By Rocco Havel | November 14, 2008

Great Britain won the 2008 Party Poker Nations Cup after defeating Ireland in the finals.The team consisting of Roland de Wolfe, Surinder Sunar, Joe Beevers, Ian Frazer, Neil Channing, and VIP Qualifier Charlie Durbin won $100,000 for taking the title.Team Captain Roland de Wolfe said of the victory, “I’m absolutely delighted.In many ways it is even better to win a team event for your country than win an individual title.I am so proud that the selections for my team were vindicated.”

The final segment of the Party Poker Nations Cup was a seesaw battle which featured lots of intense heads-up play; Neil Channing was the catalyst for the victory when he won several big poker hands from Donnacha O’Dea to seal the win.

The interesting thing about Channing is he was only supposed to be a reporter at this event, but de Wolfe offered him a spot on Great Britain’s team after he won the 2008 Irish Open.Channing was thrilled about the win as he said, “I am just as proud of this as I am of my win in Ireland.It was an honour to be picked to represent my country and great to be chosen to play the crucial final leg for the team.”

Roland de Wolfe also received a lot of praise for his strategic usage of time outs and overall strategy.He summed up his plan by saying,

We knew that it would be tight early on so I played Surinder.We fancied that he could exploit his tight image and he had played so well in his heat that it simply had to be him.Next we put on Joe Beevers. At that point we needed to sure things up as we were near the chip lead.This was a choice I made based on the situation. If we had been leading I would have put in Ian Frazer to get at them but Joe did a good job.

Roland also talked about himself and Channing when he stated,

I played third and always fancied this period of the tournament.I had a good run against Holland’s Thierry Van Den Berg and knew that blind stealing would be key at this stage before the blinds got too big.Neil had to play last as he had the form and confidence.Even though neither Ian Frazer nor Charlie Durbin were involved at this stage, both were key to our success.Both played excellently in the heats and the decisions were hard but we were only allowed to play four players in the final.

Holland was the third place finisher behind Great Britain and Ireland; they busted out when O’Dea hit a set of kings against Marcel Luske.Germany busted out in fourth after Channing’s pair of nines held up against Thomas Bihl’s pocket 5’s and the defending champion Sweden was knocked out in fifth by O’Dea’s pocket 10’s.The United States did not make it to the final day since they were the first country to bust out.

Related posts:

1. Party Poker Nations Cup Concludes Tonight
   The Party Poker Nations Cup will conclude tonight on Great Britain’s Channel 4 and Germany, Holland, Great Britain, Ireland and...
2. PartyPoker Nations Cup Teams Announced
   PartyPoker has announced the six teams for the third annual PartyPoker Nations Cup, which will be contested April 7-10 in...
3. Battle of the British Isles
   One could not help but think of the irony of it all as the 2008 PartyPoker.com Nations Cup concluded this...
4. David Benyamine Wins Party Poker Premier League IV
   Phil Laak grabbed all the attention during the preliminary rounds of the Party Poker Premier League IV by winning three...
5. JC Tran wins Party Poker Premier League III
   JC Tran was crowned Party Poker Premier League III champion after he beat Tony G in the heads-up finals. Tran...