John Eames wins GUKPT Luton Main Event for £68,350

John Eames, the English poker pro with over $2million in tournament earnings to his name, added the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Luton Main Event title to his already impressive resume when he outlasted a field of 239 entries to take home the £68,350 first prize this weekend.

The big field meant that the £200k guarantee was easily reached, the £100 buy-in, 3-day tournament attracting some of England’s best players and rather uniquely seeing only English players filling the 23 paid spots – William ‘9high like a boss’ Kassouf and the Hendon Mob’s Joe Beevers among them.

Eames ‘dominated the final day like no other in the 11 year history of the Tour’ according to the GUKPT blog, the post-event interviews describing it as ‘how to use a big stack’ at the final table, ‘really, really good to watch’.

With the prizemoney on offer quite considerable for many of the players, several of whom had satellite their way in, Eames took advantage of the tables reluctance to get involved. Down to 5 players and the blog reported: ‘This has been a very quiet level of play on the final table with not much to speak of. John Eames is turning the screw and is increasing his stack slowly and surely. He currently has 2.4million of the 4.8million in play. Half the chips.’

Danny Toffel eventually fell in 5th when his pocket 8’s lost a race against AJ, while Catalin Dumitrascu got so short-stacked he had to shove with 7/5 and hit the rail when a Broadway straight hit the river for Harvey Norris.

John Eames stepped up to the plate to dispose of John Mooney, giving him an almost 6:1 chip lead entering heads-up play against Norris, a lead he never relinquished, the end coming soon afterwards as GUKPT reported live…

‘On a flop of 8♥ 8♣ 3♥ Harvey Norris moves all in for his 600k stack and John Eames snap call.

Harvey tables 6♣ 3♠ for two pair, but John has 8♦ 4♦ for trips!!

The turn card comes a five meaning Harvey is now drawing dead!! The river is meaningless.’

This left Harvey Norris taking home the runner-up paycheck to the tune of a healthy £27,960, while John Eames was crowned the GUKPT Luton 2017 Main Event Champion winning £68,350.

Next up for the GUKPT is the Blackpool leg of the tour in a month’s time.

GUKPT Luton Main Event results