Day 1A
Day 1B

As usual I’m the first person in the media room. One of the WSOP guys just turned up. He was out with some of the pros last night - Phil Hellmuth and John Juanda were betting on the Ryder Cup with Negrenau playing bookmaker. Hellmuth ended up owing Juanda £3,500.

Notable chip stacks

Junglen leads the pack with 84k. Negreanu 75k, Akenhead lies in 6th place with 59k, Willie Tann 52k, Phil Laak 50k, Kabbaj 35k, Bloch 30k, Juanda 27k, , Channing 20k, Surinder Sunar 14k, Erik Seidel 7k.

Game on

The blinds are now 500 - 1,000 with a 100 ante.

Daniel N is turning up the heat at his table. UTG + 1 makes it 3,000. Call, two callers then it gets to Daniel who makes it 15,000 to go. First two fold, last guy ponders for a minute then folds.

Original raiser: “I wanted to call you, man”.
Daniel: “I had you beat”.

Daniel later says he had Jacks.#

James Akenhead is embroiled in a growing pot. He is out of position with one caller and we see the flop.

Check, check. Turn:

Akenhead bets 4,800. Player (with considerably less than Akenhead) calls.

River:

Akenhead checks. Player bets 5,500. this is what he has remaining; he is pretty much pot committed.

Akenhead folds.

Huge pot back at Daniel Negreanu’s table. As you can see UTG made it 3,800 to go. Daniel called. Button goes all-in for 13,000 more.

Both raiser and Daniel call. Flop:

Check, check. Turn:

Check check. River:

Daniel shows for the Jack-high flush

All-in player shows a pair of tens for an early bath

remaining player shows for the Queen-high flush and scoops a ~50k pot.

Juanda is upstairs, raising limpers like a box of Viagra and taking down pot after pot pre-flop!

Blinds 600 - 1,200, 100 ante.

Akenhead is watching Laak and Negreanu clash horns at his table. Akenhead is the big blind when Laak (UTG +1) calls and Daniel raises to 2,800. Folded round to Laak who calls.

Flop: . Check, check. Turn: .

Laak checks, Daniel bets 3,600. Laak raises to 13,000 pretty quickly.

Daniel thinks then makes the call. River: . Check check.

Laak turns over and Daniel takes the pot with .

A few minutes later Laak is out, short stacked ran into AA with K-J.  James Akenhead is now on Juanda’s table.

This is Sandra Naujoks, from Germany.

She even has her own mini-hat card protector. The girl’s got style.

Second wind

Still short-stacked Erik Seidel moves in with A-J, called by A-K. The cards come 5 5 8 8 6 and he lives to fight another day.

Neil Channing has been quiet so far.

Sandra Naujoks is not allowing anyone to limp on her big blind. Three limpers and she makes it 5,500 to go. All fold.

We like Naujoks.

On a flop of , 2008 bracelet-winner Jesper Hougaard is faced with an all-in bet of 8,000, with a player still to act after him.

He calls, only for the next player to move in over the top. Jesper instantly folds.

All-in player shows

Re-Raiser shows

The turn is , giving the aces the lead. on the river seals the all-in player’s fate.

Jesper folded pocket Queens.

We are now on a break (which is about to finish). 54 players left.

Jesper’s stack

***SICK BEAT***

HUGE pot - On a flop of , with the pot already about a juicy 30,000 chips, a guy goes all-in and is called for the other guy’s remaining 37k.

Raiser:

Caller (and all-in)

Turn: River:

Noujaks doubles up

Yevgeniy Timoshenko (left) raises and a very short stacked Sandra Noujaks pushes.

Timoshenko:

Noujaks:

An ace on the flop is enough to keep her with us, for now!

Spoke too soon?

Our German friend is out; so are a few others and we are now in the money. Blinds are now 1,000 - 2,000 with a 300 ante.

Surinder Sunar just scraped his way into the money. At one point he was in the SB with 1,100 in front of him and he folded. Channing said “Queens?”. Another guy said he’d give him £20 to go all in.

On a board of , facing a bet of 7,200, Neil Channing has shoved it!
Channing asked his opponent if he thought he had 10-2. His opponent eventually resigned from the pot.

(Those purples and browns to the right also belong to Neil, who is just off camera)

I just noticed I have glitter from one of the birthday cakes on my face.

On yet another raggedy flop of , Channing moves in on the same player, again!

Here is the action from three different angles, Matrix-style.

“Ace-Queen no good”.

He mucks again. Channing shows .

Daniel is spontaneously goofing around making silly faces for my photos.

