GUKPT Grand Final result

Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, Grosvenor Victoria casino, London, £3,500 No-limit Hold’em Main Event, 27th – 30th November 2008

Entrants: 184
Buy-in: £3,500
Prizepool: £552,000

1. Paul Foltyn, £167,050

2. Jeffrey Duvall, £96,600

3. Guy Steel, £69,000

4. Eirik Svanes, £46,900

5. Stuart Rutter, £35,900

6. Tony Cascarino, £27,600

7. Stuart Nash, £22,100

8. Surinder Sunar, £16,550

9. Richard Ashby, £13,800

With season one in the bag, and the Tour no longer televised, many were wondering if the popularity of the GUKPT would wane, but with numbers strong throughout 2008, it was clear that poker and the demand for a good, well-structured event was still rife in the UK. As usual, leg nine was immediately followed by the Grand Final, a culmination of all the previous winners plus any enthusiasts willing to stump up the £3,500 buy-in fee, of which there were a total of 184, just 14 down from last year’s turn out.

Making their presence felt at the Grosvenor Victoria were a number of household names including Devilfish, Liam Flood, Ram Vaswani and Surinder Sunar, as well as the usual smattering of Tour regulars such as Nik Persaud, Albert Sapiano, defending champion Mike Ellis and current GUKPT leaderboard leader Marc Goodwin, all of whom had their eyes firmly fixated on the mouth-watering £167,050 first prize.

It was an impressive final nine who made it back to the Grosvenor Victoria Casino for the grand final of the Grand Final, to decide who would be crowned champion and take home a tasty £167,050. The line-up included an online legend, a professional footballer turned GUKPT winner, a couple of stalwarts of the British poker old school, and a young, aggressive Scandie with a chip lead, and it was destined to be, as final tables go, a good ‘un.

First out was GUKPT regular Richard Ashby, who ran into Paul “Pab” Foltyn’s aces to leave him with ninth place and an early night. Next to go was ultra-shortstacked Surinder Sunar, followed by fellow veteran of the scene Stuart Nash. Tony Cascarino was another victim of pocket aces, this time those belonging to Guy Steel, and notched up a sixth place finish to go with his win in the GUKPT Bolton leg.

Scarf enthusiast and jovial youngster Stuart Rutter was next to go when his K-Q was no good against Eirik Svanes’ A-K on a king-high board, catapulting Svanes back into the chip lead that he had lost since the start of the day – but it was Svanes who would be next to exit after suffering a series of mishaps, and the Norwegian exploded in fourth place. Not long after and sweater-wearing Guy Steel was also gone, leaving Paul Foltyn and Jeff Duvall heads up for the title – all this by 8.30pm.

Foltyn had the advantage as they went into the heads up, but it swiftly shifted to Duvall… and then back to Foltyn. Then Duvall took the lead once more, and the chip lead switched back and forth in huge swings as the players got involved in massive pot after massive pot, every time the short stack doubling up to stay in the game, in what became an epic but always exciting three hour battle. Eventually, however, Foltyn clawed back the chip lead for the final time, and shortly afterwards Duvall moved in with bottom pair on the turn only to find that Foltyn had turned a gutshot, and it was all over.

Foltyn takes home the prize of £167,050, as well as the title, the paperweight-like trophy and a seat to the Champion of Champions tournament next week. Many congratulations to him, and thanks to Grosvenor and the tournament organisers.