Sunny Chattha wins GUKPT Walsall

GUKPT Walsall, £1,000 No Limit Hold’em, G Casino Walsall, 26th – 1st March 2009

Entrants: 301
Buyin: £1,000
Prizepool: £301,000

1. Sunny Chattha, £88,150
2. Joe Grech, £53,450
3. Aaron Barry, £35,500
4. John Miller, £23,200
5. Alan Trueick, £17,150
6. Micky Wernick, £14,150
7. James Akenhead, £
8. Senh Man Ung, £8,150
9. Steve Holden, £6,000

Sunny Chattha has won the 2nd leg of the 2009 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour. He defeated Joe Grech after a cagey heads up session at the Grosvenor Casino in the Midlands town of Walsall to scoop the £88,150 first prize. 23-year old Chattha, whose brother Chaz had finished second at the Plymouth leg of the tour in 2007, went into the final as a massive chip leader, possessing almost a third of the chips in play. The South Londoner held onto his lead for most of the final, but after knocking out John Miller in 4th and Aaron Barry in 3rd place, Grech drew level and they entered the heads up session with virtually identical chip stacks.

The first hour and a half of head to head play featured mainly small pot poker, as both players sized each other up. Although there were more than 3m chips in play, there were no pots of more than 300,000 during these early stages. They continued to play small pot poker, but Chattha steadily wore down his opponent and by the time the final hand occurred, he held a 3:1 chip lead. In the final hand, Grech raised it to 225,000 and Chattha moved all in with A-7. Grech called with K-J and the board came Q-9-A-8-2, to give Chattha the trophy and a place in the GUKPT Champion of Champions tournament.

The four-day main event attracted a field of 301 players and rounded off a successful week of poker at the Walsall casino. The final table was yet another high quality affair, featuring several players who had previously graced GUKPT final tables. Alan Truick (5th), former European number one Mickey Wernick (6th), James Akenhead (7th), Senh Man Ung (8th) and Steve Holden (9th) completed the final table line up.

Chattha is a member of the Hit Squad, the well-known group of players from London that includes his brother Chaz, Praz Bansi, Karl Mahrenholz and James Akenhead, who also made the final in Walsall. Collectively they are one of the most successful groups of players in the UK in recent years. Sunny previously tasted victory on the UK circuit when he won the main event of the Northern Lights festival in Blackpool in 2006, where his brother Chaz finished as runner up. This was the fifth time he has made the prize money on the GUKPT, having narrowly missed out on a seat at the final table on two separate occasions. In the post tournament press conference he made reference to these disappointments by saying;

“All the bad beats were worth it and I’m happy to have notched up another victory for the Hit Squad.”

He also commented that he expects to be back at his local casino, the Victoria in London, for their regular £100 rebuy event on Tuesday evening.

The GUKPT now heads south to London, where the third leg will take place from 19th – 29th March, at the capital’s Grosvenor Victoria Casino. It features a £1,500 main event and a high roller heads up tournament, which costs £2,500 to play. Online poker site Blue Square Poker (www.bluesqpoker.com), who jointly run the tour with Grosvenor Casinos, host super satellites three times a week, where players can qualify to play in the live big money events for a fraction of the buy in.