Jamie Dale Satellites His Way to £33K and GUKPT High Roller Title

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Nov 08, 2024 5 min read

What’s the best feeling in poker? Flopping a set? Hitting a gutshot on the turn? Or maybe rivering a straight flush to beat your opponent’s quads?

All three are definitely up there, but Jamie Dale might have a different perspective after delivering a masterclass in the GUKPT Blackpool £1,500 High Roller, where he secured his seat at the table for a fraction of the buy-in.

On Wednesday, Dale entered a £180 satellite to Grosvenor Poker's biggest buy-in event of the festival and was among the five players to earn a ticket to the target tournament. What followed next was the stuff as dreams as Dale went on to top the 70-entry field and turned his small investment into a £33,260 payday.

The Englishman seized the lion's share of the £100,800 prize pool after defeating Simon Zach in heads-up play. The victory marked Dale's second-biggest cash and sits behind the $60,000 he won in this summer's WSOP Main Event, where he finished in 214th place.

GUKPT Blackpool High Roller Results

Final Table Action

With ten players remaining, Iwan Jones was the short stack on the feature table. He committed his last nine big blinds with deuces. Mitch Johnson woke up with ace-jack in the big blind and turned a pair to bring about the final table and stone money bubble.

It would take just 25 minutes for the bubble to burst. EPT Barcelona Main Event runner-up Andrew Hulme took out Scotland's Robbie Bull. Hulme woke up with ace-jack and opened the action. Bull put in his short stack with ace-eight and was quickly called for the cards to go on their backs. Bull failed to improve, and his exit guaranteed each remaining player the £3,730 min-cash.

Neville Betty ran queens into the kings held by Trevor Reardon to fall to the bottom of the chip leaderboard. Betty jammed into another monster shortly after, seeing his ace-nine vanquished by Zach's aces.

Hulme bagged his second final table elimination, ousting Johnson with a superior ace. A few orbits later, Rhys Keen doubled through Dale to move himself out of the danger zone, but the eventual champion would get his chips back, flopping a set of nines to send Keen and his Big Slick to the wrong side of the rail in seventh-place.

At this stage, Hulme was in control and the runaway chip leader. He looked to end Dale's satellite story with jacks, but Dale's pocket fives rivered a straight for an unlikely double up in a blind-on-blind collision. This put Dale in the lead with 60 big blinds, with Hulme, his nearest rival, with 41.

Hulme's stack continued to plummet, and his tournament was over after he jammed pocket fours into Zach's flopped trip fives. Reardon departed in fourth place and banked the first five-figure prize after Zach collected his stack.

Zach was on a roll, and the momentum was fully on his side. He booked his heads-up showdown with Dale after winning a flip with pocket nines to down Yuzhou Yin in third place.

Stacks were even between Dale and Zach going into heads-up play, and a lengthy duel was in store with the final two 58 big blinds deep. Zach widened the gap, taking a 3:1 chip lead, but Dale fought back and picked off a river bluff with a pair of threes after Zach missed his flush draw and two overs.

It looked like Dale had the win locked up when his ace-queen had Zach's ace-ten on the ropes, but the board double-paired on the runout to keep cards in the air. However, it didn't take long for the next all-in and call. Dale woke up with ace-king and was again the huge favorite after Zach committed the last of his chips with ace-eight. This time, the runout was clean for Dale, and he was awarded the £33,260 up top, along with the title and trophy.

GUKPT Blackpool Results

Dale is among six champions already crowned at GUKPT Blackpool.

After a three-way deal, Craig Humphreys took down the £175 NLH Opener for £6,960. Karen Tomczak was also in the winner's circle after she came out on top in the Kav Cup, a charity event on the GUKPT.

Like Dale, Abdul Ahmed saw a hefty ROI after his £220 buy-in for the Mini Main Event yielded a first-place payout of £24,530. Lin Chen and Thomas Davenport were the other festival winners after they triumphed in the £175 PLO and £180 NLH Turbo, respectively.

Remaining Schedule

Friday sees the final two starting flights for the £1,100 Main Event, with Day 1B starting at midday ahead of Day 1C shuffling up and dealing at 9 p.m. this evening.

Thursday hosted Day 1A, where 85 entries took their shot at glory. Just 21 players bagged chips, with Andrew Bradshaw ending the night as the chip leader with 190,000.

Grosvenor Pro's Jamie Nixon (92,000) and Matthew Davenport (76,100) made it over the first hurdle. Davenport will be joined by his wife, Sinead Davenport (77,100), on Day 2.

S. Davenport has been on a heater throughout 2024 and has been one of the standout players in the Grosvenor's National Poker League. She's cashed in 36 NPL events, making 19 final tables, highlighted by two wins.

No woman has ever finished in the top 10 for the NPL and S. Davenport currently sits in eighth place.

Calum has been a part of the PokerNews team since September 2021 after working in the UK energy sector. He played his first hand of poker in 2017 and immediately fell in love with the game. Calum has written for various poker outlets but found his home at PokerNews, where he has contributed to various articles and live updates, providing insights and reporting on major poker events, including the World Series of Poker (WSOP).

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