English Poker Open/GUKPT London

Keston Bests the Rest: Robin Keston Overcomes Field of 315 to Capture GUKPT London Title

Robin Keston has won GUKPT Leg 10 at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London, topping the largest £1,000 Main Event field so far this year and winning £84,310 after a marathon heads up battle with Daniel Rudd.

The Vic has long been established as poker home to many of the UK’s top players and host to some of its biggest tournaments, and Leg 10 of the GUKPT featured the most popular and fiercely competitive £1,000 Main Event on the 2012 tour so far. Among the entrants in the Main Event were Victoria Coren, Julian Thew, Barny Boatman and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, although they did not number among the 31 players paid from the £315,000 total prizepool.

Professional player Keston, while having amassed over $1.2 million in tournament winnings, does not count No Limit Hold’em tournaments as his games of choice. “I don’t play hold’em! I hate it with a passion so I don’t travel in Europe to play it anymore.” This didn’t stop him reaching the final table of, for example, the £10,000 World Series of Poker Europe in 2008, or racking up cashes around the globe since 1995 in a variety of poker variants.

Keston’s rare return from the cash and mixed games saw him re-enter the Main Event with just five minutes to spare, after popping out for a haircut after his first bust-out (all GUKPT Main Events feature a single re-entry allowed during the first 6 levels). Although he failed to top the chip counts after Days 1 and 2, a riveting final table saw him dealt Aces in three key hands which overturned Matthew Davenport’s lead and gave him the stack of the opponent on the final table who he noted had been giving him the most trouble – Ramsey Ajram (4th for £22,050).

Davenport was runner up last month in the Main Event at GUKPT Coventry, and right up until mid-final table had been looking to outdo his performance. Neither he, nor runner-up Rudd could stop Keston once he’d built his stack, however, although it took three hours of heads up play to decide a winner.

The blinds on the final table reached the 50,000/100,000 level, a feat only matched once so far this year. “It was slipping away from me,” said Keston, “I had to give myself a talking to in the break, came back to ramp it up. With a big lead like that it’s yours to lose!”