After three weeks of play, only the top 150 players in the league would progress to the next round (players gained points by entering all of Walsall’s regular evening competitions, and gained bonus points for getting to a final). After a further three weeks, this was cut to the top 100 – another two weeks to the top 75 and finally on 16th November to the top 32 players.

The final took place on Saturday 18th November with another unique twist – the final would consist of five rounds of heads-up play that would whittle the last 32 down to an eventual winner. The casino projected a leaderboard onto the 10’ high screen outside the cardroom so that players could keep track of their progress.

The first round was designed to give the advantage to the higher-placed players (1st playing 32nd, 2nd playing 31st and so on). At the start of each round, the players picked up a prize just for getting that far – in round one a poker chip set. Early casualties were such local legends as Grosvenor Grand Prix Winner Con “Undertaker” Cronin (who lost in a closefought tie to Gary Guest), previous league winner Darshan “Magic” Sami (knocked out by Essy “Bob the Builder” Jahanapour), both women finalists Lisa Scotney (good-naturedly taken-out by Freddie Zarandi) & Nicola Bambridge (a victim of Savva Paphitis) and the overall winner of the League, Raj Patel. At least Raj had a consolation prize of a brand-new Toshiba laptop PC to take the edge off defeat!

Round two ties ran concurrently with round one, and by now the competition was really hotting up. After picking up their round two prize (an iPod Shuffle each), players really got down to business. 32nd place Jujhar Reehal took out Meng Ong in short order and Ross Scattergood destroyed Ian Quinn (who suffered having had only a short break following his first round marathon against veteran Andy Louca). Finally, Naser (Ali to his friends) “Marvelous” Saberi beat David Wrightson in a nail-biting tie, pulling it back from the edge of disaster.

Round three kicked-off after a short break, with Jujhar Reehal a quick casualty. The best match of the round was the closely fought battle between Ali Saberi and Ved “In-Vince-Able” Madan – a match that went into extra time, with Ved eventually living up to his nickname. All the players in this round received a Sony PSP for their efforts (although one or two had to be told what it was for!).

Another round, another prize – this time a Panasonic DVD Camcorder. Once again, Essy Jahanapour cruised to victory against Ross Scattergood and, in a match that went on for over 90 minutes, Ray Thomas finally vanquished “In-Vince-Able” Madan.

The final round came and was over surprisingly quickly, with a quick defeat for Ray and a win for Essy Jahanapour; it might have been a short match, but there was no shortage of sportsmanlike behaviour from the winner. Essy took home a brand-new Mini Cooper S, whilst Ray was none too disappointed with £1500 of free entries into the Midlands Masters poker festival (20th – 26th November).

Meanwhile, in Walsall’s other poker room, Wayne Bennett (cardroom supervisor) was organising another play-off for those that were in 33rd – 100th in the league. A freeroll for an LCD HDTV took place, with Paul Joslin being the lucky winner.

Reaction from the players was excellent, with first round loser Darshan Sami (displaying his typical sporting behaviour) taking over the P.A. system to congratulate and thank Zak Miller and all the staff for their organisation of the event – and getting a rousing round of applause from all the players in support of his sentiment.

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