2009 was a disappointing year for Neil Channing, but with the New Year comes a new start, and 2010 couldn’t have started much better for the former Irish Open Champion. There were a number of high profile players playing the Monthly Million on Black Belt Poker, but it was fittingly the Black Belt Poker co-founder who rose highest, finishing in second place for an incredible $104,000.
Although forced to endure a roller coaster start in which his stack fluctuated from 10,000 to 7,000 to 26,000 to 17,000, Channing managed to double up to 38,000 (16,000 average) courtesy of TV specialist Ian Frazer when his 8-7 suited flopped a pair of eights against Frazer’s Q-J suited. Following a good run in which his big hands stood up, Neil found himself in the top 10 with 300 of the 1,650 plus field left.
Despite having aces cracked by pocket eights with 30 players remaining, Channing managed to make it comfortably to the final, a table which he shared with online pro and SCOOP Five-Card Draw winner David ‘sexygee’ Gent. “I played David a lot throughout the event,” reported Channing. “He’s a really good player and seems to know what he is doing.”
With just four players remaining, Channing missed an open-ended straight flush draw to leave himself with 135,000 of the 16 million in play, blinds of 25,000/50,000, but despite having less than three big blinds he managed to complete a comeback of Rocky proportions to find himself heads-up with a 10:6 million chip advantage.
With $200,000.20 up for grabs, there was plenty to play for, but a failed A-Q versus A-5 encounter left Channing crippled, and a hand or two later and he was gone, happy with his $104,000 payday, but disappointed not to have taken top honours.
“My heads-up opponent was a Greek guy who’d won the first ECOOP event,” said Channing. “He was a pretty good player. When we were heads-up, he seemed keen to do a deal, but I don’t think it’s possible on iPoker between skins. The structure was pretty top heavy and he asked me if the money meant much. I answered, ‘It’s all money, it’s never a bad thing to have more of it.’ Overall, I was really pleased with how I played.”
“I had some great support,” gleamed Channing. “There was a long thread on Black Belt Poker with people posting their good luck messages, and I was also being railed by friends such as Andy Ward, Paul Zimbler and Jeff Kimber, which helped spur me on.”
This was Black Belt Poker’s first ever Monthly Million, and as a cardroom looking to become a major player on the iPoker network, we’ll be hosting the event in February too. If you fancy going one step further than Channing and taking the lion’s share of the one million guaranteed prize pool, then why not register an account and play the event at Black Belt Poker? To open a cardroom account, download the poker client and follow the simple step-by-step guide.
Click here to read about Channing’s key hands that saw him finish second in Black Belt Poker's first ever Monthly Million.
No comments:
Post a Comment