Brits Takes EPT Poker Title At the Hilton

The seventh PokerStars European Poker Tour Main Event was held at the Metropole Hilton Hotel and saw British online poker player, David Vamplew take on John Juanda in the final head-to-head. Betting on the outcome was a difficult one to call when they got down to the last three. Kyle Bowker, along with Vamplew and Juanda were all equally stacked and a post lunch lull meant no one was in a hurry to leave. 

It took a gigantic hand between Juanda and Bowker to finally break the deadlock, which saw Bowker take an early trip to the slot machines and left Juanda with an impressive four to one chip lead. This, you would have thought, meant it was only a matter of time before Vamplew was hauled over. 

By current poker player standards Vamplew, at 23 years old, is a veritable veteran and he showed all his skills in staving off Juanda’s moves and gradually came back into contention. Eventually pulling the chip counts even, only to find himself losing the advantage once more to Juanda. 

Vamplew dug deep once again and eventually saw off Juanda’s challenge to take home the £900,000 first prize. This proved to be some Herculean effort as Juanda is a four-time bracelet winner with $10.5 million poker earnings to his name and no fool. Gracious in victory, of Juanda, Vamplew said, “He got really unlucky.” The final hand, when it came, saw Vamplew holding Ah, 3c, while Juanda had the Kd, 2d going all in with his 3 million chips but didn’t have any luck with the flop that read 3s,Ad, Ts.