Family guy and professional poker player Julian Thew has won the eighth leg of the GUKPT in Plymouth, defeating 178 other players. Having narrowly missed out on a final table appearance two months ago in Newcastle he has now buried that bad memory and replaced it with the perfect memento as he walked away with almost £70,000 in prize money, a seat in the Grand Final and a rather fetching Blue Square trophy to add to the many he already owns. Julian is one of the good guys of British poker, a perfect gentleman both on and off the tables and a very worthy winner of the most talked about poker tour in the UK. He defeated Londoner Chaz Chattha after a relatively brief heads up encounter when his pocket nines stood up against Chaz’s A-2. Softly spoken Julian is currently on holiday in Cornwall with his wife and two young children, but has proven that it is indeed possible to successfully mix business and pleasure.

It was the earliest finish yet for a final table on the GUKPT, ending before 11pm, some five hours shorter than the two previous legs that both went on until 4.00 am. It was a high quality final nine, including six professional players, two locals and the second ever female finalist in Barbara Gibson from Chepstow. The chip counts going into the final were:

Local Richard Frost was very short-stacked going into the final and did not manage to recover, exiting within a couple of laps of the table. Barbara Gibson played bravely but went in eighth place when she called a Julian Thew reraise with K-Q only to walk into his pocket queens. Royal Navy weapons engineer Chris Hooper, who had played strongly throughout the tournament was next to go when his A-T was no match for Julian’s A-K. By this stage Julian had built up a commanding chip lead and was beginning to dominate the table. TV table specialist and pro sports bettor Ian Cox was out in 6th while online poker pro Chris More went in fifth.

Mickey Wernick had gone into the final as the second shortest stack but had built up steadily in the early part of the final. However he faced a couple of aggressive reraises which depleted his stack and once again he found himself clinging on for dear life. But it was not to be for the Blue Square sponsored pro as he eventually fell in a three was pot when holding A-5. He was very short stacked at this point and both Julian and Chaz checked it down, Chaz winning the pot as his Q-J improved when a queen hit board. Scott O’Reilly, the chip leader going into the final table was the third place finisher. He had been unable to extend his early lead and gradually slipped down the leaderboard. Scott finished 54th in the 2006 WSOP main event, but was unlucky here as his pocket aces were cracked by Chaz’s 7-6. Two sixes sealed his fate and left Chaz as the new chip leader going into the heads up encounter. Chaz, along with his brother Sunny is a member of Praz Bansi and Karl Mahrenholz’s Hitsquad team and had good support from the rail, but it was not to be for the successful young south London pro. He was understandably a bit subdued afterwards, but will take great solace from his performance once the dust has settled down. Like Mickey Wernick, he was one of the shortest stacked players left on Day 2 when there were 18 players left and pessimistically thought he was going to bubble. When he puts this into perspective he will be very pleased with his payday of over £30,000.

London is the next stop on the GUKPT roller coaster, where Julian will attempt to become the first GUKPT winner to win back-to-back titles.

Sponsors Blue Square give an additional £10,000 to the winner plus a seat in the GUKPT Grand Final!