UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up: UKIPT Champ Crowned, New Look IPO
It has been a relatively quiet week in the United Kingdom and Ireland in terms of poker news, something that is partly down to the fact we're experiencing a rare phenomenon known as sunny weather. That's not to say there has been nothing to report on, though, and if you keep diverting your eyes down this article you will discover what the most popular stories of the past week have been.
It's always great to start the week on a positive note and that's exactly what happened this time around as Sam Mitten-Laurence became the latest winner of the UKIPT Nottingham Main Event. Mitten-Laurence is something of an amateur when it comes to live poker — this was apparently only his second live event — but he has played over 20,000 tournaments at PokerStars alone and drew on that experience to walk away with the title and the €182,000 first-place prize.
The positivity kept flowing as it became knowledge that Ireland's "TheKhopMan" had reached the second Sunday Million final table of his career. Sadly, he couldn't come away with a victory, although finishing sixth for almost $42,000 makes him a winner in our book. While you're there, check out the great Sunday that Andy "wiisssppppaa" Taylor had as well.
Sticking with online poker, let's doff our caps to the in-form Marcin Milde. The Leeds-based grinder won the Sunday Million at the start of April and has won another four tournaments this week alone. As a result, Milde is soaring up the PocketFives.com rankings and currently occupied 45th place in the worldwide standings.
Other online poker-related news that was well received included PokerStars crowning yet another millionaire via its Spin & Go tournaments and Sky Poker dealing its 900 millionth hand, which is quite a milestone for the site.
In the world of live poker, the 2015 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Edinburgh Main Event kicked off on April 23 and saw Colin Wu progress to Day 2 with a sizeable chip lead. Wu used to be a regular on the GUKPT in its early years, but doesn't play as much poker as he once did. You wouldn't have guessed it, though, based on him turning his 25,000-chip starting stack into 207,400 on Day 1 of the £100,000 guaranteed event.
Finally, the International Poker Open Tour has itself a new sponsor in the form of Full Tilt, parting ways with BoylePoker after a successful stint. Seven stops are planned for the rest of 2015 with satellites already running in the Full Tilt lobby. It will be interesting to see how far the might of Full Tilt can take the already popular IPO.
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