Saturday, June 28, 2008

A little publicity


Nothing like a little local publicity before I head over to Vegas.


This could be found on the front page of the best selling local newspaper, the St.Ives Weekly News!
Heres hoping for bigger things in the near future!
ClintonO

Sunday, June 22, 2008

The POCCER PLAYERS #8 Ewan Hardie

Mr Ewan Hardie. Seen here guest appearing in Poccer 2 (Top row - 2nd) for the Angels of Helsby.

Ewan has been in the Dream Team since season 1 and was one of the players who ensured victory in the first ever event, winning a package at the Asian Poker Tour, where he finished 7th in one of the side events.

Prior to that a deep finish in the Caribbean Poker Classic in 2005, is proof of his live ability.

Ewan has since been signed up by Bad Beat as a trader and plays mostly cash games at present.

By his standards Ewan has not had the best year, with just 7 finishes in the points, including one 5th place and 5,210.

Ewan has a lot of work to do, to earn a place in the team for the live final (Top 6 players will represent the team), but it is something he is more than capable of.

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #7 Lee Hayward


Lee is the newest member of the Poccer Players. Lee is shown here checking his chip stack (3rd in the top row) at a recent Poccer event, as captain of the Bullens Bullets.
Lee only discovered Poker last year and so is learning his trade.
On the live scene, Lee has limited experience to date, although has performed exceptionally well at recent Poccer events, with two Final Tables under his belt. Online is where most of his experience has come from to date. A 3rd place in one of the Golden Cup events on Littlewoods, is his best cash to date.
Last week a deep finish in the PokerRoom ChampionChip event confirmed his talent and we hope for more big wins to come.
Lee adds a real sense of stability to the team and has the 2nd most point scoring weeks with 14. We just need to convert his deep finishes to final tables, adding a decent 8,720 points to the team to date.
ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #6 Dave 'Dog' Duncan

Meet Mr Dave Duncan! Seen here top left, captaining the Angels of Helsby in a recent Poccer tournament.

Dave is in celebratory mode this week, as last Sunday, he secured his trip to the Caribbean Poker Classic, later this year.

Dave has proved his poker ability in a number of areas this year. Firstly in live events, a second place finish in Poccer 3, followed by another deep finish in Poccer 4, ensured that his team the Angels of Helsby are the only dual winners in Poccer history.

Online is where Dave makes his biggest mark at the moment, he has at least one $20k guaranteed to his name this year (alongside two 2nds, a 3rd and a 4th).
He is also a winner of the elusive £40k that I can't win!

Dave has been the most consistent Dream Team player this year, with 15 finishes in the points, 3 Final Tables, a 2nd in week 24 and 15,935 points to date.

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #5 Afzal Hussain

Unfortunately I do not have a picture for Mr Hussain.

Afzal is another of the team who managed to secure a seat in the EPT Monte Carlo earlier hits year.
He is another one of us who has not yet made a name for himself on the live scene, although he would argue that a 2nd place finish in the Dream Team final last time would prove that point.

Afzal has had a fantastic online year. He won the $20k guaranteed on Littlewoods for the 10th time in May this year for starters, but two big finishes in the two big events has made his year to date.

First up was event #19 in the Full Tilt FTOPS series, where he finished 4th in the $300k . This was followed last month by a 3rd place in the ECOOP series, event #1 $250k.

He was single handedly holding the Dream Team together in the first 6 weeks, and had over half the teams points at this stage. He has made the points 10 times, with a 2nd in the double points week and a 3rd place his best performances, giving him 15,940

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #4 Clinton Orchard

Well as this blog is about me, I should not need too many introductions.

At the moment my main focus is preparing for my trip to Vegas, where I will not be taking part in the main event, but using the money I won for the seat on other smaller events.

I have also got the Caribbean Poker Classic to look forward to in November this year, as well as the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo next year.

In the meantime, establishing Poccer is my primary concern (www.poccer.co.uk) as well as getting as high as possible in the Internet Player of the year. I only discovered this site a couple of months ago, but at the moment I have reached a high of #66 in the International ranking (non-US) and have set myself a target for the year of the top 20.

As for the Dream Team, I have started to find a bit of form of late, with a 1st in week 24 and a 3rd in a double point week, last week. I have made the points 13 times and accumulated 17,400 to date.

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #3 Martyn Bebb

Our next Poccer player is Martyn Bebb. Martyn is the one in the white top above (Picture from Poccer 4 - Bebbys Bluffers)

Another player having a great year. Martyn became Littlewoods player of the month earlier in the year, when he managed to qualify for two EPT events in a couple of weeks, earning a seat at the EPT San Remo and the EPT Monte Carlo.

