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Poker News Round-up: Week #22 GUKPT Newcastle winner Tony Phillips Players have now commenced the battle for bracelets in the Amazon Room but before we turn our attention to Las Vegas it’s time for a brief recap of the latest GUKPT action in marginally less glamorous Tyneside. The Newcastle leg looked as though it may have been turning into something of a flop at one point when only 42 players started day 1a, but a much better turn out for 1b saw the Grosvenor casino get a respectable field together in the end. Many of the early pace setters were able to keep hold of their chips and make it through to the final table, such as day two chip leader Tony Phillips who had managed to accumulate over a quarter of the chips in play by the time the final started. Along with Steve Jelinek Phillips quickly dispatched the remaining contestants and it wasn’t long before these two were heads up. After a little spell of passing chips back and forth both were happy to get it all in pre flop when Jelinek’s 9  $25k heads up runner up David Benefield Meanwhile online the action has been pretty heated recently on Full Tilt, including another of their $25,000 heads up tournaments. Many of the site’s sponsored pros fell in the early stages but leading the charge for the red names was David Benefield who progressed to the final match up where he met Ashton Griffin aka theAshman103. Griffin had already beaten Isaac Haxton and previous winner of this event David Singer, and confirmed his pedigree by finishing off Benefield in short time after hitting a couple of flops hard and getting paid off. Griffin collects $551,250 to give him a nice bankroll boost just before the WSOP starts. It isn’t just the tournaments which have seen big money changing hands though as Tom Dwan and Ilari Zahamies have been continuing their battle in which they raise and re-raise $500/$1,000 blinds every hand to create their own $3,000/$6,000 pot limit Omaha game. Sahamies emerged in better shape than Dwan this week, thanks in no small part to one pot which was worth in excess of $700,000 – the largest online Omaha pot ever. Part of the WSOP festivities are the inductions made to the Poker Hall Of Fame, which for the past thirty years has been accepting distinguished players and others who have contributed to the game. In 2009 for the first time members of the public will be able to play a part in deciding who the nominations are and between now and July 2nd you can propose your own candidates. The top ten nominees will be revealed during the WSOP main event, so if you want to hear Jeffrey Pollack publicly announce that __FullFlush1__ is on the shortlist to join Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese then pop along to the worldseriesofpoker.com website and get voting. In the meantime at the Rio the first bracelet has been won by Andrew Cohen who took first place in the casino employees event. He managed to beat 865 of his colleagues in the opening $500 event for $83,778 but the action everyone has been wanting to see is taking place in event 2- the $40,000 no limit hold’em which had attracted much debate beforehand about the number of runners it would get. Perhaps two decent indicators to work with were the 338 who played the $25,000 WPT grand final in April and the 148 at last year’s $50,000 HORSE, so the final tally of 201 runners was a little lower than many had expected. That is certainly true of Barry Greenstein who had his money on over 220 thus ensuring that his WSOP gets off to a losing start, but it’s probably safe enough to assume that he’ll be winning some of that back at a later stage. There were a handful of UK players among the 201 and although a couple have fallen Chris Moorman, John Duthie and Neil Channing have all progressed to day two, as has Ireland’s Andy Black who is pretty well placed. A massive $1,891,012 awaits whoever can find their way through this very strong line up but it will be well deserved as there are no easy chips here. Further news of this event will follow next week, by which time we will also know the destination of the seven card stud world championship bracelet plus a number of other side events.
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