Since Harrah"s announced that the final table of the WSOP was to be delayed, opinion has been divided as to whether this was a positive thing for poker or not. Even more controversial was the decision that on day 1B of the main event, ESPN"s feature table was not to be The Rio at all, but in a house in a suburb of Norwich. By some bizarre quirk of fate, the 6 players on the table concerned all lived locally and were in fact related. The line up for this historic event was as follows:
Seat 1 - Neil "Speed King" Lambeth, turbo game specialist and a man whose bets are determined by the colour of the chips his hands can reach easiest. Once voted Cardplayer"s "Player most likely to call a bet because he hasn"t been involved in the last 3 hands"
Seat 2 - Sandra "Standard Raise" Stringer, APAT regional points scorer and voted "Player most likely to threaten to disembowel an opponent for trying a move not described in Harrington on Hold'em"
Seat 3 - Simon "Idrivetractors" Alcock, APAT eastern region runner-up and,proving that miracles do happen, resident in the national top 10 for several months. Voted "player most likely to get too big for his boots, try a farcicallly fanciful bluff and get caught out"
Seat 4 - Steve "Prince of Spawn" Stringer,APAT eastern region champion and who recently cashed at the Irish Open. Voted "player most like to be mistaken for Ruud Van Nistelroy and/or Gianfranco Zola"
Seat 5 - Andrew "No ace,no bet" Alcock a player whose success in previous events has been on a par with that enjoyed by Bernard Manning when he performed a charity gig for the Anti Nazi League. Voted "Player most likely to try and fold his way into the money"
Seat 6 - Stuart "Mr Happy" Alcock, APAT regional points scorer. Recently given an MBE for "Services to bad beat and cold deck stories".
Due to time constraints, only 3 hands made the final edit and the first of these was the first elimination. "Mr happy" raises and is called by "Prince of spawn". The flop comes ace high and all the chips end in the middle. "Happy" shows pocket aces,now trips and "Spawn" has a flush draw, which needless to say hits. For the rest of the night, the room is filled with the mantra "That"s been happening to me all year,that"s been happening to me all year"
The next notable came came with "standard raise" ,err, standard raising only to be reraised by "speed king". A series of reraises followed and both players got all their chips in. When the cards were flipped over, the audience were torn between gasping and laughter as "speed king" revealed
. When he failed to hit and he was eliminated, his explantion for his apparently reckless move was "I was bored".
The hand that settled the event was conclusive proof that live poker is rigged. "Idrivetractors" raised and was called by "standard raise". The flop came queen high, "Idrivetractors" pushed all in and was called. "Tractors" flipped over queen/ten and "standard" displayed queen/two. The crowd erupted when, despite the fact that "Tractors" was dealing at the time, he dealt a two on the river, the dozy muppett. After the show had been recorded, lawyers representing "standard" contacted the broadcasters asking them to point out that the final two players had been involved in two earliers pots where the runner-up had outdrawn the winner.
