The Victor Chandler Poker Cup (often abbreviated to The Victor Poker Cup or The VC Poker Cup) was a

poker tournament A poker tournament is a tournament where players compete by playing poker. It can feature as few as two players playing on a single table (called a "heads up poker, heads-up" tournament), and as many as tens of thousands of players playing on th ...

held in 2004 and 2005 in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

for broadcast on

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

. The £5,000 buy-in event commenced in 2004 and is played out in a

no limit No Limit may refer to: Music Record labels *No Limit Records, a record label founded by Master P * No Limit Forever Records, a record label founded by Romeo Miller, son of Master P Albums * ''No Limit'' (Art Pepper album), 1977 * ''No Limit'' ...

Texas hold 'em Texas hold 'em (also known as Texas holdem, hold 'em, and holdem) is one of the most popular variants of the card game of poker. Two cards, known as hole cards, are dealt face down to each player, and then five Community card poker, communit ...

format.

2004

The event was held from 23-24 July in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. 100 competitors took part, with the following making the final table. The event is noted for featuring three of the four members of

The Hendon Mob The Hendon Mob are a group of four professional poker players from London, England: Joe Beevers, Barny Boatman, Ross Boatman, and Ram Vaswani. The name of the group was first publicised by the ''Evening Standard'' newspaper in September 2000. J ...

at the same final table, together with John Kabbaj, who is considered their unofficial fifth member. Other British players who played the event include

Jac Arama Jac Arama (born Jacques Arama on 20 February 1968 in Richmond, London, UK) is a TV producer and talent agent of French descent, based in London UK. Previously he was a high profile professional poker player. Arama appeared on TV regularly, in ...

, Bruce "Elvis Senior" Atkinson, "Barmy" Barny Boatman, Dave "El Blondie" Colclough,

Victoria Coren Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (' Coren; born ) is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for '' The Telegraph'' and has hosted the BBC television quiz show '' Only Connect'' since ...

Zac Goldsmith Frank Zacharias Robin Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith of Richmond Park, (born 20 January 1975) is a British politician, life peer and journalist serving as Minister of State for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment si ...

Vinnie Jones Vincent Peter Jones (born 5 January 1965) is a British actor, presenter, and former professional footballer. Jones played professionally as a defensive midfielder from 1984 to 1999, notably for Wimbledon, Leeds United, Sheffield United, Chelse ...

John McCririck John Michael McCririck (17 April 1940 – 5 July 2019) was an English horse racing pundit, television personality and journalist. McCririck began his career at '' The Sporting Life'', where he twice won at the British Press Awards for his camp ...

, Grub Smith, Willie "The Dice Man" Tann, Simon "Aces" Trumper, Dave "The Devilfish" Ulliott, Mickey "The Worm" Wernick and "Mad" Marty Wilson. Foreign players included "Gentleman" Liam Flood,

Noel Furlong John James Furlong (25 December 1937 – 27 June 2021) was an Irish businessman and poker player who won the 1999 World Series of Poker main event. Early life Furlong was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. He originally became a milliona ...

Tony G Antanas Guoga (born 17 December 1973), more commonly known as Tony G, is a Lithuanian- Australian businessman, poker player, politician and philanthropist. In November 2020, Antanas was elected to the 2020–2024 legislative period of the Sei ...

, Mel "Silver Fox" Judah, "The Flying Dutchman" Marcel Lüske, "The Don" Donnacha O'Dea,

Padraig Parkinson Padraig Parkinson (born 1957 in Galway) is an Irish poker player. He is chiefly recognised as the grand final winner of Late Night Poker series 5 (where he defeated Korosh Nejad) and as the third-place finisher of the 1999 World Series of Poke ...

Barry Shulman Barry Shulman (born May 8, 1946) is an American poker player who has enjoyed success in competitive poker tournaments over the past 15 years, and is the CEO of CardPlayer Magazine. Life and career Shulman was born in Seattle, Washington. He be ...

and Charalambos "Bambos" Xanthos.

2005

The event was held from 1-5 August in London. 96 competitors took part, with the final 12 competitors progressing to semi-finals.

Semi-final 1

Semi-final 2

Final

{, class="wikitable" ! bgcolor="#FFEBAD" , Place ! bgcolor="#FFEBAD" , Name ! bgcolor="#FFEBAD" , Prize , - , 1st , Tony "The Lizard" Bloom , £200,000 , - , 2nd , Rolf Inge Kavik , £100,000 , - , 3rd , "Gentleman" Ben Roberts , £50,000 , - , 4th , Jan Sjavik , £35,000 , - , 5th , Kevin O'Leary , £25,000 , - , 6th , {{flagicon, South Vietnam Xuyen "Bad Girl" Pham , £16,000

External links

Official site
Poker tournaments in Europe Television shows about poker