GUKPT Grand Final Thread

Report of the Grand Final

Bui Done Good: Leon Bui Wins GUKPT Grand Final 2010

Leon Bui has been crowned the 2010 GUKPT Grand Final champion, securing one of the toughest titles on the poker calendar and £144,905 at London’s Grosvenor Victoria Casino. He beat a field of 207 players in total, including a whole swathe of previous Main Event champions from the last few years, finally defeating Nicolas Irving in the early hours of the morning to capture the trophy after three intense days of tournament poker in the capital. His win puts him at the top of the year’s Prize Money Rankings, with £200,905, but could only propel him to 4th in the GUKPT Ranking Points Leaderboard, as the final festival of the year’s tour came to a thrilling conclusion.

In an interesting bubble twist, David Johnson, the man sitting atop the Rankings, came tantalisingly close to a 17th cash after a deep run in the biggest tournament of the tour, only to fall on the bubble to eventual 9th place finisher Chris Brammer. Johnson might have just missed out on the cash, but may find the £80,000 he’s won over the year and the £20,000 first place prize for topping the 2010 Rankings somewhat of a consolation.

Among those who did make the money were last year’s Grand Final champion Tony Cascarino, who won £168,800 after besting a slightly slimmer field of 183 players here at the Vic in 2009. He was joined in the payout queue on Day Two by seven other players, including Alex Rousso, Craig McCorkell, Buddy Love and Keith Johnson, while Emmanuel Sebag – earlier boasting a stack nearing the million mark – was eliminated in 13th place right at the close of play.

The final day saw a dozen determined players return to the felt, the first to be eliminated standing to gain £7,760, but everyone, from chip leader Lee Song to short stacks Danny Toffel and James Sudworth, looking towards the final table itself and the six-figure first prize accompanying the Grand Final title.

The two players taking their leave without a spell at the final table were Danny Toffel, who lost a race with pocket fours to Martin Green’s A-Q after over an hour of twelve-handed play, and Jamie Burland. Burland was aiming for his second final table of the year, having come 4th in June’s Luton Summer Series Main Event, but fell to Ash Miah’s flush draw, calling with top pair on a King-high flop and failing to hold on the river.

The ten-handed final started with a bang, as the shortest stack James Sudworth fell to the largest, Song Lee. Sudworth found an Ace, Lee the K-J, and a couple of Jacks on the board later, Sudworth was the first to leave the live-streamed final with £9,055 in his pocket.

Chris Brammer, seemingly equipped with plenty of lives (not to mention a jammed raise button), had doubled through Martin Green earlier on, all in preflop with J-8, hitting an eight to beat Green’s A-J. This had given the young player the stack he needed not only to join the final ten, but also to join vigorous battle with all those remaining, leading to his stack rising and falling like the tide until a dominated-Ace confrontation with Ash Miah left him firmly back at square one. This time his all-in K-T failed to improve against the A-T of Song Lee, and he exited in 9th place. Closely following him to the rail was suave Swede Andreas Afeldt, whose quiet early strategy had left him in shove-preflop mode but with two players already down; when his T-J was picked off by Leon Bui with A-K preflop he left in 8th place with £14,230.

Paul Alterman, arguably the loudest-supported player during his entrance, couldn’t secure the home victory as the in-form Song Lee picked up A-Q at the same moment Alterman made his move with A-3, taking yet another scalp and adding to his now nearly two million chip stack. The first application of the brakes to Lee’s ascent came from Leon Bui (fresh from a mid-final double up courtesy of A-J and Nicolas Irving) who found the Aces and doubled through Lee to over 1.6 million, suddenly snatching the chip lead six-handed.

A very short period of lull followed, but soon a huge hand turned the tide once again, dropping Bui back to a more modest stack and knocking out Martin Green whose timing couldn’t have been much worse – he moved all-in preflop with pocket sixes, and found not one, but two big pairs behind him. Leon Bui had Kings and Ash Miah had Queens; all three hands ended up on their backs and the board was dealt out in truly dramatic fashion. On the all-heart flop, Miah spiked a Queen, prompting uproar among the spectators and some leaping from seats at the final. The turn was a fourth heart, and suddenly the Kings were back in the lead, but only briefly, as the river paired the board sending a crucial pot to Miah and eliminating Green in 6th place for £23,290.

