Docherty and Camosci turn EPT Prague into PokerStars Live League showdown

As Willie Elliot, PokerStars’ Player Engagement Manager for Live Events, member of the PokerOrg Player Advisory Board, and the man who effectively ‘runs’ the League, puts it, it is the most loyal regulars that have risen to the top.

“The guys who come to every event are the ones who accumulate the points and that’s who’s in the shop window for the ambassador deal,” says Elliot. The High tier has become a tactical duel between Camosci and Klemens Roiter, he explains, while the Medium is a question of whether Team PokerStars Pro Kenny Hallaert can reel in Gerard Rubiralta.

Willie Elliot.

The Low is arguably the most compelling of the three with multiple players still in with a shout, which given the number of qualifying tournaments isn’t a surprise. This likely won’t be settled until PokerStars Open Cannes is done and dusted.

Elliot stays in touch with a lot of players and so has had a ringside seat for just how seriously some of the frontrunners are taking things, where clearly egos, not just leaderboard equity, are playing a role. The year-long PokerStars Ambassador deal is worth €100,000, with another €150,700 in tournament buy-ins up for grabs across the three leaderboards.

Roiter allegedly told Camosci that he was heading to Manchester to play a £5K PokerStars Open High Roller. Camosci dutifully went to Manchester. Roiter, it turned out, did not. A subtle piece of mind-game theater. Camosci turned up late for registration leaving the tournament one player short to actually start, so it didn’t run. He got zero points for the trip.

Maybe it was mild gamesmanship. Maybe Roiter changed his plans. Either way, it underlines Willie’s point: this matters to them and has them talking.

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David Docherty: man on a mission

Some players have tumbled into Live League contention by accident, but Irish Open winner David Docherty is not one of them. The 38-year-old Glaswegian has had his eye focused on the leaderboard from when it was first announced. He has previous, having won the UKIPT Player of the Year leaderboard in 2023, which was significantly helped by his €365,000 Irish Open win.

Docherty is no flash in the pan though. Arguably recognised as a British example of being a grinder’s grinder, Docherty has been on the scene for years with his first live cash being back in 2009 at the Aussie Millions (where he played the worst hand of his career against the indomitable Annette Obrestad).

Docherty at the PokerStars Open in Manchester.

Docherty first started playing during a university break. His mother had been taken ill and Docherty decided to take a break from his Computer Science course. With studies on hold, he found he had a lot of time and he started with freerolls and play money, waiting until he was sure he was ready before stepping up. He’s a great example of starting small, working hard, and using satellites to take shots at bigger live events.

“As soon as they announced the League and I saw what the prize was going to be, the goal for me was the ambassador contract,” says Docherty, nursing a beer in the Prague Hilton Hop House ahead of jumping into a 2-7 tournament. “I knew I was going to play every stop anyway, so if I wanted a real shot I had to target the Low leaderboard from the start and build my trips around those events.”

He did the math before a single hand was dealt. High was out: he wasn’t about to start playing €25K events. He reasoned that the Medium would be hugely volatile because of the big-field opens. But the Low tier? With its smaller fields and mixed-game events, where he felt he had a strong edge against the Low field? Well, this afforded him the best route to scale the PokerStars Live League leaderboard. If he wanted to get into a top 10 slot and insert himself into the ambassador conversation, Low was the play. An early result in Campione confirmed he was on the right track.

With the Low leaderboard in mind, Docherty has spent this year on the grind.

“In Campione I finished seventh in a Low event that [fellow Low leaderboard rival] Steinn Karlsson won, and he knocked me out,” Docherty says. “That’s literally the difference between us right now. I left that stop already high on the leaderboard and it made my mind up early that I had to go all-in on chasing the Low.”

From there, the Scotsman (who is 7th on the Scotland all-time money list) built his year around the League. He’s even skipped some bigger, juicier events to make sure he can play League-relevant tournaments that will net him points and leaderboard equity.

The Live League isn’t just rewarding people retrospectively for playing lots of PokerStars live events. It’s influencing the players’ tournament choices.

