Good Win for BadPab in GUKPT Grand Final

Paul ‘BadPab’ Foltyn has won the 2008 Grand Final of the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, defeating a field of 184 players to take home a first prize of £167,000. He eventually overcame Londoner Jeff Duvall after a monumental heads up battle that lasted in excess of three hours at the Grosvenor Victoria casino in London. 24-year-old Paul is one of the top ten online tournament players in the UK and although he has previously made a final table at the WSOP, this victory is the most glittering of his career to date. After knocking out Jeweller Guy Steel in third place he held a significant chip advantage over Duvall, but the lead changed hands several times over the course of the next few hours. The intriguing match up finally came to an end with the young Yorkshire man emerging victorious when holding 6-4 on an 8-K-5-7 board against Jeff’s 6-5. Jeff could only split the pot, but a queen on the river ended the tournament and gave Paul the title.  The new champion was lost for words during the immediate aftermath, but regained his composure to pay credit to his opponent during the post-tournament interview. Duvall was equally gracious in defeat and although disappointed not to have taken the ultimate crown, he vowed to come back next year and try and go one better. Both players can take credit for playing their part in the most competitive heads up encounter of the tour this year.

It was yet another high quality final table, which included one previous GUKPT main event winner in Tony Cascarino, who finished in 6th place. Richard Ashby (9th), Surinder Sunar (8th) and Stuart Rutter (5th) were each playing in their second GUKPT main event final table. Vic regular Stuart Nash (7th) and Nowegian Eirik Svanes (4th) completed the final table line up. Svanes went into the nine-handed final as the chip leader and with four players left he was in a strong position, but lost most of his stack to Foltyn, before gifting the remainder to Duvall. It is the second GUKPT main event final table in a row that has featured a Norwegian player and earlier in the week his compatriot Kjetil Naess took down one of the side events.

The second year of the GUKPT is almost over and will be concluded on Thursday 4th December at the G casino in Luton where the Champion of Champions tournament takes place. To read a blow-by-blow account of how the final table unfolded, please check out the GUKPT blog