UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up: MTT Wins and Neil Channing Gains a Sponsor
It's been another terrific week of poker for British poker players, one that has seen massive sums of money won, rankings climbed, and one of poker's true gentlemen become an ambassador for Sky Poker. Read about it all here in this week's UK Pokernews Round-Up.
The attention of the British poker community has been fixated on the play over at Dusk Till Dawn this past week thanks to the 2014 partypoker World Poker Tour UK festival.
First up was the £1,000,000 guaranteed WPT500, which attracted a gargantuan crowd of 2,133 entries, smashing the guarantee by some margin. When the dust settled at the Nottingham club, it was PKR-sponsored pro Eleanor Gudger who emerged victorious, clutching the coveted WPT500 trophy and £140,000 in prize money.
A couple of days after Gudger's victory, the £3,000 buy-in WPT UK Main Event — the first UK-based WPT Main Event to be held outside of London — kicked off, again with a juicy £1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool. That tournament is yet to be completed, but you can read about the Day 1a, Day 1b, and Day 2 happenings at the UK & Ireland PokerNews site.
Prior to the WPT UK festival commencing, the penultimate leg of the year's Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) concluded in the seaside town of Blackpool. Players in the £1,080 buy-in Main Event enjoyed a £29,000 overlay after the 171 entrants weren't enough to reach the £200,000 guarantee.
Justin Astley enjoyed the overlay the most, taking home £59,000 after defeating Dan Kneafsey heads up.
In the world of online poker, Luke “LFmagic” Fields continued the trend of Brits smashing up the PokerStars Sunday Million by finishing in fifth place for almost $60,000, while four new faces entered the top 20 of the PocketFives.com UK online poker rankings where Patrick Leonard is still on top.
Speaking of rankings, Stephen Chidwick is still the man to catch on the UK Global Poker Index with Dermot Blain leading the charge in the Irish standings.
Before we head back into the cold British air, we have to congratulate the legendary Neil Channing on his new role of Sky Poker Ambassador. Channing joins another British star in the shape of former European Poker Tour Baden champion Julian Thew in the Sky Poker stable.
To ensure you keep up-to-date with all of the latest poker and industry news affecting the UK and Ireland, make sure you visit the UK & Ireland PokerNews site every day!
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