George Alexander Conquers 2017 GUKPT London
George Alexander won a £540 buy-in tournament in London for £14,000 in April 2012, and history repeated itself last weekend when he conquered the £550 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour London Main Event for £50,000.
2017 GUKPT London Main Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | George Alexander | £50,000* |
| 2 | Andrew Christoforou | £40,450* |
| 3 | Giulio Mascolo | £34,400* |
| 4 | Eric Le Goff | £15,000 |
| 5 | Ahmad Abedlhadi | £9,850 |
| 6 | Axat Mawji | £7,200 |
| 7 | Damian Watson | £5,600 |
| 8 | Christopher Cooper | £4,500 |
| 9 | Sebastian Pawlak | £3,600 |
*reflects a three-handed deal
A record-breaking crowd of 449 entrants headed to The Poker Room formerly known as The Vic for the £100,000 guaranteed Main Event, smashing the guarantee by some £124,500. By the time the nine-handed final table was reached, the least any of the players could win was £3,600.
Sebastian Pawlak, a regular at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, was the first casualty of the final table. Pawlak moved all-in for a handful of chips on a Q♥5♠7♣ flop with Q♣9♣ and Ahmad Abedlhadi called with the dominating Q♠J♠. The jack of diamonds on the turn locked up the hand for Abdelhadi.
Eighth-place went to Christopher Cooper who looked down at king-queen in the big blind and called off his 330,000 chips, or six and a half big blinds, when Eric Le Goff set him all-in from the small blind. Le Goff turned over ace-eight and proceeded to flop an ace to win the pot and send Cooper to the rail.
Damian Watson then fell in seventh place after losing a coinflop against Le Goff. Watson made a move with A♠Q♠ and Le Goff made the call with 9♣9♦. By the river the board read Q♥10♣J♠8♥A♣, which gifted Le Goff an unlikely straight and ended Watson’s tournament.
Less than 10-minutes after Watson was eliminated, Axat Mawji followed him to the cashier’s cage. Mawji committed his final six big blinds with ace-seven and Alexander looked him up with the king-queen of diamonds. The flop missed both players, but the king of spades on the turn left Mawji drawing to three outs. He failed to hit any of them on the river.
With five players remaining, Abdelhadi found himself down to a shade under eight big blinds so made a move to steal the blinds and antes with king-ten. Unfortunately for him, a call was made by Giulio Mascolo and his dominating king-queen. The flop came down with both a queen and a ten, but Abdelhadi couldn’t find any of his outs on the turn or the river.
The first player to secure a five-figure score was Le Goff after he crashed out in fourth-place. Le Goff moved all-in for 14 big blinds with king-jack and Alexander called with ace-seven to put him at risk of busting. Bust he did as the board ran out void of kings or jacks and the tournament was down to only three players.
After the exit of Le Goff, the final three players paused the tournament’s clock and discussed flattening the payout structure. It was agreed that £10,000 would be removed from the original £60,000 first-place prize and this added to the third-place finisher’s score.
It was Mascolo who benefited from this deal as he busted in third. With blinds of 60,000/120,000/ and a 15,000 ante, Alexander made it 300,000 to play and then called when Mascolo moved all-in for 800,000. Alexander showed queen-seven and Mascolo the king-four of spades, which looked set to win the hand until the seven of diamonds appeared on the river to reduce the player count by one.
Alexander held a huge 10-to-1 chip lead over Andrew Christoforou going into heads up, and with the blinds having increased to 80,000/160,000, the latter was in bad shape. Ten minutes into the one-on-one battle it was all over.
Christoforou moved all-in for five big blinds with A♥6♥ and Alexander called with 3♠3♥. Christoforou paired his ace on the flop but Alexander improved to a set. The final board read A♣3♣5♣K♦8♠ to bust Christoforou in second place and leave a delighted Alexander to be crowned GUKPT London champion.
Next up on the GUKPT schedule is a trip north to Leeds for another £100,000 guaranteed Main Event. The festival runs from Sept. 10-17, and qualification is available online at Grosvenor Poker.
