Bernard Litman has taken top honours in the first main event of the 2009 GUKPT. The 53-year old entrepreneur from Benfleet in Essex secured the £70,520 first prize after he defeated a field of 235 runners at the Grosvenor casino in Brighton. Litman took the title after a thirty-minute heads up battle with 22-year old James Sudworth from Kent. Litman held a chip lead of over 2:1 after taking out catwalk model Nick Holbrook in third place and extended his lead even further during the early stages of the heads up encounter. He then allowed James to get back into the match by calling an all in bet with K-2 against the young online pro’s pocket queens. However all the chips soon found their way into the middle again when both players were dealt pocket pairs. On this occasion Litman’s jacks were too good for Sudworth’s sevens, bringing the 4-day tournament to a conclusion.

Sudworth, who also made the final table of the £300 NL Hold’em side event earlier in the week, took home £43,480 for his efforts.

The final table also included former EPT winner Norwegian Andreas Hoivold, who took control of the early stages of the final, just as he did in last November’s Blackpool GUKPT main event, where he eventually finished in third place. He maintained his chip lead until there were four players left but then relinquished his advantage and was eventually taken out by Sudworth when holding A-T against the youngster’s pocket nines. 21-year old Keir Ratcliff, a roofer from London finished in fifth place and fellow 21-year old Ramsey Ajram, an engineering student from London, was sixth. Richard Lewidon (7th), Matt Perrins (8th) and Nathan Lee (9th) completed the final table line up.

During the post-tournament interview Litman paid compliments to his heads-up opponent and admitted that it had been a hard slog to get through the £1,000 no limit Texas hold’em tournament. He went on to say that he has been playing poker for over five years now, but has recently seen a marked improvement in his game, both online and live. Last year he qualified online at Blue Square Poker for several GUKPT events, but this time he paid in directly with his own cash. With five players left he had the smallest chip stack, but then doubled up to put himself back in contention. He identified this as the key turning point as he then went from strength to strength, dominating the latter stages of the final.

The side events in the week-long festival were all very well attended. Former GUKPT main event champion Dave Colclough won the £100 Omaha rebuy tournament, while main event finalist Matt Perrins secured victory in the £200 NL Hold’em festival opener. Shana Casaletto, a local player, became the first woman to win an event this year when she took down Friday’s £100 NL Hold’em freezeout and remarkably followed this up by winning Saturday’s £250 event. She is the first player in the history of the tour to win back-to back tournaments and is only the second female player to taste victory on the GUKPT.

*Bernard Litman also wins a seat in the GUKPT’s £100,000 Champion of Champions tournament.