Maxim King of Poker: Report

What a buzz! I just won my first live tourney to become the first ever Maxim King of Poker! I haven't got a clue where to start, but if you've read the Preface, you may know that I wasn't expecting to play...

I had tried to qualify for the final for about 4 months on Maxim's skin of VC Poker and my brother was lucky enough to qualify before me. Lucky because he's a fish! When it got to the actual day of the tournament I had still not received any confirmation that I would be able to play.

A surprising last minute turn of events, a couple of no shows, and I was given the go ahead to play. Destiny?

My brother, Gattopardo, was drawn on Mel Lofthouse's table. He deviated from my advise a little bit by playing more marginal hands than instructed but nobody could fault him when he busted out with AA to J3 that flopped trips.


Gattopardo, ?? and Mel Lofthouse.

This was my night though. I was in the zone and played almost perfect poker. Folding A9s shorthanded to a hunch that was proved right when AT won the pot, folding AQs to an open raise from the table chip leader short handed, calling an all in flop bet with ace high on a read that my opponent was semi bluffing, value betting the calling stations, winning 50/50s against smaller stacks, winning with Aces, stealing from the button and semi bluffing.

My opponents were getting DaMatrixed and I am not exaggerating! From the 63 players that started I got to the final table with about twice the average stack size. I tried to open deal negotations since it was a winner take all final (a package worth well over £10,000) but nobody was interested. I wasn't that worried and tightend up even more waiting for the short stacks to get knocked out so that deal making would be easier.

Before I knew it, we were down to 3 players and managed to seal a deal of winner paying £1k to both runner-up and third place finisher. The chip leader agreed after some resistance. With the tournament directors increasing the blinds more rapidly to ensure a timely finish it had become a crap shoot and I felt that hedging was required as there was not much room to outplay my opponents.

Nevertheless, after Mick Helliet was knocked out in 3rd place, I felt I had a great chance to win the tournament against my somewhat inexperienced opponent, "Dan Arama", who had a bigger stack. He showed me a stone cold bluff with 42 when the board was a three flush and I had checked out of position. Soon, again, when I checked out of position acting first on the flop he went all in.

So when I checked K2o in the BB after Dan Arama had limped in on the button and I flopped trips you know what was coming... I checked and waited for him to go all-in. To my surprise he checked and the turn was a queen. I was 99% sure that if I checked he would go all-in and sure enough he did! I called and my trips beat his pair of queens. For me, that was the hand of the tournament.

Kings were, fittingly, the theme of this King of Poker final. With huge blinds of 7k and 15k with 1k antes and me having started the hand before posting blinds with a 83k versus Dan Arama's 77k, when I looked down to find KQo my only move was to go all-in. As soon as Dan said call I knew I was behind probably to an ace - it was worse, he flipped over QQ!

I felt a King would come though, it was that kind of night where I couldn't put a foot wrong. After 3 blanks on the flop, the turn was a King and I was crowned the King of Poker!!!


Nikki Sanderson ready to crown DaMatrix aka DaGodfather.

What did I win?

1. £5,000 Cash (£3,000 after deal)

2. A £5,000 seat at the VC poker cup

3. A trip to the US to attend a Maxim US party

4. VIP entry to a Maxim UK party

5. A trip to a Maxim girl shoot

6. A digital camera

7. Poker game set

8. EA game

9. £20 HMV voucher

10. King of shaves gift set

11. Free case of beer

12. Maxim & Inside Edge subscription