Leon Bui quickly bounced back, busting the start-of-day chip leader Song Lee in the process. This time a Queen-high flop brought in both players, Bui calling Lee’s all-in move with A-Q dominating his Q-9. With the final suddenly four-handed (Bui holding half the chips in play) the clock changed to 45 minutes, the blinds reached 20k/40k, and crowds of supporters for the finalists pooled in different areas behind the web-streamed table.

Until this very late stage, Hit Squad member Chaz Chattha had been relatively quiet, albeit making some interesting moves at the final (including calling correctly with King-high on the river and picking the rare but effective spot for a three-bet). Now a cooler gave him most of Ash Miah’s stack as his A-A hit an Ace-high flop that much better than Miah’s A-K. In just moments Chattha had doubled through while Miah, after a mini comeback (from just one and a half big blinds) finally ran a dominated hand into Nicolas Irving and made his exit in 4th place, winning £37,520.

The next player to run the short-stack all in gauntlet was Irving himself, who, in contrast to Miah, found three times to be the charm rather than the curse. From the brink of elimination, Irving squeaked a split with a dominated King then doubled up twice through Chaz Chattha. The second time (a race with fours vs. Chattha’s A-J) sent the popular Hit Squad member down to the felt, and moments later he was eliminated in 3rd place, for £63,395.

Now heads up, Leon Bui held nearly a two to one lead over Nicolas Irving, but there was no instant big clash. Instead, a cagey half hour saw Irving put up a good fight (bluffing the chip leader off with 8-2 suited at one point) but ultimately succumb to Bui’s whittling, finishing his tournament, and the Grand Final Main Event, with a race, J-9 vs. 2-2. The deuces held for Bui, and while Irving takes home an impressive £98,325 for his runner-up finish, the title and the £144,905 first prize went to a grinning Leon Bui.

Final Table Finishing Positions
1st: Leon Bui - £144,905
2nd: Nicolas Irving - £98,325
3rd: Chaz Chattha - £63,395
4th: Ash Miah - £37,520
5th: Song Lee - £28,460
6th: Martin Green - £23,290
7th: Paul Alterman - £18,110
8th: Andreas Afeldt - £14,230
9th: Chris Brammer - £10,350
10th: James Sudworth - £9,055

Side Event Results
Seven side events accompanied London’s Grand Final, all of a sizeable buy-in reflecting the capital’s one-off £2,500 Main Event seeing out the 2010 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour. First up was a £300 No Limit Hold’em Freezeout which attracted 143 runners and eventually handed Dean Swift, Simon Baskerville and Robert Angood £9,050 each in a three-way chop after two long days. While their final table was underway, the £500 Pot Limit Omaha Double-chance Freezeout saw its first cards in the air; the final hand determined Frank Pini as the winner winning £5,000 and Janpete Jachtmann the runner up winning £4,750.
The £500 No Limit Hold’em Freezeout on the 20th November attracted double the field of its four-card variant the day before, and the top prize of £10,390 was awarded to Radoslav Lukaev, with Guy Steel taking £7,480 for 2nd place, and Kevin Williams £4,690 for 3rd. There followed a further selection of No Limit Hold’em tournaments for all bankrolls – a £200 No Limit Freezeout, a £300 event with one Rebuy or Add-on, and a £200 event with unlimited rebuys.
The freezeout was again a close call at the very end, with Yin Yau placing officially second but taking £4,500 from the £23,200 prize pool, while Rob Garfield (1st) won £3,790 and Adib Hashem, George Rankin and Mark Hutchinson won £3,500 apiece. The £300 event saw an expectedly modest 24 rebuys from its 53 entrants compared to the 46 made by the 40 runners in the £200 Rebuy, but built a respectable £27,000 prize pool, over half of which was shared by the top spots Justin Tazelaar and Lawrence Samuel who won £7,700 each. The Rebuy event, meanwhile, was won by Nathan Lee (£7,340).
While several of these multi-table tournaments were starting and ending (sending each winner into December’s upcoming Champion of Champion’s Event), the World Heads Up Poker Championship was also underway, streamed live online, as 28 competitors played individual heads up matches until just one player was left standing – Nik Persaud, who took £30,000 and the 2010 WHUPC title, beating Leon Louis in the final match.
The final event, wrapping up the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, was the £150 No Limit Hold’em Bounty Freezeout. This type of tournament now seems traditional at the end of a week of tournaments, and the final instalment for the year saw 72 players compete over a prize pool of £9,000. Jeremy Margolin emerged victorious many hours after the Main Event’s televised table had seen all the action for this year come to an end – he took home £2,815 for his first place finish as well as the final seat in the Champion of Champions.