Shortly after midnight in the morning of Monday 21st January 2008, Julian Thew became the first player to win two GUKPT main events. He defeated a field of 280 to take down the first prize of £86,800, a seat in the £3,000 Grand Final, a seat in the Champion of Champions tournament and a place in history as one of the greatest tournament poker players the UK has ever produced. Shortly after winning leg 8 of the 2007 GUKPT in Plymouth he took down the EPT main event in Baden and has now astonished the poker world once again by adding a third major victory in just over four months. Julian took the victory in his stride and paid compliments to runner up Karim Louis, whom he defeated after a marathon two and a half hour heads up battle.

Karim, who owns his own corporate event management company, held almost a 2:1 chip lead over Thew after eliminating early chip leader Jim Reid in third place. After a rather cagey start to the heads up encounter, the Nottingham man closed the gap somewhat before winning a massive all-in pot with A-K versus Karim’s pocket tens. Londoner Karim fought back and almost drew level with Thew on several occasions in a match up dominated by small pot poker. However it all came to an end when Julian’s pocket fives held up against Karim’s A-Q. In the post match interviews both players paid compliments to each other’s play. Thew was typically humble in victory while Louis took his defeat graciously.

The chip counts going into the final were:

Jim Reid took out Shortstack Robert Cowen on the very first hand of the final. His pocket fours flopped quads and Cowen, who had committed much of his stack preflop, pushed with pocket queens. Italian Fabio Esposito was the next to go when his JT was not good enough for Karin’s pocket threes. Although Fabio hit a jack on the turn, a three on the flop had left him drawing pretty slim. Marcus Bebb-Jones went in 7th place, but made up for it by promptly entering the £150 side event and going on to achieve victory on his second final table of the day. Nik Persaud, making his first GUKPT final table after two near misses last year did not see much in the way pf playable cards during his final table stint was the 6th placed finisher while jovial Joe Grech, who had dominated the tournament for much of day 2 came 5th. Irishman Michael Bolger, playing in his first GUKPT finished in 4th place. Jim Reid, despite increasing his chip lead in the early stages of the final, lost most of his chips on a diamond flush draw against Karim Louis. Karim had the higher draw and although it failed to materialise for both players, he had already hit a pair on the flop. This decimated Jim’s once formidable stack and he was out not long after.

The next GUKPT event is in Walsall from February 11th-17th. The main event takes place from the 14th-17th where a field of up to 400 players are expected to take part in one of the biggest GUKPT events held to date. Julian Thew will unfortunately not be there to attempt to take his GUKPT title tally to three, but given his current form, perhaps that is not such a bad thing for the rest of the players.

The winner also receives a free entry to the £3,000 Grand Final plus a seat in the Champion of Champion’s tournament; both courtesy of tour sponsor Blue Square Poker. All the final table players received an iPod Nano.