Martyn has yet to make it in the live scene, but is having a fine year online. Aside from the two seats mentioned above, he also won a seat for the UKPT in Manchester, was 5th in the Littlewoods £100k and also made the final table in the Pacific Poker $147k.

Like Onny, Martyn has contributed points on 11 occasions, totalling 18,500 points. This includes winning week 6 and 2nd in week 11 and two further Final Table appearances.

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #2 MIHAY MANOLE

Meet Mihai Manole! Our 2nd member of the Poccer Players. Of anyone in the team, Mihai has had the best 12 months.

Not only has he had the honour of seeing his first ever game at the Emirates stadium to watch his beloved Arsenal, he has had the most exceptional poker year.

Mihai has always had a lot of success online, but the last year has seen the emergence of a fantastic live player.

In November, Mihai showed his live ability when finishing 2nd in the Caribbean Poker Classic, taking home $145k, but in the last 6 weeks he has really shown what he can do.

3 cashes in the Casinos Austria Poker Tour including 2 wins, one of which was the main event, in May, followed by a trip to Vegas for the WSOP, where he has already had 3 cashes.

His 5th place in event 7 $2000 NL, was the highest ever finishing position for a Romanian in a WSOP event. Perhaps more incredibly he managed to win the $20k tournament on Betfair whilst on a break from the WSOP event, which he won as part our team prize for being ahead at the Quarter 3 stage.

Mihai has not had the most consistent Dream Team year, making the points just 9 times, but has two Final Tables, both on double points weeks (2nd & 5th) giving him 19,420 points to date.

Good luck during the rest of your time in Vegas Mihai!

ClintonO

The POCCER PLAYERS #1 Jonathan McCann


Let me introduce our leading player so far this year - Mr Jonathan (Onny) McCann. (Seen here at the Poccer 2 event)
Onny has a great year this year. Aside from winning a seat to the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo this year, he also managed to win the Betfair $100k guaranteed tournament.
Onny has just started to work on his live game too, with two cash finishes this year.
Firstly an 18th in the Norweigan Poker Championships followed by a 2nd place in the £300 event at the GUKPT in Newcastle.
Onny joined our dream team last year and has an added an explosive style to the team. After 9 events of season 3, Onny had not acquired a single point! But since has won 3 events (Weeks 10,20 and 25) including 2 double points wins.
In total Onny has added points to the team in 11 out of 26 weeks, but more importantly 40,270pts.
Providing we don't have a disaster and throw away our lead, Onny will be representing us at a GUKPT event in the near future (assuming he is still our leading member).
ClintonO


Wednesday, June 18, 2008

The POCCER PLAYERS - Dream Team

Life is just too busy!

I have totally neglected my blog of late and I do apologise for that.

I will be updating a little more frequently shortly, as my trip to Vegas is almost here! Hoorah!

I do have a number of things to update everyone on, but the first thing I have to do, is talk about the Poccer Players.

I am sure most of you are aware of the Dream Team competition, a competition that is run by BadBeat and hosted by Betfair. It is currently in its 3rd season.

Season 1 I was asked to join a team by Andy Reynolds, who is not only a fantastic poker player, but a great guy to. It was this team that enabled me to meet a number of my close poker friends.

That year we came 11th in the table, but at the live event managed to turn it around and win. Asian Poker Tour packages were given to a number of the team and cash for the rest. I could not make it due to work commitments and the small fact that I was already going to the Caribbean Poker Classic a week later.

In Season 2, I took over as team captain, we did even worse in the online events, but managed to fight our way back to 2nd overall thanks to the live event.

This season it is a much bigger event, with 6 WSOPE packages up for grabs and 33 weeks of online play.
At present we have played 25 events and are clear at the top of the leaderboard, making those WSOPE packages looking very interesting indeed.

Alongside the EPT Monte Carlo (which I will use my outstanding EPT package to attend next year) and the Aussie Millions, this is the other tournament that I wish to play in at some point in my poker life.
This is the current league table. (Sorry its small I have forgotten how to load it properly!)


You will need to click into it, to view it properly.
Basically it says we are long way clear
The Poccer Players 25,566 chips each
Puppy-Petters 17497
Dynamic Demps 15988
Chipendales 15248
Pokerchamps 14362
So far it has been an unbelievable performance by the team and I would like to pay tribute to each in turn.
Presently we have got 141,395 points.
These have been earnt as follows.
Onny87 - 40270
M.M - 19420
50kinred - 18500
ClintonO - 17400
Injustice - 15940
Whitedog - 15935
UriGeller - 8720
elvushi - 5210
Over the next couple of days, I would like everyone to get to know the Poccer players and what they have achieved so far!
ClintonO