Priyan de Mel has won Leg 1 of the 2010 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, becoming the first player to win back-to- back £1,000 main events. The Londoner defeated a field of 146 players at the G Casino in Bolton to take home £44,600 and the first of new tour sponsor gcasino.com’s stylish trophies. In November 2009 he also won Blackpool’s main event and is now only the third player to have secured two main event titles. His heads up opponent was Andrew Purser from Margate, who was playing in his first main event final table. With four players left de Mel had a commanding chip lead, but after Purser eliminated Harrogate’s Jamie Sykes in third place, the gap had been narrowed and just 50,000 chips out of 2.2m separated the two players. De Mel had the best of the early exchanges and once again rebuilt his chip lead. The final hand occurred after over an hour of heads up when Purser moved all in with K-T and was called by de Mel, who had A-4. The board of 8-Q-4-9-9 settled the encounter in favour of the 36-year-old property developer.

De Mel was elated to have captured his second GUKPT title, but commented in the post tournament interview that he was thirsty for further success

 “I’m really happy to have done back-to-back titles, but three titles is a good target to aim for.”

He went on to say

“Most of my friends are in Australia now so I didn’t have many people here supporting me, but I guess them being away made it easier for me to win this one.”

He also praised Andrew Purser’s play, saying

“He was short stacked and played a brilliant game to get heads up.”

The final table included another previous main event winner in Jeff Kimber, who exited in 8th place. 4th placed Terry Owens from Liverpool was competing in his second main event final table and 9th placed Aaron Barry from Harrogate had made two previous finals. Cornwall’s Marc Wright (5th), Manchester’s Justin Devonport (6th) and the Preston pair of Philip Booth (7th) and Mark Robinson (10th) completed the ten-handed final table.

In previous years the final table of GUKPT events had been nine-handed, but this year it has been changed to ten. Winner Priyan de Mel was in seat ten and remarked afterwards that ten is his lucky number and also the date he was born on.

The next event on the GUKPT calendar takes place at 8pm on Monday 25th January online on bluesqpoker.com. It is a £100 NL Hold’em tournament and is the first of the GUKPT’s Online 10% Series. Online events will take place throughout 2010 on the day after each of the live festivals concludes and will be for 10% of the buy-in of the main event that has just finished. As per all live GUKPT tournaments, the winners of these online tournaments will earn a seat into December’s £150,000 Champion of Champions tournament.

The next live GUKPT events will be the inaugural GUKPT Club Championships tournaments. Every Grosvenor & G Casino with a poker room will host one of these £200 NL Hold’em freezeouts in 2010 and the first batch of these will take place on February 13th at the G Casinos in Blackpool, Coventry and Thanet; and at the Grosvenor Casinos in Leeds and Swansea. All start at 2.00pm and players will get 10,000 starting chips each.

The main tour resumes on February 20th, when Leg 2 begins at the Grosvenor Casino in Walsall. The main event takes place from the 25th - 28th February, with two starting days on Thursday 25th and Friday 26th.

As the smoke clears and the dust settles, another star of UK poker has emerged in the shape of 36-year old Londoner Priyan de Mel. Although Priyan joins Messieurs Cascarino and Thew as one of only three double GUKPT winners, Priyan now boasts a record of his very own as the only player in GUKPT history to win back-to-back £1,000 Main Event titles, a quite incredible feat that, as Priyan himself said “is something I could tell my grandkids with pride later in life”.

Those who watched from the rail and have encountered Priyan’s game before will know full well that these last few months have been no fluke. Ever since he accompanied the Hit Squad to the poker tables, Priyan has continually been on the verge of a success, yet that major title had always evaded him with numerous near misses. But just like busses, you wait for one and then two come along at once.

With the stage being dismantled, this year’s opening GUKPT draws to an abrupt close and we say cheerio to our Bolton friends. Their hospitality this week has been top notch with a brand spanking new casino and friendly service from the lovely waitresses right up to the glamorous manager Sue Price, who threatened to cause me great pain if I failed to mention her. The field for the Main Event wasn’t the biggest around, but with the increased stacks, cracking atmosphere, and exciting finale I’m confident that Walsall’s leg next month will be a hotly contested affair.

So, with staff giving me the evils and prompting me to shift, it’s forks at the ready time, ‘cos I’m done.

“It’s only a matter of time,” mused Priyan de Mel, and within seconds, that time arrived. As he had done on many hands before, Andrew Purser open shoved all in to leave the decision solely on the shoudlers of his opponent. De Mel held his cards up, paused momentarily and announced call.

De Mel = As-4c
Purser = Kc-Th

Flop: 8d-Qs-4h

Turn: 9s

Any jack, any king, any ten!…

River: 9d

And it’s over! Priyan de Mel is the Bolton GUKPT Champion for 2010!

Andrew Purser is proving to be a true survivor and nigh on impossible to eliminate. Priyan de Mel, meanwhile, is still doing his utmost to keep pots small, limping most buttons. On the last hand, he made up the small blind with K-Q, only for Purser to push all in for a total of 569,000 from the big blind. De Mel seemed tempted, and tried his best to prise information out of his opponent, but ultimately decided to make the fold and go to battle on another hand.

Just as it looked like he was eeking his way back into this heads-up encounter, Andrew Purser got bashed straight back down. It was Priyan de Mel who started things off, raising to 80,000 preflop. Purser made the call.

Explosions on the Ad-8s-9c flop as de Mel bet 100,000, Purser made it 300,000 and de Mel pushed all in. Purser quickly folded and is back on 475,000 as a result.

“I’m going to grind you down again, but this time you’re not going to double up,” warned de Mel.

With Priyan de Mel making up the small blind, Andrew Purser announced all-in leaving the action firmly on the shoulders of a perplexed de Mel. As always, de Mel rose from his seat before making his decision, declaring, “I have an ace, Andy.”

“Andy, do you have an ace?” he continued. “I’m going into one of these,” replied Purser as he dropped his head and adopted his poker face. “I have a crap kicker though,” probed de Mel. “Hey, you lifted your head up when I said that…

OK, I call.”

De Mel = Ad-3h
Purser = Ah-5h

Flop: Td-9c-8h

A split pot looks almost certain…

Turn: 2c

Even with a deuce hitting the turn, Purser can only win with a four or a five…

River: 4s

And it’s there! Double up for Purser!!

“How can a four come?” observed a bemused De Mel, seemingly fixed to the spot with his mouth ajar.

Priyan de Mel — 1,438,000
Andrew Purser — 756,000

With Andrew Purser dropping to around the half a million mark, he’s started to suggest that an all-in fest is imminent, but Priyan de Mel, clearly wanting to continue to play small ball poker, is eager to prevent this from happening: “You’ve still got, what, 20 bigs or something, you don’t have to start all that just yet. Wait ’til I give you the signal.”

On the very next hand, however, Purser limped, only for Mel to take one peek down at his cards and announce all-in. Purser quickly folded.

“Well, I’ve gotta mix it up a bit haven’t I?” he smiled.

It’s the Priyan de Mel Show at the moment as he continues to chip away at Purser’s stack.

Priyan de Mel — 1,630,000
Andrew Purser — 564,000

Priyan de Mel — 1,384,000
Andrew Purser — 810,000