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The bigger and better Poccer Cup returns with a bang.
Saturday 4th August saw the Poccer team return to Birmingham to the Goals Soccer Centre (Star City) and the
Broadway Casino for the ultimate lads day out.
The event was always going to a great day, as 7 of the 8 original teams returned to do battle. We were joined by
4 new teams to make
11 teams and 66 players from around the country.
Three of the top poker rooms were represented at Poccer 2, with the Eyesight team striking a sponsorship deal with Sunpoker,
Bullens Bullets all sporting Littlewoods attire and the Aylesbury Green Machine all Betfair boys.
In terms of the Football we had clear favourites in the Terri, who dominated the soccer section last time.
4 new teams all promising to be very useful and professional Poker player Tony Chessa thrown in, it was always going
to be a great event.
As per the first event all the players involved made it a fantastic day out. It was hard work as everyone
gave their all and will remember the day for some time to come.
Tournament Review.
Poccer has proved to be very unpredictable! Two of our new teams performed fantastically well and finished in 1st
and 3rd places.
The first tournament provided joint winners in the Banana Dwarves and the Aylesbury Green Machine, but they could only
finish 8th and 9th respectively this time.
Biggest Improvers were the Bullens Bullets, 7th of 8. last time and up to 2nd place. Also Team Sunpoker are on
the up from 8th of 8 to 5th of 11
Football - Group Stages
Following the live online draw, it was clear that Group C was the group of death.
The Terri our previous football winners, Angels of Helsby who were runners up last time and The Pot another good footballing
side, ensured this was the group to avoid!
Group A lined up with all 3 poker teams together and it started with a fantastic opening match with the whipping boys
of the Football in the first Poccer tournament, Team Sunpoker against Bullens Bullets in Littlewoods attire. So the
battle of Cryptologic poker sites was underway. Incredibly Andy Reynolds gave the Sunpoker side the lead, which the
held until the half way point of the match. The Littlewoods team gained the upper hand as the match progressed and eventually
ran out 5-1 winners. Bullens Bullets and Banana Dwarves who both made the semi finals last time did so again,
whilst Aylesbury GM moved into the playoff, with Team Sunpoker once again last, although they did beat the eventual runners
up!
Group B was an all new team affair, with some very close results. The Ditch Six and IntheBelly qualified automatically,
with The Cent facing a playoff.
Group C was dominated by The Terri, as they strived to make it two football wins on the bounce. Angels Of
Helsby incredibly lost their first two games and had to beat the Terri to have any chance of qualifying. This was
a repeat of the final last time and it was a very tense affair. The Terri triumphed 2-0 sending
the Angels in to the 9th through 11th playoffs, a huge disappointment for the very talented side.
The Pot and The Athletes made the last 8 alongside the Terri.
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The Ditch Six take the title.
With all the hype surrounding the previous teams and renewing old battles, it was a brand new team in the Ditch Six who
were the winners.
The Ditch Six were sitting in 4th place following the football. They had won their group but eventually came unstuck
in the semi finals against inthebelly who they had previously beaten in the group stages.
Their main rivals came from the Bullens Bullets, who were sitting in only 6th place following the football.
The Ditch Six were in a strong position throughout and incredibly with just 27 players left, all of their players were
still in.
When it was down to the last 17, The Ditch Six, Bullens Bullets and inthebelly (the football winners) all had 3 players
remaining.
Inthebelly lost two players quite quickly and so it was between two teams.
With 12 left there was no separating them, with 3 left each. Then the next four out came from the Bullets and the
Ditch Six.
On the final table, The Bullets needed to beat the Ditch Six member by 5 places to win and 4 to draw, but he went out
in 5th and the title belonged to Jon Laights Ditch Six.
A big congratulations to Jon and his team.
Football - Knockout Stages.
The 9th through 11th round robin, was clearly not where the Angels of Helsby were supposed to be, as they set a new scoring
record by beating Team Sunpoker 14-0. The Angels settled for 9th, a huge dissapointment from 2nd last time, The Cent
10th on their debut and Team Sunpoker in 11th.
In the quarter finals, The Terri once again looked unstoppable beating Aylesbury 7-2, IntheBelly moved comfortably through
beating the Bullens Bullets 3-0. The DitchSix overturned a 3-2 deficit with a minute to go against the Athletes to win
4-3. Whilst the last quarter finals was decided on penalities in favour of the Bananas.
The Pot secured 5th place against the Bullets, this time winning on penalties, getting revenge for a defeat in the last
Poccer tournament and the Athletes beat Aylesbury for 7th.
The Semi Finals proved the shock of both Poccer tournaments. The Terri who had won all four previous games, 3 of
them by more than 5 goals, came up against the Banana Dwarves. Whilst the Terri only beat the Bananas 3-2 in the last
event, this was a much weakened Bananas side.
The Bananas defended heroically and scored with their only 2 shots, as it ended 2-2. The Bananas then
went on to win on penalties.
In the other semi, The Ditch Six met IntheBelly again and this time it was revenge for the Belly.
Clearly the Terri were badly affected and had to rely on penalties to take 3rd.
The final was a most unlikley affair with the Bananas against IntheBelly and it was a very one sided event. IntheBelly
winning 7-0 and looking in fabulous position to take the title.
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Richard Tekell takes the 2nd Poccer Cup Trophy.
Playing in his first ever live event, Richard Tekell, a late recruit for the Banana Dwarves, took the title.
The final table had a real mixed look to it. Alongside Richard, we had Simon West from the Ditch Six, playing in
his first poccer tournament, two players from The Pot (who provided the individual winner last time) Steven Robson and Carl
Borham who play a significant amount of live poker. Ricky Hart from the Bullets, another relatively inexperienced
poker player and also Jimmy Cairns from Team Sunpoker who started the day with the lowest chips (One of the Eyesight brothers),
Ben Turnstill from inthebelly and Gary Cottiga from the Angels, who had also done very well from just 4000 chips.
So of the final 9, 8 teams were represented and a good mixture of new and experience poker players.
Richard who by his own admission said he could not lose if he tried, performed heroics in his first live event.
It cannot be stressed enough how impressive a win is against experience players on your first attempt.
With just 4 players left, it appeared the Pot were going to win their second successive individual trophy with both Carl
Borham and Steven Robson, playing aggressive and talking the less experienced players out the pots.
Richard however stood up to both of them and eventually took all their chips. The heads up with Simon lasted just
two hands, as Richard had over 95% of the chips.
Our congratulations go to Richard on this great achievement.
Poker Review
The poker room was a mixture, of first timers, casual players and some full time professionals, including leading poker
player Tony Chessa. Dave Colclough was also down to play, but arrived too late to get involved.
First man out was Andy Reynolds (007apr - for online players) and he was the first of the leading poker names to go out.
Tony Chessa soon followed and it was clear that Poccer 2 was going to create an unknown winner.
The tournament began at 6.30pm and the last hand was dealt at 1.40am.
We saw some incredible beats, with KK beating AA on the river, QQ beating KK and JJ beating KK.
Even more incredible was Richard Hammond from the TheDitchSix. Holding AJclubs in his hand. The board brought
two more high clubs and the river left him with a Royal Flush. At this point, the other player in the hand declared
all in, giving Richard the easiest call in poker history!
The Broadway kindly bought Richard a drink for his achievement.
It was soon clear our joint winners from the first event would not be repeating their success, both losing 4 players
in the first half of the field.
As it approached the end, it became clear it was going to be between The Ditch Six and the Bulllens Bullets. With
The Ditch Six having the greater staying power!
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