Barny trumps Ram in Hendon Mob FullTiltPoker.com Poker Million IX shoot-out - 27/07/2010

Boatman beats Vaswani heads-up to take down heat two at Sky Sports

Barny Boatman will be in December’s final of the FullTiltPoker.com Poker Million IX after defeating fellow Hendon Mob man Ram Vaswani heads-up to win the second heat of the at Sky Sports studios in London ten years after reaching the first ever final.

The pair hold a wealth of Poker Million appearances behind them and took centre-stage after a superb action packed heat, with Vaswani dominating the heat from as early as the second hand before Boatman knocked out the impressive Nick Schulman to take a two to one chip lead against his good friend and stable mate.

Vaswani struck an early blow, besting Boatman’s K6 with his K9 after a King dropped on the river to all but level matters, but from then on it was all Boatman, and he delivered the decisive blow. Ram bet out with KH 5S and Barny reraised with AH QC, getting a call from Vaswani. The flop came QH 2H 7H, Barny checked, Ram bet 100k, Boatman moved all-in and Vaswani called – 3C and 8S followed to see Boatman join heat one winner Howard Lederer in December’s final, with Vaswani getting a second crack in October’s runners-up heat.

Barny Boatman makes his second Poker Million final - by Mickey May

“I played OK and got lucky which is an unbeatable combo in this game,” said Boatman, who also enjoyed the new triple-stack format. “I think that the structure is great, we all like to think that deep stacked we can play the game better and today I could carry on without cards and just hang in there.
Boatman already claims $90,000 for winning the heat but he has designs on the cool million up for grabs to the winner after finishing in sixth spot in the first final back in 2000: “I was in the very first final and missed out three times since then so it’s been a long time coming to get another shot and I’m delighted.”

Erik Cajelais was the chip leader at one time but he ended up leaving the table first, picking up pocket tens and running into Vaswani’s jacks just after the Hendon Mob man had taken the chip lead when his tens held against Schulman’s AK. The tens didn’t have the same effect for Cajelais though with Ram hitting a jack on the flop to knock Cajelais out and move to over one million in chips.

Vaswani’s chip lead was a dominant one now and he used his surplus of chips to dismiss Gavin Smith in second spot. Smith was super-short and moved all-in holding K9 after Ram had raised with nine-seven and a seven on the flop was enough to make it two in a row for Vaswani.

We had a bit of a wait for the third exit as Andrew Feldman, Neil Channing and Nick Schulman found themselves battling hard with short stacks. It was the card-dead Feldman that bit the dust though, shoving with ace-six and getting called by Barny Boatman’s pocket fives – three clubs on the flop were no help to Andrew with Barny holding a club for good measure, and a five on the turn was the end of the road for Feldman.

Barny’s fives were at it again soon after as we had to say goodbye to Neil Channing, he raised on the cut-off with K 9 and Boatman called with the pair – and made trips again on the flop to make the tow Hendon Mob guys one-and-two at the table.

Darren Elias qualified online at FullTiltPoker.com but with a number of WSOP tournament cashes to his name, he was far from out of his depth in this company and looked like a real danger man, before he failed to make another great laydown at a key time. Schulman raised with pocket tens and Elias called with eight-nine of hearts – Darren checked a pair of nines on the 9C JC JS flop, Nick bet 55k, Darren raised it up to 175k and all the money went in, a queen and an ace failed to bail Elias out and we were four handed.

Schulman was eyeing up a heads-up spot with either Hendon Mobster, but he lost a massive hand with Boatman – raising with sevens but losing to Barny’s AD 9C after Boatman flopped an ace. That left Nick with around 200k in chips and although he battled manfully with them, ultimately he couldn’t climb his way back into the equation and when he moved all-in with KD 3H, Barny called with KS 9C and hit a nine on the flop to go heads-up with Ram holding a two-to-one chip lead.

The third heat of the FullTiltPoker.com Poker Million IX takes place on Wednesday with eight time WSOP bracelet winner Erik Seidel joined by fellow Full Tilt Poker pros Mike Matusow, Annette Obrestad and Roberto Romanello in what promises to be an explosive heat with Tony G, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot, Tony Bloom and online qualifier Steven Merrifield.

HEAT TWO:
1 BARNY BOATMAN, 2 Ram Vaswani, 3 Nick Schulman, 4 Darren Elias, 5 Neil Channing, 6 Andrew Feldman, 7 Gavin Smith, 8 Erik Cajelais