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Sidhu Scores at Manchester GUKPT

Kuljinder Sidhu from Birmingham has won the fourth leg of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour in the G Casino Bury New Rd in Manchester. The 29-year-old professional gambler outlasted a field of 192 players to scoop the first prize of £54,850. He also secures his seat in the tour's £150,000 Champion of Champions tournament, which takes place in December. He defeated Winchester's Chris Brammer after a lightning fast heads up encounter, which lasted just two hands. After 21-year-old Brammer had knocked out Manchester's Ken Clark in third place the two went heads up, with Sidhu holding a narrow chip advantage. On the very first hand all the chips found their way into the middle preflop with Brammer holding A-Q of hearts to Sidhu's pocket sixes. The sixes held up, leaving Brammer with around 200,000 of the 2.9m chips in play and it was all over on the very next hand. In the final hand Sidhu's K-7 dominated Brammer's J-7.

It was the second time that Sidhu, known to his friends as Kully had cashed in a GUKPT main event, having previously finished 20^th in this same event two years ago. During the post-tournament interview he commented

“I thought that if I were to win anywhere, it would be here, as it's the only one I have cashed in before”

He went on to say

“I've never played so calmly before and was fully focused on the job in hand. I'm usually constantly on my phone, but this time I put it to one side.”

Only one player of the last ten had previously been on a GUKPT main event final table. That player was Joe Grech, who now has the enviable record of being the only player to make four GUKPT main event final tables. He is also the only player to have final tabled every year since the tour began. His first was in the inaugural GUKPT event in Bolton 2007 (9th), his second was Brighton 2008 (5^th) and last year he finished runner to Sunny Chattha at the Walsall leg of the tour. This time he exited in 6^th place. Fourth place went to London's Sam Grafton, while local Anutr Amranand claimed 5^th. Andrew Georgiou, who had been short stacked throughout the entire tournament clung on for 7^th place and Frenchman Loic Bernede from Strasbourg, who qualified online, was 8^th. Tony Constantinides from London and Preston's Tim Flanders completed the final table line up, finishing 9^th and 10^th respectively.

Sidhu's next target will be the main event at leg five of the GUKPT, which takes place at the G Casino in Coventry from 21^st -23^rd May. The festival at the casino, which is situated at Coventry City's Ricoh Arena begins on Monday 17^th May and features a week of warm up side events before the main event begins. Before then, the tour continues online in the poker room of gcasino.com on Monday 26^th April, when the 10% Series event takes place at 8pm. GUKPT ranking points and a seat in the Champion of Champions tournament are also awarded in this £100 online freezeout.

The Result