Main Event | 2015 UKIPT Isle of Man

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 3: John Lawson, Isle of Man – 1,210,000

Matthew Pitt

John Lawson, a 55 year old taxi driver from Onchan, learnt to play poker with PokerStars employees when they first moved to the island ten years ago. He enjoys tournaments and PLO cash games, and won his seat to the Main Event in the first live satellite run at the casino here for just £40. His biggest poker achievements are coming second in a $50 Cruise Ship tournament for $1.5k and coming fifth in the £100 Turbo event at UKIPT4 Isle of Man for £1,250. Today has been surreal for him as he came back short stacked and told his partner to book lunch at 12:30pm! His wife is going to Manilla to see family in two weeks and he promised her he’d go too if he won enough money in the tournament. Looks like he’ll be joining her.

Player	Chips	Progress
John Lawson	1,210,000

Tags: John Lawson

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 4: Daniel Stacey, United Kingdom (PokerStars Qualifier) – 1,714,000

Matthew Pitt

Daniel Stacey hails from the UK and at 21 is a full time poker professional. He mainly plays online on PokerStars, specialising in tournaments. Stacey has attended four stops on the UK and Ireland Poker Tour, with cashes including a 6th place finish for £21,250 in this very tournament when it debuted in 2013. Anyone that has seen him play today will not be surprised by the fact he’s gone deep before; he played just about every hand when the tables were short-handed. He goes through to the final table second in chips behind Arzoomanian, half a million ahead of the next largest stack.

Player	Chips	Progress
Daniel Stacey	1,714,000

Tags: Daniel Stacey

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 5: Rodger Reynolds, United Kingdom – 715,000

Matthew Pitt

Rodger Reynolds, 46, hails from Birmingham in the UK. A self-employed poker enthusiast, Reynolds plays quite a bit of live poker. He recently cashed in an EPT Malta side event and last year also cashed at the World Series of Poker in the giant “Little One for One Drop” tournament. He's travelled the entire world to play poker, with a recent trip to Macau as one of the highlights. Reynolds does play online occasionally under the screen name 'Rawlett', the name of his old high school.

Player	Chips	Progress
Rodger Reynolds	715,000

Tags: Rodger Reynolds

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 6: Michael Fletcher, United Kingdom – 911,000

Matthew Pitt

Michael Fletcher is a 52-year old professional poker player who lives in the British seaside town of Blackpool. Although Fletcher has live tournament cashes dating back to 2004, and live cashes totalling more than $530,000, he prefers playing live cash games, but still dips his toes into the tournament scene on occasion. In 2006, Fletcher finished 18th in the PCA Main Event for $32,000 and already has one UKIPT final table appearance under his belt, finishing fourth in the Manchester Main Event for £20,300. He goes into this final table with 911,000 chips, enough to see him start in fifth place.

Player	Chips	Progress
Michael Fletcher	911,000

Tags: Michael Fletcher

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 7: James Walsh, Ireland (PokerStars Player) – 220,000

Matthew Pitt

James Walsh, 51, made it to the unofficial final table of nine as the shortest stack after admitting “struggling all day” only to find a last minute double through and a seat on the final. Walsh works buying and selling, only playing poker “for the craic” but has racked up a number of cashes over the last seven years, mainly in his home town of Galway. His introduction to poker was via sit’n’gos with friends around 10 years ago, and he enjoys playing not only hold’em but the Irish game “twenty-five.” Returning tomorrow with the shortest stack, Walsh says, “I’ll watch the money all the time. Watch those jumps!” while getting up and down regularly (for a sore hip, he says).

Player	Chips	Progress
James Walsh	220,000

Tags: James Walsh

10-04-2015 10:37 UTC

Seat 8: Paren Arzoomanian, United Kingdom – 2,257,000

Matthew Pitt

Originally from Sydney, Paren Arzoomanian holds a UK passport, and now lives on the Isle of Man and works for PokerStars. Arzoomanian used to be a full time poker professional with ring games his bread and butter, although he did play the occasional tournament here and there. In fact, he has had quite a bit of success at the live felt. In 2009 he won the ANZPT Sydney Main Event for a staggering A$ 246,500 ($174,186). That year continued successfully as he also cashed in the WSOP Main Event finishing 511th for $23,196, while last year in the same tournament and finished 35th for £2,000.

Player	Chips	Progress
Paren Arzoomanian	2,257,000

Tags: Paren Arzoomanian

Main Event

Day 3 Started