Javier Gomez Zapatero, one of Spain’s most successful players, has a massive chip lead going in to the final day of this year’s record-breaking GUKPT London event. Gomez, the 2015 WPT Prague champion, has 1,056,000 – has nearly double his nearest rival, fellow Spaniard Daniel Barriocanal.
Like many online Spanish pros such as Vicente Delgado and Adrian Mateos, Gomez has relocated to London so is effectively playing in his home city this week. He already close to $700k in live tournament winnings, his biggest cash coming at EPT Malta in 2015 when he was fifth in the Main Event for €205,300. His WPT victory in Prague netted him €175,000.
There are now just 30 players left in contention for the massive. £113,000 first prize at The Poker Room, above London’s iconic Grosvenor Victoria Casino. This year’s event attracted a total of 435 entries, making it the biggest Main Event in GUKPT history.
Day 2 chip leader Paul Romain also made it through, and bagged 341,500 last night. Romain already has more than $230k in live tournament winnings. MainEventTravel’s very own Simon Deadman is also through to the final day with 250,000. Other contenders include Alexios Dervos and Indian pro Aditya Adarwal. British pro Jeff Kimber was the bubble boy… and ten players also paid a visit to the cashier before play concluded yesterday. All 30 players remaining are guaranteed at least £2,600.
The live stream starts at 12.30pm. 2017 is the GUKPT’s 11th consecutive season and promises to provide another record breaking year with a packed schedule and staggering £1,800,000 in Main and Mini Main guarantees. The next event is GUKPT Manchester which starts February 26. The £1,100 comes with a £200,000 guarantee. There will be nine legs in total this year before the GUKPT Grand Final takes place at the Vic in London in November.