The UK and Ireland Poker Tour is a fairly new live poker tournament in the UK to burst in on the gaming scene. However, since its existence, the event has managed to become fairly popular attracting poker players from all over the UK. The UK and Ireland Poker Tour recently saw its first winner from the UK. The winner of this massive prize is Andrew Couldridge, who owns a plumbing firm in North London. The game lasted for twenty hours or so and saw Couldridge take in a large win!
Andrew Couldridge, a plumber from London, surprised the poker community with his winning of the UKIPT, proving to everyone that you don’t need a Harvard degree to play poker. He managed to beat a total of 649 players in order to come first in this tournament.
In terms of prizes, Andrew Couldridge walked away with a seat in the £5,250 European Poker Tour, which is the final showdown of the UKIPT. In addition to this, Couldridge also managed to won himself £80,000 in prize money.
The UK and Ireland Poker Tour is new to the UK and there were a record number of participants who took part in the UKIPT, Nottingham leg which was held at the Dusk Till Dawn Poker Room.
This win for Couldridge was a result of poker strategy and luck and seemed to surprise many people at the table. When he got into the last round, which is the 29th level of the tournament, he was placed 4th in terms of chips and had a much lower total than that of Owen Robinson, who was the chip leader at that point. From that point however, within the space of half an hour, thanks to three great hands, Couldridge moved up from 1 million chips to six million. Eventually Couldridge managed to push Robinson to the fourth place where he took Robinson out.
Couldridge was already leading in terms of number of chips at that time. The final hand took place between Oliver Schaffmann and Couldridge and at this point, Couldridge had a chip lead of two to one.
After this, there was no looking back, with Couldridge winning the ultimate UKIPT title after twenty hours of playing poker.