Last year, one of the events which stood out on the annual calendar of UK Poker tournaments, was the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships main event. With a guaranteed prize pool of £500,000, it drew poker talents from all corners of our own kingdom, along with a few players from overseas.
Tournaments of that size don’t come along often, so when it was announced that the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships 2015 would have a £1 million prize pool guaranteed, it really became a special tournament for players to look forward to.
1,002 players made the trip to Nottingham to play in the main event and paid their £1,000 buy in. When the final day came around, there were 31 players left standing, with a familiar name topping the chip count in Matas Cimbolas. Having won this years Sky Poker UK Poker Championships high roller title, and reaching the final table at the Deauville in the European Poker Tour recently, he has enjoyed a great start to the year.
Despite his 5.8 million chip stack being significantly greater than the 2.9 million held by his nearest challenger, Tom Hall, Cimbolas could not convert his advantage to victory. Cimbolas eventually finished in 4th place and Tom Hall one place behind in 5th. This left David Lloyd, Fraser Bellamy, and Chris Vernon to fight 3 handed for the title.
After eliminating Cimbolas, Fraser Bellamy was in a very commanding position with 35 million of the remaining 50 million chips. A comeback from short stacked Lloyd began to even things a little before an all in confrontation eliminated him in 3rd, leaving Bellamy and Vernon to play heads up for the victory.
After a short period of back and forth, chip leader Fraser Bellamy got all the poker chips in with his Queen-Queen versus Vernon’s Ace-Four, which and held to win the hand and the trophy. Bellamy took away a hefty £200,000, and the applause of the crowd, whilst Chris Vernon picked up £125,000 for his efforts.
It was clear that although Vernon and Bellamy both had plenty of support from friends following the action, Bellamy was an especially popular winner. Described by one player as the nicest guy you could meet who would give you the shirt off his back, he is now the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships 2015 champion.
The tournament itself has been a credit to UK Poker, and has been wonderfully hosted by Dusk Till Dawn poker room, in Nottingham. Congratulations to Fraser Bellamy and to Sky Poker for putting on a great spectacle.