Chris Brammer Victorious in FTOPS Event #1, UKIPT Galway Wrap and More

It’s been another big week on the UK poker front, with the UKIPT Galway Festival in full swing, building up towards what is looking like one of the biggest Main Events in the tour’s history.

In this week’s look Around UK Poker we’ll take a look at the goings on over in Galway, as well as elsewhere in the UK, including online, where one player in particular took down one of the biggest online tournaments held this past weekend, Event #1 of the Full Tilt Poker FTOPS XXIII.

Final Table Set for Irish Poker Championship at UKIPT Galway Festival

Even though two of the biggest tournaments have yet to get underway (the High-Roller tournament and the Main Event), the 2013 UKIPT Galway Festival has already been one for the ages.

Another event that is still up for grabs is the pricey Irish Poker Championship, a €2,500 buy-in event that drew a field of 52 players, and after two days of action the final table for the tournament is set, with a very familiar name leading the way: Steve O’Dwyer.

O’Dwyer, an American living in Ireland (and with a name like O’Dwyer he is of Irish descent of course) will take a commanding lead into Wednesday’s seven-handed final table, with more than double the chips of his nearest competitor. Here is a look at the final table chip counts from the Full Tilt Poker UKIPT Galway blog:

1. Steve O`Dwyer (United States) 528,500

2. Max Silver (United Kingdom) 253,800

3. Marc MacDonnell (Ireland) 184,100

4. Thomas Hall (United Kingdom) 177,600

5. Ian Gascoigne (United Kingdom) 83,000

6. Peter Murphy (Ireland) 42,000

7. Trevor Dinneen (Ireland) 35,100

Chris Brammer wins Event #1 at the FTOPS XXIII

The latest running of the Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) is now underway, and the 39-event tournament series got off to a fast start this past Sunday, with UK poker Chris Brammer taking down the opening event, a $215 reentry No Limit Holdem tournament. The tournament boasted a guarantee of $500k, but this number was easily surpassed after the 3,503 entries saw the prize-pool balloon to over $700k.

Brammer, who plays at Full Tilt Poker under the screen-name “kid_bramm” and on PokerStars as “NigDawgG” is one of the best online tournament players in the business, and is currently ranked 36th overall on the pocketfives rankings, and #3 in the UK (as you’ll see a little later in this column), and that doesn’t even include his recent FTOPS win, which will undoubtedly propel him up the leader-boards.

Here is a look at the final table results from Event #1 of the FTOPS XXIII:

1. Chris “kid_bramm” Brammer $129,611

2. 4CashNow $91,078

3. IgorFederal $62,353

4. Lortmatto $46,239

5. jellyfish223 $35,030

6. DSunichlife $25,992

7. Ana “Nyx86” Marquez $18,565

8. vienna bundy $13,171

9. papychulo777 $8,897

UK News Bites

Charlie Combes Leading the UK Online Poker Rankings on PocketFives

Hitting the Top 10 of the PocketFives.com rankings is the true sign that you have made it as an online tournament poker player, and there is perhaps no more cited metric of a player’s success than their current pocketfives.com ranking. But P5’s doesn’t just offer their leader-board in a general sense.

At PocketFives you can use a number of different filters to see how players rank on specific sites, at specific stakes, or as I will now demonstrate, buy specific regions, like the UK –which is obviously one of the hardest Top 10 rankings to crack on PocketFives.

Here is a look at the current Top 10 on the PocketFives.com UK rankings, rankings that include some of the biggest names in all of poker:

1. Charlie Combs AKA chaz_man_chaz — 6,488.55

2. Chris Moorman AKA moorman1 — 6,325.06

3. Chris Brammer AKA NigDawG — 6,000.47

4. Andrew Hulme AKA stato_1 — 5,826.92

5. Craig McCorkell AKA mcc3991 — 5,727.14

6. Sam Grafton AKA TheSquid — 5,428.65

7. Toby Lewis AKA 810ofclubs — 5,375.30

8. James Cawley AKA jamerOK — 5,365.01

9. Sebastian Saffari AKA Seba29072 — 5,328.48

10. Jon Banks AKA EMSBas — 5,280.23

GUKPT: Next Stop Bolton

From August 4th to August 11th the GUKPT will be in Bolton for the eighth stop on the current season. The Main Event will feature a £500 buy-in with a £50k guarantee, and the G Casino n Bolton will host two starting flights, the first on Thursday August 8th and the second on Friday August 9th.

After the Bolton tournament the GUKPT will move on to Manchester, Luton, and Blackpool, before the Grand Final in London. The GUKPT is now into its seventh season and has grown into one of the most popular tournament series in the UK.

For more information on the GUKPT you can head over to their website at http://www.grosvenorukpokertour.com/