Richard "Chufty" Ashby (born 1972 in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, 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 dow ...
) is a professional
poker player from
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 ...
. He was given the name 'Chufty' by his friends at University, due to Ashby's frequency of using the term "chuffed".
Ashby picked up poker at his local tennis club, as well as playing for pennies with his father. In the mid nineties, he played his first tournament, a £10
Stud
Stud may refer to the following terms:
Animals
* Stud (animal), an animal retained for breeding
** Stud farm, a property where livestock are bred
Arts and entertainment
* Stud (band), a British progressive rock group
* The Stud (bar), a gay ba ...
tournament. A few years later, he earned entry into the
Aussie Millions
The Australian Poker Championship, commonly known as Aussie Millions, is a series of poker tournaments held at the Crown Casino, in Melbourne, Australia. The Main Event of the series is the Southern Hemisphere's richest poker tournament with a ...
. After he bust from the first tournament, he put his entire $4,000 bankroll on the line in a cash game and spun it up to $100,000. By the end of the week, he had lost it all.
Ashby's first recorded win came at the 2001 Grosvenor UK Open in Luton when he won £10,500 in the £100 Pot Limit
Seven Card Stud
Seven-card stud, also known as Seven-Toed Pete or Down-The-River is a variant of stud poker. Before the 2000s surge of popularity of Texas hold 'em, seven-card stud was the most widely played poker variant in home games across the United States, ...
Event. Since then, he's accrued over half a million dollars in live tournament winnings including final table finishes at the 2007
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
GUKPT and the 2009 Aussie Millions, the latter of which earned him A$150,000 for his seventh-place finish.
However, Ashby openly admits that he needs to work on his live game, and is much better known as an online player, in particular on Black Belt Poker where was recently acquired as one of their sponsored pros in September 2010. Ashby can often been seeing playing on the site in some of the highest stakes available, and against many of the biggest names in poker.
Ashby's favoured game is
Omaha and he is good friends with fellow Omaha specialist Ben Grundy. For a while, they played in the same games but eventually realised that it was a pointless exercise and decided to avoid each other from there on in. In addition to Grundy, Ashby considers France's
David Benyamine
David Benyamine (born July 5, 1972 in Paris, France) is a French professional poker player with a World Poker Tour title. Benyamine was a professional tennis player in his early career but had to retire because of shoulder pain. He was also a su ...
to be the best Omaha player in
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...
, although he cites
Phil Ivey
Phillip Dennis Ivey Jr. (born February 1, 1977) is an American professional poker player who has won ten World Series of Poker bracelets, one World Poker Tour title, and appeared at nine World Poker Tour final tables. Ivey is regarded by numero ...
as the only player he would consider sitting out against.
In July 2009, Ashby emerged as online poker's biggest cash winner when he earned a total of $1,824,074 over the four-week period. This success garnered him much interest, in particular on the
Two Plus Two forums where the nosebleed stakes are avidly followed.
On 13 June 2010 Ashby won the World Series of Poker Event #21, a $1,500 seven card stud event, winning $140,467 in the process. He followed that success less than two weeks later by finishing 2nd in World Series of Poker Event #43, the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. World Championship, netting him $378,027 in winnings.
On 24 September 2010 Ashby won Event #54 of the
World Championship Of Online Poker
The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) is an online poker tournament series sponsored by PokerStars. It is played on the PokerStars website in September.
Established in 2002, WCOOP is PokerStars' attempt to establish the online equivalen ...
, the $2,100 Pot Limit Omaha 6-max event. He was successful out of a field of 480 players, collecting his first WCOOP bracelet along with $185,760 in winnings.
References
External links
Hendon Mob tournament resultsFull Tilt Poker ProfileBlack Belt Poker Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ashby, Richard
Poker players from London
Living people
1972 births