There was a cool "feel good" family story from this week
in which a father and son have both won places on a Ladbrokes sponsored
poker cruise event. Both players won their places by playing poker
on Ladbrokes’ online site.
It’s an extraordinary coincidence that a father and son team,
based in separate countries should gain entry to the event, where
places are highly coveted and fought for in a very competitive way.
The father of the team, Brian Medley, is based near Wigan in the UK,
while his son lives in Spain. The idea for playing online poker came
about, after visiting his son Jason in Spain, where he was playing
online poker for a living. At the time of the visit Jason has already
won his place on the cruise, which inspired his father to give online
poker a try.
After returning to Wigan, Brian Medley won his place on the cruise
three months after he started playing online poker. Brian said of
the achievement made by the two: 'I don't think either of us
can believe what's happened. I don't know what odds you'd get on it
but I imagine they'd be pretty high. It's the equivalent of playing
football with the whole of the Manchester United team.'
The family team will now be playing 200 other players, including Britain’s
greatest poker player, Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliot,
and Irish player, Donnacha O’Dea, who recently won the Poker
Million event. The top prize is £140, 000.
Jason Medley said of the upcoming tournament: "We may be
father and son but our styles couldn't be more different. He's a very
aggressive player, while I like to be patient. I'm making a nice living
out of online poker, but it will be a dream to play against the top
names. It's all about the experience for me. I don't expect to win,
but I could and if that happened it would be life-changing."