The sixth leg of The Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) has been staged at the G Casino in Luton.  A series of seven events took place over 9 days of competition, with Sam Trickett triumphing in the No Limit Hold’Em Freezeout Main Event.

A quality field of 376 players contested the main event.  In winning the title, Trickett had to overcome the likes of Neil Channing, Dave Colclough, David La Ronde and Julian Thew.  Some celebrities were also competing such as retired footballers Teddy Sheringham and his ex-Millwall striking partner Tony Cascarino.  Wayne Mardle more known for his flamboyant antics on the oche as a professional darts player is a keen poker player and was also competing.  Ex-Eastenders actor Michael Greco was also making an appearance.

Of these players only Wayne Mardle and David La Ronde qualified for the final table.  They joined Sam Trickett together with Peter Arrigoni, Martin Green, Martin Jarvis, Andreas Mihail, James Mitchell and Stuart Rutter as the final 9.  La Ronde held the chip lead at the start of the final table action, with 2 million chips compared to La Ronde’s 1.6 million.

The final heads-up was between Trickett and La Ronde.  Going into the heads-up, Trickett had managed to overtake La Ronde as chip leader.

It was all over when Trickett’s A-Q was too good for La Ronde’s A-7.  Trickett’s reward was £106,050 together with a seat at the GUKPT Grand Final in November and 150 GUKPT ranking points.  As runner-up La Ronde can console himself with a cool £62,050 plus 120 ranking points.

Trickett has recently been in good form after having a good WSOP where he finished in 4th place in the $5,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em six-handed event.  His reward on that day was almost £131,000.

At 22 years of age Trickett is the youngest player to win a GUKPT main event. 

Also of note was a good performance from Wayne Mardle.  The professional darts player can be seen on Sky Sports competing in the PDC darts event – now he has a good second source of income.  Wayne nicknamed “Hawai 501” earned himself £14,100 for finishing in 7th place.

Here is how the top 9 finished with their payouts:

Sam Trickett (£106,050)
David La Ronde (£62,050)
James Mitchell (£45,100)
Martin Jarvis (£30,100)
Martin Green (£23,500)
Peter Arrigoni (£17,850)
Wayne Mardle (£14,100)
Stuart Rutter (£11,300)
Andreas Mihail (£8,450)
Trickett’s win doesn’t affect the top of the GUKPT leaderboard with Nick Persaud still in first place with 230 ranking points.  Marc Goodwin stays second with 183 points and Julian Thew is in third place with 155 points.

The 7th leg of the GUKPT will take place in September in Bolton’s Grosvenor Casino from 1st – 7th September.  The Grand Final has been pencilled in for 27th – 30th November to be held in London at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino.
 

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