Wednesday 13 April 2011

Great Scott; course00 Takes Opener

It's seems like only a few weeks ago that Trevor 'TeeDeeEye1' Ingman was concluding his obliteration of League VIII and preparing himself to be a bounty at the Black Belt London Live II… hold on, it was! Well, I guess we don't like to hang around here at Black Belt Poker when it comes to offering our players value, and last night, the League once again returned with perhaps more added value than ever.

League IX (oh yes, we're into the 'X's and slowly catching the Wrestlemanias) erupted onto Super Tuesday with 105 players eager to get off to the best possible start. This time, the carrot being dangled is possibly the tastiest yet, with the winner earning himself 1.5% in shares of our Black Belts (Neil Channing, Richard Ashby and Sam Razavi) in this year's $10,000 WSOP Main Event.

In response to the dominating displays of prior champions, we've also decided to give the second and third place finishers Black Belt shares (1% and 0.5% respectively), meaning that, for the first time ever, there are three star prizes up for grabs, as well as the usual combination of Belt Points and DeucesCracked tokens for the top 10.

With the usual smattering of Black Belt Poker pros hitting the felt, Leg 1 was destined to be another fiercely competitive affair. We were also blessed with the presence of two players who won trips to Vegas last year on Black Belt Poker: Mandy 'wondrwman' Card (via satellite) and Rob 'SirNutFlopper' Weston (via 2010's Quad Aces promotion). Sadly (for them), they were close to snapping up the wooden spoon, finishing 93rd and 91st respectively.

As the reigning Champ finished a consistent-as-ever 35th, and League VII winner Tom 'werrrrd' Drew 45th, it was left to Sandy 'sandy1611' Drennan to feel the full splash of the bubble in sixth. The top five was therefore somewhat of a mixed bunch with the most notable inclusion being Head Honcho Neil Channing, who slipped in fourth.

With Chris 'CroadYuk' Roadknight taking third, Craig 'hurjicalcg' Goodwin couldn't make it a er… good win, allowing victory to fall into the welcome lap of Patrick 'course00' Scott, who was way below par for (ahem) course when he saw $210 drop into his account.

1st course00 -- $210
2nd hurjicalcg -- $131.25
3rd CroadYuk -- $84.00
4th NeilChanning -- $57.75
5th UliKoko -- $42.00

After hours tucked up in the office, Black Belt Poker's finest maths whizzes finally came up with the current standings:

1st course00 -- 130 points
2nd hurjicalcg -- 122 points
3rd CroadYuk -- 118 points
4th NeilChanning -- 114 points
5th UliKoko -- 111 points
6th sandy1611-- 108 points
7th beatyouto -- 105 points
8th BoatDrink -- 102 points
9th paulmarrow -- 99 points
10th bh0yw0nder -- 97 points

Following several weeks of London Live satellites, the Donkament and Mulligan made their long-awaited returns with the latter attracting 15 entrants. For those with fish-like memories, the Mulligan is a $15 deep-stacked freezeout and a great way to escape low buy-in crapshoots.

On this occasion, Billybob88 took the spoils whilst League I Champion Adam 'JHobbit' Saunders snapped up second. The event also included League VI Champion Mark '99Ranny' Ranson (8th), London Live finalist Gareth 'PKRLocke' Alder (9th) and Blue Belt and UKIPT Brighton Champion Jamie 'StilettoMafiosa' Burland (10th).

1st Billybob88 -- $112.50
2nd JHobbit1 -- $67.50
3rd Touagorimou -- $45

15 took on the Donkament an hour later, including Mr. Channing, who although didn't win the tournament, certainly won the number of rebuys...

1st GloriaSmellons -- $16.00
2nd tealcSVU -- $9.60
3rd paul6543 -- $6.40

And so, just like that, another League was up and away with 10 fresh-faced poker fanatics filling up the top spots. If the wind changed, and it stayed like that, course00, hurjicalcg and CroadYuk would all have their pick of the Black Belts in the WSOP Main Event, with someone potentially turning a minor League investment into a five figure sum, maybe six!

Leg 1 might be done and dusted, but there's still seven more legs to participate in. Think you've got the cahonies? Then why not download the poker client, open an account, and give it a crack. And who knows, perhaps you could be playing the World Series vicariously through our Black Belts.

League IX: Backin' Black

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