Greetings poker fans it’s been a long time love well long in fact since I have posted anything on the old blog front. Far from slacking however I have been working hard writing my arse off.

So to deal I have a Luke ‘_FullFlush1_’ Schwartz characteristic out in the latest copy of Poker Player magazine – Issue 53 with Vicky Coren on the front cover.

This was an interesting interview it took me a while to pin young Mr Schwartz down except it was worth it and correct to form the UK’s latest internet phenomenon had some entertaining and often controversial stuff to say for himself. I’ll stick up a link to the article if they post it online but feel free to check out the Poker Player website here.

I’ve been doing a bit of job for PKR recently and have been writing strategy articles on beating PLO and PLO8 SNG’s for the ‘Raise Your Game’ section of their website. I don’t think that the PLO8 articles are up yet but you can check out the three PLO SNG articles here:
•  Pot-limit Omaha Sit & Go strategy (Part 1): Basic PLO strategy
• Pot-limit Omaha Sit & Go strategy (Part 2): PLO early and middle play
• Beat pot-limit Omaha Sit & Go’s (part 3): PLO bubbles and beyond

A lot of the writing I’ve been doing recently is for a new Asian-based poker lifestyle magazine called Baller – check out their website here.
You can download a PDF copy of their pre-launch issue where I have an article on the APPT Macau and an interview with WSOP 2005 Main Event Champ Joe Hachem.

Joe was a pretty cool guy to interview and I found him a genuinely friendly fella very chatty and down to earth. We talked about all sorts of stuff but mostly focused on the Asian and Australian poker scene and his life behind his World Series win. Feel free to check it out folks.

The mag launches next month (November) and I also have features on the PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang who tells me all about the Singapore poker scene and with fellow Team Asia Pro Celina Lin who is currently leading the PokerStars Macau Poker Cup tournament leaderboard. I think they should be posting up some more content on the website after the launch so will keep you posted.

I’ve get something of an international man of mystery recently (only with better teeth than Austin Powers obviously…) and have been globetrotting with reckless abandon. My only regret is that with all the travelling I missed the GUKPT Cardiff leg.

Now while Cardiff is not as exotic as say Macau or Vegas it is my hometown and I was genuinely gutted to miss the GUKPT tour when it visited last month. Local boy Iwan Jones did us proud finishing in second and he was unlucky not to win. However it was the Hit Squad’s Karl Mahrenholtz who took the honours along with his first GUKPT title and being as Karl is an all round nice guy and an excellent poker player this is no bad thing.

After covering the APPT Macau back in August/September I hit up London for the WSOPE. The final table there was a great one to watch and I found myself chatting with Mr Mahrenholtz about his GUKPT win while we were watching his fellow Hit Squaders Praz Bansi and James Akenhead get to work.

The Hit Squad boys are winning everything in sight at the mo and the fact that Mr Akenhead has done a Demidov after making the WSOP Main Event final just shows how hard those boys have been working on their games. Praz was unlucky not to complete higher than third but with Daniel Negreanu and eventual winner Barry Schulman on the final as well as Jason Mercier who is also running red hot it was far from an easy final table.

Obviously I found some time to do some ‘networking’ (aka drinking) with GUKPT tour manager Jon Raab and had the pleasure of meeting JP Kelly fresh from his second bracelet win. As well as being a very capable player and rising young poker star he struck me as a thoroughly nice guy and I hope I have the pleasure of interviewing him in the near future.

The World Poker Tour makes its African debut

I was barely home 5-minutes when it was on the road again this time to the exotic location of Morocco where I am currently in the midst of covering the chilipoker.com WPT Marrakech. Feel free to check out some of the live updates from the Chilipoker blog or Poker News.

Despite a heavy French presence – both Morocco and Marrakech have strong French ties and French is one of the more widely spoken languages here – I have befriended a trio of Italians from PokerTexano.com and have been hanging round with them for most of the time. They have kindly provided me with a couple of pics for my blog so a large thanks to Stefano and the guys. Check out their website here (warning – it is in Italian strangely enough…).

Me with the Poker Texano boys at the WPT welcome dinner. Image courtesy of Poker Texano.com

Chilipoker are the masterminds behind the World Poker Tour’s first foray onto African soil and we are enjoying the hospitality of the pretty Hotel Es Saadi and the swanky Casino De Marrakech. Day 1 is currently underway as we speak with through 400 players from 32 different countries coughing up the €4500 (£4095) buy-in to create a monster MD 18720000 prize pool which is the equivalent of around £1.5million.

With high calibre players like Tony G 1996 WSOP Champ Huck Seed WSOPE Champ Annette Obrestad and fellow Betfair pro’s Sorrel Mizzi and Jon Tabatabai Andrew Feldman Chilipoker’s own Liz Lieu Antonio Esfandiari Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier Bruno Fitoussi and international tournament director Matt Savage it’s shaping up to be a great tournament.

It didn’t receive long for the sparks to fly and on just the second hand France’s Anthony Lellouche

Winamax sponsored player Anthony Lellouche. Image courtesy of PokerTexano.com

managed to iron out just under three-quarters of his 20000 starting stack after running a set of Twos into his opponents set of Nines on a Ten Nine Two board. What’s actually impressive here is the fact that he managed not to go broke in this spot.

I bumped into Barny Boatman during the first rest who is off to a shakey start; a fellow player managed to cover him in scalding hot coffee before he had even taken his seat and then he took a big hit on level two when his Aces were cracked by his flush-drawing opponent who hit runner runner two pair to leave Boatman senior with around 8000.

Jon Tabatabai has been shown the door unfortunately running his two pair into his opponent’s rivered gutshot
After chatting to the friendly Welshman I learned he very almost didn’t make it here at all – when he went to fly out from Heathrow on Monday he realised he had forgotten his passport… Doh!

The Hendon Mob's Ross Boatman and second place finisher Germany's Dominik Nitsche at the WPT Marrakech High Rollers event. Image courtesy of Poker Texano.com

Other highlights so far include the Boatman brothers success in the High Rollers event with Boatman junior (Ross) taking down the tourney for a tasty €135535 (£123 338) with big brother Barny cashing in 4th for €41017 (£37326). Not to be left out fellow Hendon Mobster Joe Beevers came 14th in the €1800 NLHE event for €4000 (£3670).
All three Mobsters are currently playing in the WPT Marrakech Main Event.

Wales’ Dave ‘El Blondie’ Colclough is also out here and has managed to handbag himself a cash as well finishing 8th in the €900 NLHE event for €4927 (£4483).

Not to be out done I figured it was time to get my name out there as well and I managed to bag second place in the WPT press tourney for $300 – while it’s not going to let me to retire to a life of luxury just yet free cash is often nice. Not only did this give me bragging rights in the press tent with my fellow media types but also allowed me to support the good name of WPT magazine who I’m out here covering the tourney for

I should be interviewing both Tony G and Liz Lieu later on today so will let you understand how that goes I’ll see if I can grab and interview with Antonio Esfandiari a bit later on as well.

Right well I’m off to grab me a V6 racing camel and a small monkey in a fez theme in tomorrow for more updates folks…