The end of March is a difficult time for many students because the threat of exams is looming large. For the dedicated student, study time has already begun and this month will be a quiet period when they spend all of their time in their books cramming hard for the big exams that are coming up shortly. However, there will be some students that feel as though there is plenty of time before they have to start worrying about exams. This means that some students will be in the mood to let their hair down before the more serious effort of studying comes to a head.
One student who will definitely be in the mood for celebrating at the moment is Ben Foxwell. This is because Ben is the big winner of the UK Student Poker Championship, the UKSPC. The event has been taking place at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry and 469 players took to the event in the hope of grabbing one of the top prizes. When you consider that the entry fee for the event was £30, the eventual return that Foxwell managed to grab was well worth the time and effort that he put in at the Coventry event.
A good selection of prizes for Foxwell
For his achievement, alongside the kudos of knowing that he defeated all of the other players, Foxwell gets to celebrate the fact that he receives £3,450. In addition to the cash, Foxwell will also receive a seat at the Grand Final of the GUKPT. This has a value of £2,000 so you have to say that this student has played his cards right with his performance this week. 98 players made their way back to the event on Thursday afternoon but there was only cash for the top 50 players so a lot of players would be going home very disappointed with their showing.
It was a late affair for the final table with the last 9 players getting down to action around midnight. Mind you, this is still quite early in the evening for a number of poker players so it would not have been a culture shock to be playing at this time. The first player to drop out of the final table was Andy Sumeou who received £245. In 8th place was Arthur Villa, who received £425 and Matt Butcher, in 7th, picked up £630.
In 6th place, earning £775 was Simon Priddis and the 5th placed player, Sunny Kalcutt, earned £915. The first player to earn over £1,000 was Han Zhang, who came in 4th and there was £1,405 provided to Matt Takaro in 3rd place. The unlucky runner up was Lucas Durney who received £2,100 and of course, Ben Foxwell was the winner, receiving £3,540.
The GUKPT rolls onto Manchester in April but many of the students will only be looking forward to the hard slog of examinations before the long joy of summer comes their way once again.