Look at the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) history books, scroll your finger down the page until you reach the entry entitled “2014 GUKPT Brighton Main Event Champion” and there you will find the name of a Mr Chris Cousins.
In 2010, Chris Barnes, former Professional Bowling Association Player of the Year, squared off against the one-armed bowling bot, EARL (short for Enhanced. View Chris Barnes’ profile on LinkedIn, the world's largest professional community. Chris has 3 jobs listed on their profile. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Chris. And Chris Barnes missed it. When his ball slid into the gutter without brushing the 10-pin, Haugen pounced like a hungry panther. “When he missed the 10-pin I said, ‘You can’t give me that.
Cousins went into the third and final day’s play with 345,500 chips in his arsenal, enough to see him start fourth from 14 remaining players and he ended it with the coveted GUKPT trophy and £20,300 in prize money.
The nine-handed final table was set after almost three hours of play. During that time Otto Richard, Babis Lappas, Callum Smith, start-of-the-day chip leader Fraser Bellamy and Sven Tiesmeyer each lost their stacks and were shepherded to the cashier’s desk to collect their winnings.
Here’s how the nine finalists lined up.
2014 GUKPT Brighton Final Table
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Joe Greenfield | 700,000 |
| 2 | Chris Cousins | 968,500 |
| 3 | Ben Winsor | 520,500 |
| 4 | Hui Jin | 625,000 |
| 5 | Lee Taylor | 276,500 |
| 6 | Chris Barnes | 133,000 |
| 7 | Martin Bader | 246,000 |
| 8 | Francois Goulet | 136,500 |
| 9 | Ellie Biessek | 104,000 |
The players at the final table were still weighing each other up when Ellie Biessek crashed out in ninth place, leaving the tournament an all-male affair. Chris Barnes open shipped his short stack into the middle from the cutoff seat with and Biessek called off her stack from the small blind with the .
A flop reading kept Biessek’s ace-high in front, with the on the turn failing to alter the course of the hand. The same couldn’t be said about the on the river because it completed a straight for Barnes and left Biessek without any chips.
Play continued eight-handed for 70 minutes before the talented Lee Taylor followed his friend Biessek out of the tournament area. Taylor min-raised with and Cousins called the bet. A flurry of bets and raises on a flop resulted in Taylor being all-in and at risk of elimination, his two pair needing to fade a club because Cousins held . The turn bricked off but the river was the , completing Cousins’ flush and busting Taylor.
Chris Barnes Poker Player
Taylor wouldn’t have even had time to collect his winnings before the next player, Francois Goulet, was eliminated from the final table.
Goulet moved all-in for 100,000 chips with and Ben Winsor re-shoved to isolate Goulet with the dominating . Neither player improved on the , but Winsor didn’t need to. Goulet did need to and he became the seventh place finisher.
Sixth place was decided just before 6:00pm on Sunday afternoon when Joe Greenfield committed his stack with and got looked up by Chris Barnes’ , creating one of tournament poker’s many coinflips. It was a coinflip that Barnes would ultimately win after the board ran and with that Greenfield was gone.
Five became four with the exit of former GUKPT London champion Martin Bader. Hui Jin set the price to play at 40,000 chips, Bader three-bet to 115,000 and Jin called. The dealer spread the flop, Jin checked, Bader bet 300,000 and was all in and Jin called.
Bader flipped the onto their backs and Jun showed . The on the turn improved Jin to an unbeatable flush, rendering the on the river completely useless.
Less than 10 minutes after Baden busted, Ben Winsor followed suit. Barnes opened the betting and was called by both players in the blinds. All three of the active players checked the flop, but Barnes bet 40,000 on the turn. Winsor moved all-in and Barnes called, showing for the flopped nuts! Winsor showed and needed a four or seven on the river to improve to a full house, but neither card arrived and his tournament ended with a fourth place finish.
With Winsor gone, the final three remaining players took a short break from the table, during which time they agree to split the prize pool so that each was guaranteed £19,800 for their efforts, leaving £500, the trophy and Grand Final seat to play for.
Barnes was the first player the deal benefited as he crashed out in third place when his 25 big blind shove with was called by Cousins and his . Cousins took the lead on the flop and stayed ahead on the turn and river.
That hand meant Cousins went into the heads-up battle with Hui Jin armed with a 2.9 million to 700,000 chip advantage and 20 minutes later he had all of the chips in play in front of him.
Jin moved all-in with what turned out to be and Cousins wasted no time at all in calling with . Both players flopped a flush on a flop, but Cousins was way in front with the ace-high flush. The on the turn meant the pot would be split if the landed on the river, but it was the that completed the board and with that Cousins was announced as the 2014 GUKPT Brighton champion.
Chris Barnes Packers
2014 GUKPT Brighton Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chris Cousins | £20,300* |
| 2 | Hui Jin | £19,800* |
| 3 | Chris Barnes | £19,800* |
| 4 | Ben Winsor | £7,800 |
| 5 | Martin Bader | £5,400 |
| 6 | Joe Greenfield | £3,900 |
| 7 | Francois Goulet | £3,200 |
| 8 | Lee Taylor | £2,700 |
| 9 | Ellie Biessek | £2,300 |
*reflects a three-way chop
Next up for the GUKPT is a trip to Walsall between May 28 and June 1. As always, the best place to qualify for GUKPT Main Events is at Grosvenor Poker, where you can claim a 100% match up to £500 first deposit bonus for signing up for an account via PokerNews.
Data and lead image courtesy of the GUKPT blog
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