Tony Bloom wins the VC Poker Cup!

Phil Shaw

The 2005 VC Poker Cup, filmed at Teddington studios from 1st - 6th August , wasn't short of competition for its £5,000 buy-in, but as the runners gathered for the three days of preliminary heats it became clear that all the action taking place in London (also including the World Poker Exchange and the European Championships) had improved the quality of the field, rather than taken away from it.

Not only were the greats of British poker there such as defending champion Harry Demetriou and David 'Devilfish' Ulliott, but Brian Wilson, Rob Hollink, Scott Fischman and Gus Hansen were also in the draw, and some fireworks were guaranteed. To add to the mix, the tournament also feature poker playing celebrities Teddy Sheringham, Michael Greco and John McCririck, and 25 online qualifiers.

When the smoke had cleared after the heats though, which essentially saw 12 shootouts each send a winner into the semi-final, it was the European and British poker cream that had triumphed. Day one qualifiers were Stuart Fox, Rolf Inge Kavik, Robert Cooper and Thomas Gunderson; Day two qualifiers were Xuyen 'Bad Girl' Pham, Ben Roberts, Lee Nelson and Tony Bloom; and last but not least, the day three qualifiers were Richard Holmes, Kevin O'Leary, John Kabbaj and Jan Sjavik.

These victors then reconvened for the semi-finals, where the now traditional TV format of playing two heats of six down to three and freezing the chip counts was again employed. This meant losing Stuart Fox and Richard Holmes (joint ninth for £7,000); Robert Cooper and Lee Nelson (joint eighth for £9,000) and Thomas Gunderson and John Kabbaj (joint seventh for £11,000).

But it also set up the final with Tony Bloom way out in front on 317k; Rolf Inge Kavik second on 254k; Ben Roberts and Jan Sjavik joint third for 210k; Bad Girl fifth for 136k and Kevin O'Leary trailing on 73k. And apart from a reversal in the final positions with Pham taking sixth for £16,000 and O'Leary sneaking into fifth for £25,000 the final more or less played out according to the book (even if the book did have Bloom down as a 5/4 shot to win!). Sjavik exited fourth for £35,000; Roberts third for £50,000; Kavik second for £100,000 and Tony Bloom took the main prize for £200,000.

There went a few ironies surrounding Blooms victory - first of all that he was originally a VC employee before he made his millions. And secondly, that the £200, first prize probably puts him back around even after this year's World Series, where he took on Daniel Negreanu heads up at Pot Limit Omaha for $500,000 and lost. Tony commented "It's been a great experience playing in this tournament and I will certainly be back next year to defend my title and take some more money off my ex boss."

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