The $500 no-limit hold’em main event of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Online Festival (GUKPT) was won by RiffMan117, also known as Curtis Ledger. Ledger qualified for the event via a $25 feeder tournament which he won earlier in the day. The event, which had a collected prize pool of $58,500 plus an added $10,000 from BlueSquare, took over eight hours to play out.
Standing in RiffMan117’s way of the $18,495 top prize was JoeTheJoker (Joe Grech), but it wasn’t long before RiffMan117 pulled into the lead and took down the top prize plus seats into the £3,000 GUKPT grand final and the £75,000 Champion Of Champions event. Grech earned just under $11,000 for his runner-up finish.
The tournament gave players the chance to participate in the same blind structure they would face in a live GUKPT event. The only exception was that the blinds were shorter at a half an hour rather than the usual one hour played on the main tour. The deep stack format proved to be so popular that BlueSquarePoker.com is making it a more frequent occurence, with weekly online $200 + $15 GUKPT trial events starting on August 17 at 6 p.m. BST. The only difference will be that the blind levels will last 20 minutes instead of one hour. The winners of each tournament will receive a free entry into a $250 + $20 GUKPT satellite.
Blue Square’s Operation manager, Jamie Reeve said, “We get lots of online qualifiers who have never played in a live deep stack tournament such as the GUKPT, so these trials will give them plenty of opportunity to prepare for the live events they have qualified for.”
The next live GUKPT festival will take place in the G Casino in Luton from August 2 — 10. The main event kicks off Thursday 7 and will run until Sunday 10. Those who are looking to take part still have time to qualify, either online at BlueSquarePoker.com, or live in Grosvenor and G Casinos, where they can also buy in directly. For details and dates of live qualifiers see www.gukpt.com.