James Akenhead went out while I was in the media room. Willie Tann says has been card dead for the last three hours. Daniel said this guy was a 10-1 favourite to have had braces before. He was correct. Nobody made the bet, though.

We have a new chip leader

On a flop of , a wave of chips went in from three players.

Shortest stack:

Middle stack:

Largest stack:

Turn and river make no change and the pocket Jacks win a LANDSLIDE of chips. Might be up to 200,000 chips here. This was the last hand before the break and the dealer generously offered to stack his chips for him.

Channing moves in on another guy.

This time he is called. Channing has JJ vs the guy’s 88 and wins the pot and sending the chap out of the tournament. We are now down to 3 tables. Daniel N is now a few seats to the left of Channing.

Most of the 100 chips have now been coloured up. We have new chips in play! They are bright orange and worth 5,000.

Short stack on the button goes all-in; Linda Lee in the SB and Willie Tann in the BB call. They check it down to the river.

Board:

Button shows Q-6, Lee shows A-8 and Tann takes it down with J-8 and knocks the player out of the tournament.

Daniel Negreanu was eliminated while I was in the media room after all the chips went in preflop. His 99 was cracked by A-K offsuit. I asked Daniel what happened and he said “I made no mistakes, I just got unlucky!”.

Linda Lee doubles up when her A-Q unsuited outstrikes Fuad Serhan’s 99.

Willie Tann moves in on Jesper’s 10k raise forcing him to fold.

Jesper has another decision to make when Christoph Bommes makes it 10k, Jesper reraises and Christoph moves in.

Jesper has to fold again. Christoph lets him turn over either of his cards. He turns over .

Bloch is still here

120k pot

Jesper and Fuad are at it again. Fuad UTG makes it 16,000. Jesper calls.

Flop:

Fuad bets 19,000, Jesper calls. Turn:

Fuad bets 25,000, Jesper calls. River:

Fuad checks, Jesper goes all in and pushes forward his stack of orange 5,000 chips.

Fuad folds.

Jesper shows .

After this hand the 2-hour dinner break kicked in. At this point I was high of caffeine and had caught a cold (which I still have) because people kept leaving the balcony door open in the media room, and so I had to retire to bed. Jesper went on to win the £1,500 tournament and become the first player to win a WSOP bracelent in America and London in the same year.

Photos from the main event still to come.

FIN

The dealers and directors have a meeting to discuss the day ahead.

Poker chip pr0n

WE HAVE MORE CAKE!

Not much going on here in the AM so I’m loitering in the media room…. no one has touched the cakes yet. I’m not going to take a stab at them first! I’ll wait for the WSOP guys to get here, I know they’ll chomp immediately.

Also, they haven’t got the bloody ice cream out in the ice cream place yet. LIFE IS SO DEPRESSING

Annette_15 has just walked in to the media room. I hope she isn’t here to take her cakes. :(

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all-in energy drink for keeping me awake and ready for action. We have a whole fridge full of them and I’m all over that fridge like white on rice.

Playing today:

Devilfish

Mike Matusow

Howard, also a former Gutshot regular

Erica Shoenberg

Michael Greco

Sandra Noujaks

Hit Squad’s James Akenhead

Howard Lederer

We have Laak

We have Tilly!

Hellmuth

Hit Squad’s Praz Bansi

Jeromme Bradpiece

2007 WSOPE Main event champion Annette_15

Blinds are 50-100.

Howard Lederer is out: overpair vs set. He and Matusow made a bet on the Ryder cup but Howard tells me “neither of them seem to know much about Golf”.

David Williams and Richard Gryko are at the same table. David is getting a massage from one of the Ibiza Angels.

I’ve noticed David discreetly eyeballing Gryko a few times… probably because Gryko is taking pots down with K-4 offsuit.

Pimp my watch

Devilfish is blinged out - take a look at his watch.

Linda Lee has been tearing up her table.

Over and out

Blinds 100-200. two limpers, Annette limps in late position. SB calls, BB checks.

Flop: . Eveyone checks.

Turn:

Everyone checks to Annette who shoves for 3,075.

After some deliberation, both the SB & BB call. Everyone else folds.

River:

Check, check. Annette shows for a pair of sevens and a busted flush draw.

BB shows and it’s goodnight Annette_15.

On a flop of , Michael Greco is all-in again. This time he has chicken skewers.

Hit Squad’s Praz Bansi is up against the bet.

He folds. Greco shows a . Bansi shows a .

Not a happy chappy

Blinds 200-400, 50 ante.

James Akenhead needs chips.

Phil Laak chip stack update

Back to James Akenhead’s table. UTG+1 raises to 1,550. James moves in from middle position.

‘arghhhh’

He finds out how much more it is

And folds.

