30-year old Martin Silke from Castlebar in County Mayo has won the third leg of the 2009 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour at the Grosvenor Victoria casino in London. He outlasted a field of 398 players to take down the £172,850 first prize after four long days of no limit Texas Hold’em poker. It was the first leg of the tour to feature a £1,500 main event and the £597,000 prize pool was the largest in the history of the tour. Silke defeated Londoner Luke Trotman after an exciting and at times emotionally charged heads up battle. The pair played one against one for almost an hour and a half before the final hand, in which Martin held A-K versus Trotman’s A-4. All the chips went into the middle on a board of A-7-9-J and a harmless ten on the river settled the encounter. A few hands earlier Trotman had misread the board and prematurely celebrated what he thought was a tournament winning hand when making a flush on the river, only to have his hopes dashed when Silke pointed out that he had hit a full house.

Silke, a publican by trade now has his eyes set on the Irish Open, which takes place in Dublin over the Easter weekend. He commented that

"My next target is to do well in the Irish Open and I would love to win the Irish Poker Championship (IPC) next January in Galway."

In addition to the trophy and the six-figure payday, Silke has also secured himself a seat in the exclusive GUKPT Champion of Champions tournament, which takes place in December at the G casino in Luton.

The final table also featured Dave Colclough, a previous winner of a GUKPT main event, but he was the first player to depart, finishing in 9th place. Simon Eastwood was the next man out in 8th and Norwegian player Andreas Hagen was next to go, finishing in 7th place. Chaz Chattha, whose brother Sunny won leg 2 in Walsall last month was the 6th. He was playing in his second GUKPT final table, having finished as runner up in the Plymouth leg of the tour in 2007. Cuong Tran was 5th while another previous GUKPT main event runner up, Jamie Brown, took the 4th place spot. Third placed Sam Oatley was playing in only his second live tournament. His first was last week when he played a satellite tournament at the Victoria casino to secure his seat in the main event.

Venue: Grosvenor Victoria Casino, London, UK
Date: 26/03/2009 - 29/03/2009
Event: £1500 NL Hold'em Freezeout
Length: 4 days
Runners: 398
Total Prize Pool: £597,000
Result:

The winner also gets a seat in the Champion of Champions tournament