33-year old Van salesman Kevin Parkes from Walsall has won the inaugural GUKPT Summer Series main event at the G casino in Bolton. He defeated a field of 77 players in the £500 two-day event to take home a first prize of £12,700. His heads up opponent was the very experienced Allan McLean from Blackpool, but the head-to-head encounter was all over in a few short hands. After taking out Lee Atherton in 3rd place, McLean drew level with Parkes in terms of their chip counts, but the key hand took place just a few moments later. On a flop of A-8-T, Parkes announced all in and McLean called. Parkes held A-K, which dominated McLean’s A-2. The turn was a 6 and the river a king. That left McLean with just 11,500 chips and it was all in on the next hand. This time Parkes had A-T to McLean’s J-6, but a board of 9-K-5-9-Q brought no improvement for either player and with that it was all over bar the handshakes and the trophy presentation.

In the post event awards ceremony the winner commented that he was delighted to have won, as he had bubbled several times before in GUKPT events. It is however not the first time he has lifted a GUKPT trophy as he won a side event here in Bolton on the 2008 tour.

The final table also featured Greg Hunt, who was the only player to have previously graced a GUKPT main event final table. The talkative but good-natured Andy Bradshaw claimed the 5th spot. The 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th placed finishers were all eliminated early on during the final. Remarkably all four were taken out during the space of five hands. They were Anthony Mace, Najam Qureshi, Ghalib Hussain and Philippa Flanders, whose husband Tim narrowly missed out on a final table spot.

The four-day festival also featured a £200 NL Hold’em freezeout in which Dhanesh Patel fended off a field of 122 players to take home the spoils. It also included a £300 NL Hold’em freezeout, which had 65 runners and was won by Alli Mallu. The GUKPT Summer Series continues next week at the GUKPT at the G casino in Aberdeen.

For an in depth account of how the tournament unfolded, please visit the Live page on the GUKPT website www.gukpt.com

Venue:G Casino, Bolton
Date: 13/06/2009
Event: £500 NL Hold'em Freezeout
Length: 2 days
Runners:77
Total Prize Pool: £38,500
The full result:

Kevin Parkes also wins a seat into the £100,000 GUKPT Champion of Champions event, which takes place at the G casino in Luton on December 5th & 6th.