Chris Day has won GUKPT Luton for a monster first prize of £88,150 after beating reigning Luton champion Jamie Le heads-up. Day, who is originally from Naples, Florida but is now based in the UK, rarely plays live tournaments these days; his biggest cash to date was ten years ago when he won a €1k side event at EPT Berlin for €74,700. Winning Luton was not only his first major cash on the GUKPT tour it was also his biggest live cash ever. His total live tournament winnings now exceed $400,000.
Runner-up Le was gutted not to have secured back-to-back Luton wins. Last October he won £95,630 in Luton after defeating a 353-entry field. In his post-tourney interview with The Tower on Sunday night, Le said it was the fact that he didn’t get secure a second victory that was the most disappointing. He said: “I gave it a right go but so did Chris. It was a great battle.” Le won £61,600 for his runner-up finish.
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The flagship £1,250 GUKPT Luton Main Event was the highlight of a busy 11 days of poker that also included the festival-opening 25/50 tournament, the £250 Mini Main tournament, the £550 GUKPT Cup and a £2k High Roller. There were 331 entries for the Main Event creating a prize pool of £364,100.
McCann wins Luton Cup after heads-up deal with Ashraf
Jonathan McCann and Wadey Ashraf (pictured below) are both on an absolute tear at the moment and on Sunday night they chopped the £500 buy-in Luton Cup. After cutting a heads-up deal, McCann snagged the actual trophy and champion’s title while Ashraf took the slightly greater share of the winnings - £20,940 and £21,900 respectively. McCann’s recent achievements are quite astonishing: in January, he won the GUKPT London Main Event for £89,600. He also won the Cup event at GUKPT Blackpool, was second in the Blackpool High Roller and third in the Edinburgh High Roller. His total live tournament winnings now exceed $1 million. Ashraf was one of the most successful players at the Irish Open, with four cashes totalling more than €90k at the Dublin festival including final table appearances in both the €5k High Roller and the €3k High Roller. His total live tournament winnings now exceed $1.5 million. There were 192 entries in the Luton Cup creating a £96,000 prize pool.
GUKPT Luton Mini Main
Navdeep Chopra (pictured below) achieved a career-best score of £19,195 when he took down the GUKPT Luton Mini Main event. He beat Gareth Wright heads-up while the indefatigable Tim Chung was third. There were 405 entries in all creating a prize pool of £89,100. Others who cashed included Chris Da-silva, Cal Morreale (currently leading the Grosvenor National Poker League Player of the Year race) and Grosvenor Ambassador Jamie Nixon. All three Day 1 chip leaders received a £1k Goliath seat out of the prize pool – Cal Morreale, Patrick Fahy and Chris Da-silva.
25/50 tournament
Leg 5 at Luton was the first time that the 25/50 tournament has formed part of a GUKPT schedule since before the pandemic struck. The 25/50s are very popular in their own right when held as two-day, standalone events – and the Luton edition got the 10-day festival off to a lively start. There were a total of 479 entries creating a prize pool of £104,380, more than double the £50k guarantee. Mohamed Abdelkader took it down for a career-best first prize – and his first cash at a GUKPT event – for £20,440. Others who made the money included third-placed Bob Johnson, John Bousfield, Albert Sapiano, Cal Morreale and Grosvenor Ambassador Katie Swift.
GUKPT Luton History
GUKPT Luton is always a hugely popular stop – and a destination that’s been on the GUKPT calendar since the very start of the tour in 2007. The GUKPT tour – now in its 17th season – typically visits Luton twice a year; the next Luton stop will be in the Autumn from September 14-24.
Numerous big names have enjoyed victory in Luton; the roll call of previous Main Event champions includes Sam Trickett, Richard Gryko, Neil Channing, Charles Chattha, Jamie O’Connor, Adam Reynolds and John Eames.
Next up – Goliath!!!
One of the next big events on the Grosvenor calendar is Goliath 2023 which is taking place from July 27 to August 6 at the Coventry Building Society Arena and promises to be the biggest yet. The Goliath Main Event is Europe’s biggest live poker tournament and – aside from the online years of 2020 and 2021 - has broken records every year since it first took place in 2011. Organisers are predicting a prize pool of over £1.5 million for this year’s £150 buy-in Main Event. 2023 marks the 11th edition; last year’s event attracted a staggering field of 10,584 entries to create a £1,219,270 prize pool. Three players who will certainly be heading to Coventry are Alan Stearn, Michael Quinn and Darshan Patel after they won their £1k buy-ins in The Tower’s GUKPT Luton Main Event Wheel Spin.
MainEventTravel.com, Official Travel Partner for Goliath and the GUKPT, is recommending all players bag their rooms now to take advantage of lower rates and make sure they get to stay exactly where they want.
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