Steve Vigor has ended the year top of the GUKPT Rankings, netting himself the huge £26,000 first prize for his overall performance on the tour in 2011. Vigor raced into pole position mid-year and from then on seemed only to extend his lead, finishing on 569 points, nearly double that of 2nd place finisher Ben Jackson. In all Vigor cashed 13 times – the only player apart from last year’s Player of the Year David Johnson to make double figures by reaching the money spots in qualifying tournaments.
Johnson himself put in yet another consistent performance, cashing 18 times but scoring lower figures in points (they are awarded according to buy-in and number of runners in live and online tour events – full details on www.gukpt.com) to finish in 3rd, taking £6,500 from the GUKPT Rankings.
Runner up Ben Jackson was a latecomer to the top of the Leaderboard. He won a £300 NL freezeout in October, a £500 NL freezeout in November and placed 2nd in a £1,000 Main Event that same week. This gave him the bump up that, combined with cashes in two Online 10% GUKPT events, finally let him overtake Johnson. He won £13,000 for his performance, but has decided to donate £6,000 of it to Grosvenor’s regular charity Marie Curie Cancer Care.
Two players making the top ten did so on the back of excellent performances at the Grand Final of the GUKPT held at the London Victoria Casino earlier in December. Lalit Khajuria snuck into 10th place (winning £900) by finishing 2nd in a Pot Limit Omaha rebuy event and then 3rd in the £2,500 Main Event itself, while December’s champion, Fabian Quoss, netted himself £2,500 for finishing 5th in the overall rankings.
Rewarded more for their consistency overall were Elzbieta Biessek-Piechota who came 3rd, winning £6,500, and Lee Taylor (8th for £1,200). Both players cashed seven times (tied with Graham Pound for the third highest number of prize money finishes).
In all, £65,000 was awarded to the top 20 finishers on the 2011 GUKPT Leaderboard. A total of 601 players earned points through their participation in Main Events, side events and the Online 10% Series over the year. The top ten are listed below – please see the GUKPT Leaderboard page on the website for the full rankings.
1st Steve Vigor £26,000
2nd Benjamin Jackson £13,000
3rd David Johnson £6,500
4th Elzbieta Biessek-piechota £4,000
5th Fabian Quoss £2,500
6th Robert Topp £2,000
7th Charles Chattha £1,300
8th Lee Taylor £1,200
9th Jake Cody £1,100
10th Lalit Khajuria £900
