The Festival Series – Meet William “Mixed Games Fanatic” Lynch
If you have visited one of our previous stops of The Festival Series, you must know this Scottish group of friends, who are in love with playing Mixed Games. One of them, William Lynch, had a nice result during The Festival Series Online, in collaboration with PokerListings and 888poker. It gave us the idea for an interview with one of these lads. Traveling with a group of friends is very common for our festival, and that’s exactly what we are aiming for as it brings this great atmosphere in general. This group of friends, William alongside Barry Dear, and William Paxton are all extremely kind and cool personalities, but just one of them managed to get hold of one of our truly unique winner portraits!
Melvin TF: Hi William Lynch, Scottish Superstar! What are your overall thoughts about The Festival Series? What makes you return for the next events?
- William: I think The Festival Series is great. I have been to 3 stops now (Tallinn, Bratislava & Nottingham). Everyone is so friendly and having a great time. I love the schedule of events, especially as there are lots of mixed game events every day so it’s great for me. However, the best part of The Festival is the atmosphere, I’ve never been to a poker festival before and you get that community feels where everyone from different countries has made friends over previous stops and it’s just one big poker reunion. In the UK, it doesn’t feel like that, the tours can be rather serious with fewer events per day. So if you are traveling it can be rather boring, but with The Festival it seems like if you bust one tournament, there is another you can jump straight into all day.
Did you know that William Lynch won a £120 PLO 4/5/6 side event during our previous stop in Nottingham, and cashed nearly £2000?
Melvin TF: Sunday the Online version of The Festival Series kicked off at 888poker. We got informed that you managed to reach the final table of the PLO Mystery Bounty event. How did it end for you and how did the session go overall? Are you going to play more events in the upcoming weeks?
- William: To be honest, I don’t play much online these days. I work and have a family so it’s hard to play often. I do like to play some events when series are on as you get some decent mixed-game events with big guarantees. I played the $55 PLO mystery Bounty and it was fun to just play 1 table and still have time to play with kids and watch football on TV while I have the poker on my tablet. I’m sure many of the family guys can relate to this. I did manage to finish 3rd and win the big $500 bounty. Cashing for around $950 total so was a good result.
Melvin TF: How would you describe your life besides poker? What keeps you busy throughout the periods there is no poker event?
- William: Well my life isn’t that interesting, to be honest. I’m 36 years old with 2 children so it’s hard to play lots of pokers right now. I work mainly as a private hire driver in Edinburgh, Scotland. What a fantastic city if you guys haven’t been I would recommend it.
- I also have an amazing wife who lets me travel 4/5 times a year to play poker so I can keep up my passion for mixed games I can’t ask for anything more in life I must say. Football is what I love as well, besides playing Golf. Some occasional sports betting here and there too (don’t tell the wife).
Melvin TF: Festival Malta is coming up. You will be there I assume? Have you been there before? What are your expectations of this upcoming event?
- William: Yes, I will 100% be in Malta. All booked and ready to go. I’m so organized that I even have my schedule set for the games I’m going to play every day. I’ve never been to Malta before, so looking forward to exploring a new place. That’s the good thing about these poker festivals, they can take you to cities and countries that you probably wouldn’t have visited otherwise. Some great memories will be made I’m sure of it.
Melvin TF: How is your life as a poker player? Do you play mainly live/online?
- William: I play mainly live poker. I love mixed games and only really PokerStars offer real mixed games online and even then it’s hard to play as with UK gambling laws my account was limited so it’s not much fun playing micro stakes.
- In the UK, there aren’t any mixed game tournaments so I was looking on HendonMob at the festival search part and that’s how I first came across “The Festival”. The first series I went to was in Tallinn and I’ve been to everyone since.
Melvin TF: Fun fact – On TheHendonMob you can have an overview of all registered results of our Festival Series, where you ended up in the money. You are leading the pack with seven cashes! What are your thoughts about that? Any challenge to remaining the leader of that ranking?
- William: Yes I see I’m top of the all-time list of “The Festival” cash. I was rather surprised but what an awesome fact. Now I need to keep up a good record and build some more amounts of cash. It might even get me to play some NLH if I’m not in a mixed-game tournament.
- Besides the Player of the Festival ranking, maybe Franke will have some sort of leaderboard that’s advertised and we can all chase this in the future. It would be great to stay at the top of it for a while.
FACTS ABOUT WILLIAM LYNCH
Biggest poker win: £5,000 during Grosvenor 25/25 Series in Edinburgh back in 2016
Favorite games: All mixed games - Sviten Special, H.O.R.S.E, 8-game. William even loves Open Face Chinese Poker
Biggest dream: The biggest dream is to become a Formula 1 driver and take over the title of the best UK Formula driver title from Lewis Hamilton. True, it may not happen right away, as George Russell seems to have the same plans, and the fact that he has already driven a Formula 1 car works in his favor, while William's experience so far has been limited to driving a Formula car with a PlayStation controller. But it's a dream, and they're meant to be fulfilled, so keep it going, William. And a small tip from The Festival team: when you come out of the tunnel at the Monaco circuit, don't brake too early - You can lose a lot of time there.
Three things to love: My two children, my wife, and mixed games. While this is not an exact definition of three, at the same time life isn't about limiting yourself to a framework. Therefore, we agree with William and would also add many good friends, because playing poker without them can be quite dull.
How many times William has cashed during The Festival LIVE events?
The answer to such a simple question is hidden in the history of The Hendon Mob. Just like in a fairytale, there are seven dwarfs, William has managed to cash seven times in The Festival Series live tournaments throughout history. However, in contrast to the fairytale where seven remained and will remain, William will soon have the opportunity to increase his winnings tally to eight, nine, or even more in May.
Story Teller: It is the year 2165. Aliens have invaded our planet Earth, and the few remaining humans who have not moved to the planet Mars are living in caves. Once a year, these cave-dwelling humans gather and reminisce about The Festival, a poker festival that took place over one hundred years ago. The Festival where the idea was left unfinished, that whoever collects one thousand tournament wins first within The Festival Series would be the very best, and for that achievement, Franke would give away the t-shirt he had been wearing for years.
once the aliens arrive and introduce them to a Sviten Special game.
Facts about The Festival Series
- If you don't want to be like Franke and would rather live in the present like William, we have running our daily online qualifiers for our Malta Festival. In addition, it's worth taking a look here, where you can find our full tournament schedule for The Festival Online.
- Did you know that The Festival Series has signed cooperation agreements with three hotels located in Malta, where it is possible to stay comfortably and cozily during Festival Malta and enjoy some relaxation by the pool and the weather in between poker games?
- Did you know that today it is possible to qualify for Festival Malta through various online satellites, including the chance to win a package to the PokerListings Championship on Pokerstars, which includes both a tournament ticket and accommodation?
