waitresses, Sam and Sarah, are identical twins too. We shared a few ‘twin’ stories. They told me that Sam, when younger, had a milk allergy. When Sam had something with milk in it or drank milk she came out covered in big red spots – and so did Sarah! I said that I thought that was a brilliant story. Sarah reminded me that it wasn’t brilliant for her!

I played the £150 PLO side event on the Thursday night and despite being a short stack for a long time managed to find myself four handed at 4am with Paul Jackson, Mark Evans and Paul Rawlins (who had half the chips in play). I knew it could be a long while yet until we finished so I was happy we managed to agree a deal and I was in bed by 4.30am.
The main event started the next day at 1pm (a much better start time than noon). I was happy with the way I played and went to day two with a decent stack. The first time I was all in and called on day two I found myself with AK up against A10 – you know the rest. I finished a dozen off the money.

They got an amazing 276 entrants, at £1000 each, for the main event. This success is largely due to Tania the card room manager there organising a good set of satellites for the regulars before the festival began. They used to have two main festivals at Blackpool; one in May and then the Northern Lights in November each year. I would like to see the May week return, perhaps with a £500 GUKPT event.

GUKPT Tour dates for 2016 have just been announced and you can see them here – three London legs!

Blackpool’s GUKPT Champion 2015 was Jonny Gray. Congratulations to him. You can see the full result here.

Some of you may have seen me wearing Nicoccino patches and wondered what it was. Nicoccino is a leaf-thin film that you dissolve discreetly under your gum. It is 100% natural and contains 1mg of nicotine (no tobacco, tar or smell). You get a ‘hit’ or nicotine high from it, unlike a gum or patch. It’s perfect for when you want a nicotine hit and it’s just not convenient to smoke (playing poker, flying on planes, restaurants etc). Full details are on their website http://www.purenicoccino.com If you use my code JOE20 you will get a 20% discount at the checkout.

Phil ‘The Tower’ Heald is another part of GUKPT furniture that needs a mention. Phil does a great job with the live coverage and the commentary at all the events. His enthusiasm is endless, a great asset to the tour. Can anyone tell me is he called ‘The Tower’ because he is from Blackpool or because he is the tallest person in the cardroom? I guess if I was from Blackpool I could be Joe ‘The Rock’ Beevers!

Next stop for me is the £2000 GUKPT Grand Final at the Vic (22nd – 29th November 2015) with a massive £400,000 guarantee. Follow @GUKPT for details of various satellites and qualifiers this week. There is still time to take part in my Get 10% of me in the GUKPT Grand Final! promo.

Cheers,

Joe

You can probably guess by the title of this blog that the results for the 2015 Poker Hall of Fame inductions have been announced.

As many of you may have guessed, the ‘winners’ are John Juanda and Jennifer Harman. Both are, without doubt, great poker players. I would like to be half as good as either of them. They both have great tournament results and conduct themselves admirably. I have met and played with both of them and I like them both.

Now fast forward 50 years, maybe 100 years. Imagine there is a big wall at the WSOP with all the PHOFers photos on it. Your children, or grand children are looking at it for the first time having just got the poker bug. How many faces can they name? If Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott had been inducted instead of John or Jennifer would they be able to name one more? Probably.

A Hall of Fame for me is obviously different to some others. A member should be memorable and illustrious. I wrote my observations and arguments regarding this in my 30^th September blog.

I heard it may have been the case that Dave’s vote was split somewhat with the legendary Terry Rogers and as another onlooker said to me ‘Americans vote for Americans’. Well that may be true.

There are zero living non American’s in the PHOF and the only non American name I can see in the list of (now) 50 is Edmond Hoyle inducted in 1980 (he died in 1769). Sounds like they have a fair system here with no bias whatsoever right? Yeah right.

So when is a Hall of Fame not a Hall of Fame? When it’s a club.

I think that the PHOF as it is resembles more of a private ‘club’ than a real Hall of Fame. So today I am starting the ‘Joe Beevers Poker Hall of Fame’. I’m not sure what the guidelines are and how future members or inductees will be chosen but I am certainly sure who the first member is. Here is a picture of him:

I am open to suggestions for how we add people but out of respect, Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott will be the only member for the next twelve months.

Any comments, suggestions or whines about the set up over in the USA can be posted in the forum.

Cheers,

Joe

Welcome to my new website. There are a few new things here, most noticeably a blog and a forum. I have a few ideas and opinions that I have wanted to share recently and they have been mounting in my head for a while. I want to share them with you and I want to see what you think about them. Most of them are either poker or gambling related in some way or another, but not all of them. Some of them, whilst they may appear controversial, are in no way meant to offend anyone (particularly any UK bookmakers).

Some of you will know that I am a Grosvenor Poker sponsored pro travelling the UK and the world playing events such as the GUKPT. Grosvenor have some very exciting announcements on the way over the next few months and this updated site will give me the opportunity to share those with you.

To celebrate the new site I am giving away 10% of anything that I cash in the GUKPT Grand Final at the Victoria Casino, London in November. It is a £2000 buyin with a £400,000 guarantee (and they usually smash the guarantee). To get your free share you simply need to post in this forum thread here.

I have also recently agreed a (non poker) sponsorship deal. Sponsorship outside of (online) poker has always been more difficult to achieve so this is something that exites me and I will write more about this soon.

This is really just an intro, my first blog ‘Devilfish and the Hall of Fame’ will be up shortly. I hope you enjoy it.

If you have any comments or would like to contact me you can do so on [email protected] or feel free to post any questions in the forum here

You can follow me on Twitter @joebeevers and send me a Facebook friend request https://www.facebook.com/joe.beevers.5

Cheers,

Joe