UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up: Bellamy Wins UKPC Main Event
It's that time of the week again, ladies and gentlemen. It's time for a recap of the biggest and most popular stories from the UK & Ireland PokerNews site.
The week got off to a fantastic start with the brilliant news of Fraser Bellamy winning the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships Main Event at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham. Bellamy outlasted 886 opponents in the £1,000 buy-in Main Event to get his hands on the winner's trophy and a cool £200,000 ($307,768) cash haul.
Bellamy wasn't the only big winner this week, either, as Ben Heath continued the recent trend of Brits cleaning up in the PokerStars Sunday Million. Heath, playing as "1Don'tStop1," eventually finished second, but not before he'd negotiated a deal that saw him lock up $167,836.06.
Other online poker highlights include Georgia's Adjarabet joining Microgaming using the new Babelfish software and giving cash-game traffic a significant boost, and partypoker announcing the latest edition of its Pokerfest series — 77 events and more than $2.4 million in guaranteed prize pools.
In the world of poker rankings, the UK has a new number one in the online standings. Longtime number one, Patrick Leonard, is more focussed on cash games these days and that has allowed UK-based Spaniard Oscar Serradell to knock him from the top spot.
The Global Poker Index for the UK & Ireland remained almost exactly the same, but Tom Hall and Alex Goulder both moved in the right direction. Both Hall and Goulder had big cashes at the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships — Hall finished fifth in the Main Event for £40,000 ($61,554) — and this helped them to climb the UK standings.
Lastly, a trio of British and Irish gambling companies released their financial figures this week. Both William Hill and Ladbrokes made a ton of money, but saw their overall profit decrease year-on-year, something shareholders were displeased about.
It was better news for Ireland's Paddy Power, who reported record profits of €167 million. Shareholders in the company look set for a windfall after plans to return a massive €392 million to them came to light.
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