Burland Victorious in Brighton

A 259 player field battled it out at the Rendezvous Casino, competing for the UK & Ireland Poker Tour: Brighton title. In the end, it was the UK’s own Jamie Burland who finished atop the standings, taking first place and £65,400 in prize money.

The tournament progressed at a very fast pace – so fast, in fact, that the final table was actually moved up to be played a day earlier than planned. When only 13 players remained alive heading into play on Sunday, organizers decided to play down to a winner, rather than holding the final table over until Monday.

The final table moved nearly as quickly as the rest of the tournament. After Bill Seber of the United States was knocked out in third place, it left Burland and Tomas Cibak of the Czech Republic to play for the title. The players came into heads up play nearly equal in chips, which meant the possibility of a long confrontation. However, Burland took a 2-1 chip lead on the sixth hand of heads up action.

Then, on the very next hand, it was all over. Burland flopped two pair against a flush draw for Cibak, and all the money went into the pot. Cibak did not make his flush on the turn or the river, giving Burland the pot and the championship. Cibak earned £40,100 for second place.

The victory was Burland’s first in a major event. However, he had final tabled in another main event just three days before the Brighton tournament began, finishing fourth at a Grosvenor UK Poker Tour event in Luton.

The UK & Ireland Poker Tour is sponsored by PokerStars, and is one of a number of regional poker tours organized by the online poker room. The next tour stop takes place in August, in the Scottish city of Edinburgh. In all, there are nine events scheduled for the UKIPT this year, culminating in the European Poker Tour’s London event, which takes place starting September 29^th at the Hilton Metropole.