November 2007 By Neil Channing

Neil Channing is one of the most popular faces on the UK circuit, and can be seen playing poker any day of the week, in both tournaments and cash games. A consistent and successful player, he had a spectacular November wearing Poker Verdict red...

Fireworks

This year had been a funny one for poker. I started off thinking I wouldn't travel too much so I could be fresh for my marathon WSOP trip. I also wouldn't play too many tournaments, and instead focus on cash, for just the same reason.

The World Series had sort of been good. I'd placed 131st, giving me my third money finish in the Main Event in four years. I'd also survived seven weeks in Vegas with some sort of sanity in tact, and clocked-up another winning trip.

I should have been really pleased about my result, but really I was gutted. I felt I SHOULD have gone further. It did, at least, mean I was suddenly famous enough to be invited to stump-up $25k and play the Ladbrokes Poker Million. After I was hit by the deck, I sailed through the heat, but a dearth of good cards meant I couldn't get in the top three from six in the semi. A place in the final would have been worth around $360k. I was sick.

October didn't help much. I spent most of the month being moody and miserable. I kept looking back and reflecting, instead of looking forward. The London leg of the EPT, which takes places at my house (The Vic), is THE tournament I want to win. I never got going in it and, after succumbing to a bad beat, was deflated and dissappointed. I felt totally unmotivated to play and the Poker Gods did their bit. I played badly, played for too many hours, got a little unlucky and refused to leave bad games. I got stuffed. October was my first losing month since turning professional.

At this point it's very easy for someone like me, with a wealth of experience and a lifetime of gambling to reflect upon, to know what to do, (take a break, play smaller, do something else, play a different type of poker, make sure you're prepared when you play, sleep more, read a poker book etc etc...), it's a totally different kettle of fish to actually do it.

In the end I was saved by my friends at Presentable Productions. I spent a week away from poker, (save for a disappointing day finishing last in the semi of the 888.com UK Open), working hard as an interviewer on the new series of Late Night Poker.

When I got back it was November and I thought I'd go to Bristol for the Gala Poker Tour Grand Final. I was intending from the off just to have fun and that's exactly what I did right from the first table with Phil Laak and Antonio Esfandiari until the final with Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman and Roland De Wolfe. It was great fun right until I got dealt a pesky pair of jacks.

Blackpool was the week after and I wasn't enormously looking forward to it. This was Leg 10 of the Grosvenor Poker Tour and I hadn't had a cash yet. With 353 players this would be a decent tournament to win though. Maybe if I could just relax and enjoy it, things might go the way they did in Bristol. It wasn't going too smoothly when my KQ ran into two jacks to leave me with just 9200 and blinds of 1k/2k. I've never been afraid of gambling though, and a few small risks later I was on 450k with only 15 players left.

I was so relaxed when I got to the final that I celebrated with a nice bowl of Cornflakes.

Fifth place was again a bit of a blow. I'd been the favourite going in to the final and felt a top three was in order.

The next week was a laugh though. Interviews and TV stuff galore. Someone even asked me for my autograph! Surely with the Vic's big Grosvenor Poker Tour Final Festival looming, I was due a first place.

I got my win in the end. It wasn't in the Main Event of the tour and it didn't offer a six-figure prize and enormous TV exposure. It did pay thirty-five grand though, my biggest ever tournament win, and more importantly it did take place at the centre of my poker world in the Edgware Road. There were some excellent players in the tournament, and that day I wiped the floor with them. I was very proud.

Budgetary considerations had meant that there was no trophy to go with the reddies, which I was pretty dissappointed to discover. A very kind friend, who knows how important it was to me, bought me a lovely birthday present. I now have my very own cup, fully engraved, sitting proudly on my mantelpiece.

Check back tomorrow for the next Year In Review blog