UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up: Busy Live Scene, Pokerfest Begins & More
Despite the fact that the 2015 World Series of Poker Europe is in full swing over in Berlin, Germany, the UK & Ireland live poker circuit has been rather busy this past week.
In London, at PokerStars LIVE at The Hippodrome, a familiar face walked away with a £28,300 first-place prize in the UKIPT Super Series Main Event. Usually you'd find Dale Garrad at live poker events promoting Main Event Travel and helping customers find a bed for the night, but this time he was on the other side of the felt competing in the £550 buy-in event. It turned out to be a great decision as Garrad walked away with top honors and the winner's trophy.
While Garrad was busy bossing his table, Benjamin Preece was writing his way into poker's history books by winning the inaugural partypoker Grand Prix Poker Tour. Preece outlasted a field of more than 3,500 players in the £60+£10 buy-in event and scooped a cool £35,000 for his victory at Dusk Till Dawn. The tour now heads to Chelsea F.C's iconic stadium, Stamford Bridge.
Currently playing out is the 2015 Full Tilt International Poker Open (IPO) in Dublin, Ireland. Day 1a saw 149 enter the $250 buy-in tournament and 43 progress, with Alan White topping the chip counts, while Day 1b was busier, attracting 224 players to the Regency Airport Hotel, and the 63 survivors being led by James Cusack.
Two further opening flights take place at 2:00 p.m. on Friday, October 23 and 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 24 .
Keeping with the live poker world and the news that Dusk Till Dawn and Aspers Casino, Stratford are gearing up to host the upcoming World Poker Tour (WPT) UK festival. The two Day 1s of the £1 million guaranteed WPT500 UK will take place at Aspers at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 24 and Sunday, October 25, with several online days planned at partypoker. In all, more than £2.5 million is set to be awarded by the time the festival draws to a close, and the PokerNews Live Reporting team will be on hand to bring you coverage of both the £5,250 High Roller and the £2,200 WPT UK Main Event.
Into the online poker world now, which saw the week end on a real high for Nayeem "dancingbudha" Syed thanks to a third-place finish in the PokerStars Sunday Million. This impressive result netted Syed a cool $91,046.16, which is his largest cash to date. Syed was joined at the final table by fellow Brit Rhys "floppinhel" Jones, who fell in sixth place for $35,932.00.
There are more opportunities than normal to win big this coming Sunday thanks tothe $2.5 million partypoker Pokerfest. The first 12 of 80 scheduled events are set to run on October 25, with the highlight of those 12 events being the $250,000 guarantee which costs $250 to buy into.
Online poker has been going well for Stephen Woodhead, who enjoyed a hat trick of victories this past week, wins that helped push him up the UK online poker rankings. Woodhead took down two $215 no-limit hold'em turbo events at PokerStars for combined scores of $12,981, and also claimed the $6,400 first-place prize in the Full Tilt Fat Tuesday.
Last on the list for the UK & Ireland PokerNews Round-Up is the news that two of the UK's biggest bookmakers have been struggling of late due to "unfavorable sporting results" and the relatively new Point of Consumption Tax. William Hill revealed a 39% drop in profits for the third quarter of 2015, while Ladbrokes' profits slumped by 57% during the same period. It's a difficult time for British bookmakers right now with much consolidation occurring in the industry.
Be sure to check out the UK & Ireland PokerNews site each and every day to keep on top of all the latest poker news from those countries.
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