Ilyukhin Crowned GUKPT London Champion

Ilyukhin Crowned GUKPT London Champion

Monday, 2 February 2015

The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) has crowned its first winner of the new 2015 season after Victor Ilyukhin took the honours in the opening leg in London.

The Russian topped a field of 289 entrants at the Poker Room at the Vic and pocketed a career-best score of £83,600.

The 63-year-old is the father of Victor Ilyukhin Junior who has enjoyed a string of excellent results on the European tournament circuit. Ilyukhin the younger was impressed with his father's fantastic efforts, telling GUKPT commentator Phil Heald that his father had made “not one mistake” en route to taking down the title and that he was "extremely proud". As he should be after such a stellar performance.

20 players started Sunday dreaming of GUKPT glory and it didn't take long for the chips to fly with the likes of Joe Beevers, Ellie Biessek and Barny Boatman among the early casualties.

Barny was joined on the rail by brother Ross soon after. Despite the three most famous naming departing early on there was still plenty of class on show at a final table that included recent Master Classics of Poker finalist Charlie Combes and last year's Sky Poker UK Championship winner Alex Spencer.

None could match Ilyukhin though who pipped Spencer to the title after a brief but frantic heads up contest.

The final hand summed up the two-handed action with Ilyukhin in front with pocket queens but Spencer by no means out of it with AJ. A crazy JJ2 flop gave Spencer the advantage but it would proved short-lived as Ilyukhin hit his two-outer with the very next card. The blank river sent Spencer to the rail £54,050 to the good.

GUKPT London Main Event

1st – Victor Ilyukhin £82,600
2nd – Alex Spencer £54,050
3rd – Zahari Petrov £33,800
4th – Niall Murray £21,950
5th – Vladimir Swaton £15,050
6th – Adrian Memed £11,250
7th – Charlie Combes £8,950
8th – Ross Boatman £7,250
9th – Jerome O’Shea £6,050

The GUKPT heads north to Manchester for its next stop with the £200,000 guaranteed Main Event starting on Thursday 12 March.

In the meantime there's Grosvenor 25/25 action in Newcastle and Thanet later this week. Both feature guarantees of £25,000, all for the very affordable buy-in of £200+£20. Players can buy in direct at both venues or qualify online at GrosvenorPoker.com.

Image courtesy of GUKPT.com.



Tags: GUKPT London, Victor Ilyukhin, Alex Spencer