Gareth Bale is not the only Welsh wizard with a grin permanently etched on his face, for tonight Richard Evans won the UKIPT Champion of Champions. And as we saw when he took down UKIPT Dublin in May it was immediately obvious how much it meant to him. "I'm made up, absolutely stoked," said the proud Welshman of his victory. Before adding, "I'm not sure I deserved it, but I'll take it."
Of the nine players who qualified for the Champion of Champions it's fair to say that the victory and the UKIPT Season 4 Passport that goes with it will mean the most to Evans. "I'm a micro stakes player and always will be," he said. "A high stakes tournament for me is the Sunday Storm or the Big $11."
He'll now be guaranteed to play at least five £1,000 events with further stops still to be announced. That he says he didn't deserve it was perhaps down to a couple of big suckouts against Emmett Mullin (with three left) and Thomas Finneran (with six left). "Some of the better players got unlucky," he said modestly.
But Evans also suffered a beat of his own. He got it in with kings against the ace-king of Finneran and the ace-queen of eventual runner-up Robert Baguley. A queen on the flop and another on the river sent the main pot Baguley's way and only the side pot to Evans. He turned to me on the rail and simply said. "Bo@%$*ks."
Never mind the ""Bo@%$*ks." it's his wife he needs to worry about. "I'm going to be at UKIPT Marbella for her 40th birthday," he said upon being told that the first stop of Season 4 takes place June 12th-16th.
For now Evans, who took voluntary redundancy in January, is off to celebrate with his trademark whiskey and Guinness, before returning to Portmeirion, his weekly pub poker game and to putting the JCB that's 'sitting' in his garden to good use. Seems like this grassroots tour might just have found someone to move from local to national level.
UKIPT Champion of Champions Result
1st - Richard Evans - UKIPT Season 4 Passport
2nd - Robert Baguley
3rd - Emmett Mullin
4th - Nicolau Villa-Lobos
5th - Wojtek Barzantny
6th - Thomas Finneran
7th - Dara O'Kearney
8th - Chris Ferguson
9th - Sergio Aido
For a full blow by blow account of the final table, including all the eliminations click here
Photos © Mickey May.