After the 2 hour dinner break Blinds are 300-600 with a 75 ante.

Andy black makes a straight in the first hand after the break for a nice pot.

Akenhead’s table

UTG makes it 1,500 to go. Two-time WSOP 2008 bracelet winner John Pham calls.

Flop:

UTG checks. Pham bets 4,000. UTG folds. John Pham is one to keep an eye on..

Pham is UTG and raises to 1,600. 3 callers. No respect!
Flop: . All check.

Turn:

Check, big stack bet 2,550, fold, fold, last player folds face-up. Another nice pot for Pham.

Table Laak / Williams / Black

Laak raises UTG, to be re-raised by a short stack in middle position. Laak calls.

Laak:

Short stack:

Community cards come and Laak sends another one home. He admits he was just raising to steal and now his secret is out!

John Pham has been blind and ante- stealing in my absence; the green chips are 25 each.

Ruling!

Andy Black and Phil Laak are in heads-up action.

The board is . Check check.

River:

Andy immediately bets 3,000.

Laak grabs 9,300 in chips, drops 3,000 down then the other 6,300. Between drops, Black quickly tables his pocket Jacks. Arguments ensue and the dealer calls the floor.

Laak demonstrates how he put the chips in. “I didn’t go back, they were in my hand”

The floor rules Laak has to call only. Laak tables and grabs the pot he has won.

Akenhead vs Pham

Akenhead appears to be getting the better of Pham at the moment.
On a board of , Pham faces a 6,000 bet from Akenhead.

Pham folds. Note he has lost all his 1,000 denomination chips (yellow).

Play has ended for the day 1B of the £1,500 NHL freezeout. James Akenhead is now sitting on a nice stack of chips. Pham was eliminated while I was in the media room, as was David Williams. Andy black went out 10 mins before the end of play.

Day 2 of the £1,500 freezeout to follow!

Geeky stuff: Canon EOS 20D, 24-70 f2.8L lens.

£1,500 No Limit Hold’em Freezeout

I narrowly missed out on playing this event myself, finishing 6th in a satellite that offered three seats since I didn’t manage to play the event I covered it instead. Here is some shortened coverage.

Marylin and Elvis were here to spice things up.

Final preparations for day 1A

Annette Obrestad (better known online as Annette_15) won last year’s event. Her 20th birthday was a few days before the start of the event and her sponsor, Betfair (also the festival sponsor) gave her 20 birthday cakes.

Shuffle up and deal, bitches!

OK he didn’t say bitches.

Some fellow players from the now defunct Gutshot Card Club were playing day 1a.

Ghandi

Ed Roger. Ed eliminated me from the GSOP main event a few months ago. From Luckyjimm’s commentary:
“And James Bardolph’s out! His resteal with 56 sooted got looked up by Ed Roger’s pocket 6s and didn’t find a miracle.”

Nik Persaud. Nik has been looking for his seat for around 10 minutes. He eventually finds his seat on Ghandi’s right.

If you saw the Pokerstars WCOOP advert, Daniel Negreanu’s expressions on the table are exactly the same as the look he has when he throws the chips in.

Liv Boeree and Neil Channing in the house

Not everyone had turned up yet. Late Hellmuth entrance anyone?

This guy had a unique haircut

And a unique charm

John Juanda. I swear this man has zero tells.

We fiendishly started eating Annette’s cakes in the media room. Let’s hope she doesn’t find out.

Tables have been broken as players are eliminated.

Some hands

Walking over to Nik P’s / Ghandi’s table and and Nik (BB) is in the middle of a hand with the SB.

Flop:

SB bets 250, Nik calls

Turn:

SB bets 750. Nik thinks for around 10 secs then decides to call.

River:

SB bets 2,100. Nik calls.

Bettor shows A-6 for the runner-runner full house! Nik later revealed he had K-8.

On a board of , with 5,450 in the pot, facing a bet of 2,500 Liv has a serious decision to make.

She folds. The winner shows the ace of hearts.

Blinds are currently 100-200, with a 25 ante.Daniel Negreanu has accumulated a lot of chips thus far.

After each level there is a 20 minute break. The dealers check all the cards during each break to make sure they are all present and there are no marks or irregularities which could help a player identify a card that is lying face-down.

Ghandi shoves it

A short stacked Ghandi gets and shoves pre-flop for 2,625. Small blind goes all-in, granite player who limped folds JJ face-up. Small blind shows

Flop:

Turn:

River:

Ship it!!!

Some guy is getting a finger massage…

Ghandi’s table decide now is a good time to look at the hand rankings in Texas Hold ‘Em. Curly hair man deems it fit to read the card upside-down.