Ambassadors, stories and what poker actually needs

As we all know, volume and results alone don’t – and shouldn’t – decide who ends up with a sponsorship deal. Ambassadors come in different shapes and sizes. Docherty, who has upped his profile in the last couple of years with a lot more commentary, is clearly a candidate, but it’s far from a shoo-in.

“We’ve got amazing ambassadors already,” says Elliot, pointing to examples like Jason Koon and Kenny Hallaert on the ‘respect and integrity’ side, and Spraggy on the streaming-entertainer side (“I’d watch him stack shelves,” says Elliot). There are also players he feels embody the ‘pathway’ story PokerStars has championed: satellite grinders like Soraya Estrada Gonzalez and, yes, David himself.

Soraya Estrada Gonzalez.

Docherty’s view of the ambassador role leans heavily into that same theme of pathway and protection.

“I think I could be a decent bridge for recreational players,” he says. “I pay attention to how things like rake and structures affect the weakest players in the room. If you’re going to promote the poker dream, you have to protect the grassroots, otherwise people simply won’t break through.”

That’s more than a soundbite. Docherty talks in detail about time banks, structure tweaks, and how decisions that look minor from the operator’s side can quietly crush the win-rate and confidence of newer or returning players. He talks about it at length but with a clear and perhaps surpring level of passion for someone with multiple six-figure live scores. His focus keeps circling back not to the glitzy big buy-in events, but to the £100-£1,100 crowd and people who might be on their first trip to a live event.

“If I’m a live events ambassador, my job shouldn’t start and stop when I walk through the doors at an EPT,” he says. “It should be all year. That means getting out to local casinos, helping make PokerStars Open the must-play stop in each country, and putting in the work so recreational players feel there’s a real pathway into these events.”

There’s an implicit challenge to PokerStars in there as well: if we’re going to consolidate regional tours into pan-European brands like PokerStars Open, we need to make those stops feel like a big deal nationally. Not just a logo on a calendar, but a date players ring in their diary eight months ahead.

The consolidation of different PokerStars tours, such as UKIPT and Estrellas, into one overarching PokerStars Open brand is clearly moving well in that direction, but Docherty clearly feels like he can add some grassroots value.

Big stacks and short lists

Back in the here and now, both the High and Low leaderboards could still swing. Camosci is in Prague and grinding everything, trying to reel in Klemens Roiter’s lead in the High tier. Docherty is chasing Steinn Karlsson in the Low. As of the time of writing, both of them have big stacks in the flagship EPT Main Event to worry about as well.

Enrico Camosci topped the field - of five - in the €25K NLHE for some more hardware, more prize money, and more points.

Docherty is honest about the mental weight of that double sweat.

“Lots of my friends keep telling me I’ve got a great chance [of winning the Low leaderboard] and it’s putting pressure on,” he says. “Realistically, there’ll be a list of 30 at the end and it probably boils down to a shortlist of about eight. I think I’ll be on that shortlist. After that, it’s up to PokerStars.”

Fellow Brit Jamie Dwan stops by the table for a short while, clearly irritated with himself for making a river call that he knew he shouldn’t have.

Dwan’s an interesting character himself and clearly has poker chops, but he listens closely to what Docherty says. Interestingly, for all his knowledge of ranges and sizing, Docherty asks Dwan how he felt when his opponent had led on an inconsequential river card. “Disgusted,” says Dwan, looking aghast.

That reaction should have made Dwan fold, Docherty says. When you’ve put in as many hours and hands as these guys, sometimes your mind and body already know. Dwan doesn’t disagree, shakes his head and says he would have insta-folded online.

Jamie Dwan.

The Live League has succeeded in what any good season-long competition should aim for: it’s brought some characters to the fore and spurred some friendly rivalries to run deeper than a single final table.

So if you’re sweating any chip counts today, you’re not just watching for who bags up for Day 3. You’re watching for who might put themselves into pole position to put a red spade on their chest for next season.

Registration has closed in the EPT Prague Main Event, with 1,224 entries creating a prizepool of €5,936,400 – €1,019,300 of which will go to the winner.

Play continues all week, with a winner to be crowned on Sunday, December 14.

^{Images courtesy of Danny Maxwell/Eloy Cabacas/Manuel Kovsca/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd.}