Poker season is now in full swing in London and the 11th season of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour has found its first champion of the £1,100 buy-in Main Event in Michael Zhang who topped a field of 435 entries at Grosvenor Casino Victoria ‘The Vic’ poker room at the city’s Edgware Road to win a whopping £113,000 in London. It was a record-breaking crowd at the Main Event with 435 players and the top 40 finishers shared the £435,000 prize pool, with a min-cash amounting to £2,200.
The GUKPT Main Event proved good for Indian players. India’s poker lady Muskan Sethi final tabled and finished in the 8th place taking home £10,400 for her efforts. Well-known poker stars Aditya and Rajiv Sakaria also navigated their way to the money places. Both Aditya and Rajive cashed £3,000 in the 22nd and 23 place respectively. Rajive was first to get busted at 23rd place by Zapatero Gomez when his Ac-9h lost to Gomez’s Ad-Ah. The next Indian player to fall was Aditya who exited in 22nd place for the same amount of money. India’s Muskan Sethi was the only lady to final-table in this event. She finished in 8th place. She moved all-in with ace-queen for 420,000 to which Gomez Zapatero called with a pair of queens. The board ran out ten-high and Sethi’s tournament run finally came to end.
The final table of the GUKPT Main Event started with Alexios Zervos as the chip lead with 786,000 in chips. Trailing him were Paul Siddle on 2nd place with 715,000 and Sam Meeuse on 3rd place with 1,655,000 chips. Michael Zhang, who ultimately became the champion, was sitting in 4th position with 1,424,000 chips. Khoa Le who was 6th in chips was the first player to hit the rail. He was eliminated by Javier Gomez Zapatero. Shortly, Gomez Zapatero eliminated Muskan Sethi. Gomez Zapatero seemed unstoppable and soon he sent Alexios Zervos to rail. Now the table came down to six players. Gomez Zapatero continued firing and after a few hands, he sent Paul Siddle home in 5th place.
With blinds reaching 25,000/50,000/5,000, Carl Pickles found himself in trouble with a stack of 440,000 and got eliminated in 4th place when his eight of clubs failed to beat the pocket nines of Michael Zhang. After Fahd Bennani Smires fell in 3rd place, the heads-up match began between Zhang and Gomez Zapatero. Zhang held a massive 7,000,000 to 1,700,000 chip lead over his opponent, which gave him a real advantage. The final hand saw Gomez Zapatero raise with Jc-10c and Zhang made the call with Kc-5c. The flop came 2c-2s-8h to which Zhang checked and Gomez Zapatero fired out with 100,000. Zhang made the call to see the turn 9c. Zhang again checked and Gomez Zapatero bet 325,000 to which Zhang called again. The river 3c completed the board and Zhang checked. Gomez Zapatero moved all in and Zhang made the call to win the 2017 GUKPT main event.
Final Table Results:
1. Michael Zhang – £113,000
2. Javier Zapatero – £74,000
3. Fahd Bennanismires – £48,900
4. Carl Pickles – £29,400
5. Paul Siddle – £22,200
6. Sam Meeuse – £18,200
7. Alexios Zervos – £14,400
8. Muskan Sethi – £10,400
9. Khoa Le – £7,800