Juanda doing well

A short stack moves in on Seidel’s big blind. Seidel is like ARGH and calls with .

The all-in guy actually raised blind and turns over .

Flop:

Turn:

River:

Double up for the all-in guy!

The green ‘25′ chips  have been coloured up. The blinds are now 400-800 with a 100 running ante.

Later on Seidel finds himself short stacked.

Play has ended for day 1 of the £1,500 NLH WSOPE tournament. Someone doubled up with Aces vs Kings on the last hand.

Time to put down your name, how many chips you have left, bag ‘em up and get some sleep.

Not before I snag some more of Annette’s birthday cake(s), though. They were just sitting there OK, it’s not my fault!

Day 1B to follow.

Geeky stuff: Canon EOS 20D, 24-70 f2.8L lens.

I’m running 7k in a Gorilla suit at the end of September to raise money for extremely poor people so they can have a better quality of life without having to impede on the natural habitat of the Gorilla, whose numbers are dwindling (they are an endangered species).

I’d appreciate some sponsorship.

http://www.justgiving.com/jamesbardolph

Regards

James

The journey

All the hotels in Pamplona were fully booked months in advance so Yassin and I booked a hotel in Vitoria, an hour’s train ride away. Vitoria is a 7-hour bus ride from Barcelona, where our journey started.

We dropped our bags, got changed and went straight to the train station. Yassin cut himself shaving and sported tissue on his face for the duration of the train ride to Pamplona.

Welcome to Pamplona.

The festival

We arrived at around 3pm on Sunday, the first day of the festival. The festival began at noon but unfortunately train and coach times would not allow us to get there in time for the start. Thousands of people were already there when we arrived and the entire place was rocking.

People were already quite hammered.

The toilets were 25 metres behind this chap.

We went exploring and ended up at a funfair, where I played a darts game and won a bottle of Negrita Rum. Here I am with said rum. On another note, I seem to look very camp in all the photos Yassin took of me in Pamplona.

The night before the first run

Because our hotel was in another town, we had to stay in Pamplona all night in order to make the 8am bull run. This gave us a lot of free time with nothing but alcohol and thousands of Spanish party animals.

Alcohol leads to drink driving….

…dancing on tables with strangers…

…and pictures of me throwing up outside. But we don’t want to see those now, do we?

Do we!?

The route

This is part of the route, a few corners away from the beginning of the run where the bulls’ pens are. The barriers are designed to allow runners to climb, dive under, through or over them to escape a clash with the bulls. There are also narrow vertical gaps in the barriers - big enough for humans to get through but not bulls. The barriers are placed into the ground on race days; there are special cavities in the floor they slot in to. This shows how seriously they take their tradition and the safety of the runners. Also, police and medics are stationed at every exit point to help where necessary. This picture was taken on Sunday so don’t worry, no kids took part in the run.

This barrier is on the first part of the run, about 40 metres from where the bulls are released.

The bull run

After shivering our way through Sunday night/Saturday morning, it was almost time. As runners were waiting for the firework marking the beginning of the run, people took up their viewing spots on balconies.

There were a lot of runners. Most of the people pictured here (us included) were kicked off the course so the authorities could dry the road to help everyone’s grip (including the bulls).

A bunch of us ran back to the start and climbed onto the course again.

Shortly before the start of the run and we were ready to roll. After this shot we split up; I went to the front to sing with the guys who start the run, then realised I didn’t know the words. The newspapers are used to distract the bulls from you if necessary, though some try to tap the bulls on the nose with their newspapers.

Yassin made a short video of the mayhem while running.
Click here to view the embedded video.

I didn’t take any shots or movies during the race but here is a shot of Yassin taken by Maite Hernández from sanfermin.com. As you can see, he is pushing some poor bastard in the way to save his own skin. It’s every man for himself out there.

The aftermath

The below image from sanfermin.com shows the route and the injuries from today’s run. The run starts on the left of the map and goes uphill. The fourth injury logo on the map is where the bulls passed me. Between the two buildings on the map where you can see a number of injuries is a hotspot where you can be very exposed to the bulls because of the corners. When I ran past that point a guy was face down on the floor unconscious, rescued a few seconds later by medics and taken to hospital.

Because we positioned ourselves early in the race we didn’t make it to the Stadium before they closed the doors. Next year we’ll be sure to make it inside.

The bull run was the most exhilarating experience of my life, something I’ll never forget and something will definitely aim to do again next year. If you plan on going, make sure you get a hotel in Pamplona and make sure you book 6-9 months in advance. If I had to sum up the San Fermin festival in one word it would be:

Bonkers.

Here is a video of the bull run itself.