After thrilling victories in three consecutive years for Annette Obrestad, John Juanda, and Barry Shulman, the WSOP Europe had been established as one of the biggest tournaments of the year. In 2010, the fourth WSOP Europe festival featured five big events, each costing between £2,650 and £10,350 to play. Of the five events, only one American would win a bracelet, and it would be his first.
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Laak Be a Lady
For many years, the poker and Hollywood power couple Phil Laak and Jennifer Tilly had only one WSOP bracelet winner between them – and that was the Chucky, Family Guy and Liar, Liar actress Jennifer Tilly. Phil Laak was yet to win one when the WSOP Europe festival began in 2010, but he managed to conquer the very first event, taking it down for £170,802.
An entertaining opening event that cost £2,650 to play was a 6-Max No Limit Hold’em. Well known English players such as Liv Boeree (19th for $8,676), Chris Moorman (12th for $14,822), and the third-place finisher in the 2009 WSOP Europe Main Event Praz Bansi (11th for $14,822) all ran deep. Two Americans survived to the final four, with David Peters already showing the consistency that would become his signature, finishing fourth for $74,361. After the exit of Swedish star Chris Bjorin in third for $108,718, Phil Laak won his first WSOP bracelet by beating the well-known Andrew Pantling heads-up for the gold, finally putting him on parity with his partner.
In the second event of the series, the format switched to Pot Limit Omaha as Australian Jeff Lisandro won the fifth of his six career bracelets. Just 120 players put up the £5,250 buy-in, meaning only 18 would be paid. Chris Bjorin once again proved his remarkable longevity at the WSOP, coming ninth for $23,011. Brazil’s Felipe Ramos came seventh for $36,219, while John Racener (5th for $60,915) and Jeff Madsen (4th for $81,056) both came close to glory.
The English poker legend Willie Tann finished in third place before Joe Serock went into heads-up hoping to seal victory. Instead, the Aussie Lisandro won again as he transferred his dominance of WSOP events once they reached the final stage into Europe. Across nine heads-up battles for WSOP bracelets, Lisandro has won six of them, proving himself more than capable of getting the job done once the pressure is on.
The Great Dane Dominates Heads-Up Championship
The next event to take place was the £3,000 No Limit Hold’em event, which saw an impressive 582 entries. With just 54 of those making money, 34 of those players who finished in profit came from the United Kingdom as the home country dominated the field. Following his heroics from winning two WSOP bracelets in 2009, J.P. Kelly again got to heads-up play. Unfortunately for him, this time he faltered at the last hurdle, losing to fellow Brit Scott Shelley heads-up. It would be the last time Kelly made a heads-up battle for a bracelet, despite having seemed almost a lock for many more at the time.
The penultimate event of the 2010 WSOP was a new one. Costing £10,350 to play, it was a heads-up championship featuring some of the best players in the world. A total of 103 entries resulted in a million-dollar prize pool, and players such as Phil Ivey, Martin Kabrhel, and Howard Lederer all finished inside the top 16 for a score of £22,847.
Other poker legends went even deeper. The 1996 world champion Huck Seed, British bookmaker turned poker professional Neil Channing, and Daniel Negreanu all made it to the final eight, earning £47,045.
In the final four, two English legends of differing repute missed out on glory, as Ram ‘Crazy Horse’ Vaswani, one of the four founding members of The Hendon Mob, fell for £96,212 along with the English ‘anti-hero’ of poker at the time, Andrew Feldman. The final heads-up match was a battle between Jim Collopy and the Danish poker professional Gus Hansen. A curious character, Hansen was as proficient at backgammon as he was at poker. So proficient that he once walked away from a major poker tournament with the outright chip lead to play a private backgammon game.
Heads-up play went the way of ‘The Great Dane’, as he bagged the top prize of £288,409 while Collopy had to settle for £178,211. With all of the preliminary events completed, it was time for the 2010 WSOP Europe Main Event, and an even bigger field than before was ready to fight for gold.
Ivey Misses Out as Bord Brilliance Prevails
A total of 346 entries made the 2010 WSOP Europe Main Event the biggest one to date as legends such as the now All-Time Money List leader Bryn Kenney (29th for $32,560) finished inside the money places. Legends of the early Millennium, including Barry Greenstein (23rd for £26,400) and Viktor Blom (16th for £33,285), both missed out on the latter stages, while Phil Ivey’s mixed record in WSOP Main Events continued.
Ivey has often run out of luck just as the World Series of Poker Main Event gets down to the big payouts, and it was the case again as Ivey busted in 19th place, finishing just short of two tables where he might have been able to work his magic. Barny Boatman saw his tournament end in 13th place, busting for £42,454 before David Peters (10th for £54,114) and Roland De Wolfe (4th for £278,9455) saw their already gargantuan reputations improve with deep runs.
England Finally Takes One Down
In the end, James Bord finally ended the wait for an English WSOP Main Event winner, taking home £830,401 after beating Monaco player Fabrizio Baldassari heads-up. After wild celebrations with his passionate rail, Bord was delighted to claim the bracelet, the bracelet that he has won in his career to date.
“Thankfully, I kept to my gameplan and didn’t blow up and it worked,” he said. “Sam [Trickett] coached me very strongly over the last nine months in No Limit Hold’em. I got a lot of help from Sam in developing my game and I’ve put the effort in myself. I’ll keep playing cash games, but I’ll play more tournaments too.”
Heading South From London
Despite those words, James Bord never put the time into tournaments that he did before his WSOPE Main Event win. After cashing for £2.1 million in the million Euro Big One for One Drop in Monte Carlo in 2016, Bord hasn’t cashed in a ranking tournament in the years since, but his triumph in 2010 in his home country will never be forgotten.
After four years in England, the WSOP Europe was on the move. From five events in England, the schedule would be seven when the tournament festival moved 640 miles down the map to Cannes in the South of France.
It was goodbye to England and Bonjour to France, where the English would be shut out at the WSOPE in 2011.
| Player | Country | Prize | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | James Bord | United Kingdom | £830,401 |
| 2nd | Fabrizio Baldassari | Monaco | £513,049 |
| 3rd | Ronald Lee | United States | £376,829 |
| 4th | Roland De Wolfe | United Kingdom | £278,945 |
| 5th | Nicolas Levi | United Kingdom | £208,119 |
| 6th | Danny Steinberg | United States | £156,530 |
| 7th | Dan Fleyshman | United States | £118,643 |
| 8th | Brian Powell | United States | £90,617 |
| 9th | Marc Inizan | France | £69,754 |
2009 WSOP Europe 2011 WSOP Europe
About the Author: Paul Seaton has written about poker for over 10 years, interviewing some of the best players ever to play the game such as Daniel Negreanu, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth. Over the years, Paul has reported live from tournaments such as the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and the European Poker Tour. He has also written for other poker brands where he was Head of Media, as well as BLUFF magazine, where he was Editor.
