Watch Those 25 Chips Fly

I know that's probably not the action-tastic first half-hour report you may have wanted, but with a 10k starting stack they've certainly got a bit of play for their money and there haven't been all that many showdowns on pots which make a real difference to their stacks. I usually expect heads-up players to chat a little more than their full-table brethren, but the Poker Room at the Vic is fairly subdued at the moment, with just the sounds of gently clicking chips and occasionally Stephen Pearce telling Vach Nankoosing, "You should have bet more, the blinds just went up," or Sammy George soothing Roland de Wolfe after his stack dipped a little early on with the sage advice, "Rolly, Rolly, as long as you got greens and yellows, the greys and blues don't matter." So very true.

So much for banter - who's edging ahead like Dick Dastardly in the Wacky Races, only to possibly run over a cliff or have the wheels fall off in later stages?


Ketul Nathwani. The young GUKPT winner has the greatest chip advantage over his opponent Sammy George currently - 14,500 to 5,500. A large pot just got larger on the river between the two of them - Ketul checked with the board standing Tc-Qh-As-5s-Jc and Sammy bet 1,175. Back to Ketul, who quickly raised to 4,500. This elicited a sighing pass of George's Td-Jd, for which he was kindly shown the Ks, as he was probably expecting.

Elsewhere an early thousand headed from Mick McCool to Richard Gryko as the latter expressionlessly bet every street until the board read 4d-9d-T-x-6, the rivered Six making his 7s-8s a comfortable winner. However over the last level around 2k have drifted back to McCool. A hard tournament to predict remains so.

Chip Counts

Jeff Duvall 9,825 vs. John Kabbaj 10,175
Ketul Nathwani 15,450 vs. Sammy George 4,550
Surinder Sunar 7,725 vs. Richard Kellett 12,275
Mick McCool 12,450 vs. Richard Gryko 7,550
James Dempsey 7,100 vs. Talal Shakerchi 12,900
Marcus Otto 11,850 vs. Roland de Wolfe 8,150
Stephen Pearce 4,550 vs. Vach Nankoosing 15,450
Tom Bentham 10,000 vs. Neil Channing 10,000 (match starting, er, now)