Popular UK pro Kevin Allen is the 2013 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) Grand Final champion, winning £158,700. The £2000 event at the Grosvenor Victoria casino in London drew a healthy 294 runners, including some of the biggest names in UK poker such as Craig McCorkell, Luke Schwartz and JP Kelly. The newly refurbished ‘Vic’ was a great host and, going into Day 3, it looked like one of the stories of the UK poker year was about to unfold.
PokerPlayer.co.uk writer Sam Grafton, the defending 2012 GUKPT Grand Final champion, sat third in chips with only 13 players remaining. His attempt at an unprecedented back-to-back run cruelly came to an end early in the day though, after his pocket Kings were cracked by A-T of Matt Davenport. Grafton expressed his disappointment on his popular Twitter feed (@SquidPoker); ‘Sigh! Gl messages still coming in and I’m out in 11th! Oh well. Gave it my best shot.’ The £7,400 for 11th place will no doubt have been little consolation for Grafton but his incredible run in successive years just goes on to highlight what a world class tournament player he is, both online and live.
The final table was short on marquee names but Allen, Will Kassouf and Ben Jackson had all forged excellent careers on the live circuit so it was high on quality. Allen had started the day with just seven big blinds and was still one of the short stacks when the final table commenced. However, after a slow final table he gradually chipped up and entered heads-up play with Rudolph Fourie even in chips. The final hand came when Fourie 3-bet jammed J-8 suited and Allen made the call with K-Q. The board missed both players completely and Allen’s King-high held up to win the pot and the tournament. It’s Allen’s second +£100k victory of 2013 after taking down Dusk Till Dawn’s Monte Carlo event in April for £120,000.
A huge congratulations to Kevin Allen on the victory and to Grosvenor Poker on yet another highly successful year of the GUKPT. The original UK poker tour still has a lot of life left in it yet.
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Photo courtesy of GUKPT.com.
