Adam Wilkinson Wins First GUKPT Main Event After Nearly Two Decades, £55,035 at Blackpool
Wilkinson’s 8-4 of diamonds completed a river flush in the final hand, sealing the GUKPT Blackpool Main Event title and the £55,035 first prize.
Author: PokerSlate AI-assisted editorial desk · Editor: PokerSlate separate AI editorial review
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On November 9, PokerNews reported that Adam Wilkinson won the £1,250 buy-in GUKPT Blackpool Main Event. It was his first GUKPT Main Event title in nearly two decades of playing the tour. PokerNews said he finished 11th in the February 2007 GUKPT Walsall Main Event, which drew 360 entrants and was only the second Main Event in GUKPT history. He became a GUKPT regular as the tour staged close to 200 more events; he won side events, but his best Main Event result had remained seventh in the July 2007 Newcastle Main Event. In Blackpool he collected the trophy and the £55,035 first prize; PokerNews also said he received an extra £5,504 for buying in through a GGPoker account. Afterwards he told Phil “The Tower” Heald: “I ran like God. It doesn't happen often, but I ran really well.”
PokerNews’ Main Event figures were 190 entrants and a £237,500 prize pool, with the top 25 finishing in the money. Runner-up Michael Whitehead received £42,435 and third-place Chris Guertin received £26,580. The final-table hands below are all from PokerNews’ report.
Final-table order
The first final-table eliminations were ninth-place Peter Charalambous and eighth-place Trevor Reardon. Seventh-place Benjamin Hill shoved with pocket queens when he had only 15 big blinds left, against Jon “Skalie” Kalmar’s A-9; Kalmar made a flush and Hill was out. Sixth-place Chris Cox earned £8,880, which PokerNews said was the largest tournament score of his career. Fifth-place Kalmar shoved his 20-big-blind stack with A-K against Wilkinson’s pocket eights; Wilkinson made a full house and Kalmar was eliminated. Fourth-place Christopher Wood, after losing some chips, shoved his 12 big blinds with pocket nines; Michael Whitehead called with pocket fours and Chris Guertin called with A-K; Whitehead flopped a set of fours and Wood was out. Guertin lost that hand but not his tournament, then shoved a short stack after hitting second pair; Wilkinson called with top pair and held, sending Guertin out third and taking the tournament to heads-up.
Heads-up, Wilkinson held a 2-to-1 chip lead. PokerNews said the two agreed a deal that left £9,747 to play for; Whitehead had already locked up the largest live score of his career regardless of where he finished. Whitehead had qualified through a £5 Grosvenor Poker online satellite. Whitehead’s stack then dwindled, but he doubled up by flopping a set of nines against Wilkinson’s pocket jacks. Wilkinson pulled away again and led 4-to-1 before the final hand.
On the final hand, Whitehead shoved A-Q on a queen-high, two-diamond flop; Wilkinson called with 8-4 of diamonds. The turn was a black king and the river the 9 of diamonds, completing Wilkinson’s flush and giving Whitehead second place. Wilkinson was thus the GUKPT Blackpool Main Event champion.
PokerStrategy’s November 9 report focused on the overlay shortfalls over the GUKPT Blackpool weekend. It said the £900+£100 PLO High Roller had 16 entries and 6 re-entries against a £25,000 guarantee, for a £5,200 overlay; the £500+£50 GUKPT Cup had 57 entries and 12 re-entries, for a £15,500 shortfall; the £1,350+£150 High Roller had 46 entries and 10 re-entries, for a £24,400 overlay; and the £1,100+£150 Main Event had 131 entries and 44 re-entries against a £250,000 guarantee, for a £57,500 overlay. It also said registration in those events remained open until the start of Day 2, that the organizers had heavily promoted the coming overlays, that lower buy-in events beat their guarantees, and that one Sunday side event was cancelled.
The two reports do not describe the Main Event’s registrations and prize pool the same way: PokerNews wrote 190 entrants and a £237,500 prize pool, while PokerStrategy wrote 131 entries and 44 re-entries and gave a £57,500 overlay; the former gave a £1,250 buy-in, while the latter split it into £1,100+£150. The two sets of figures should be read separately: they should not be added together, nor treated as the same data confirming each other.
PokerNews also noted that the 2026 GUKPT Grand Final will be held at Grosvenor Victoria in London from November 19 to 29, with a £2,000 Main Event buy-in and a £500,000 guarantee. Alan Stearn is the defending champion, having won £125,645 from a £569,640 prize pool in November last year.
Local reading context
The GUKPT, or Grosvenor UK Poker Tour, is one of the longer-running live poker tours in the UK. A tournament guarantee is the minimum total prize pool the organizer promises; if the prize-pool portion of the buy-ins collected falls short of that figure, the difference is commonly called overlay. Reports sometimes give the Blackpool Main Event as a £1,250 buy-in and sometimes split it into a £1,100 prize-pool component plus a £150 fee; the prize pool, the paid places and a player’s actual payout are separate concepts.
Source report dates: 2026-11-09
Original sources and verification
- PokerNews
PokerNews reported on November 9, 2026 that Adam Wilkinson won the £1,250 buy-in GUKPT Blackpool Main Event, earning the £55,035 first prize and the trophy; he received an additional £5,504 for buying in through a GGPoker account. The report gave the Main Event as 190 entrants and a £237,500 prize pool, with the top 25 paid. It said Wilkinson finished 11th in the February 2007 GUKPT Walsall Main Event (360 entrants), and that his previous best GUKPT Main Event result was seventh in Newcastle in July 2007. On the final hand, Whitehead shoved A-Q on a queen-high, two-diamond flop, Wilkinson called with 8-4 of diamonds, and the 9 of diamonds on the river completed his flush; the two had agreed a deal leaving £9,747 to play for, and Whitehead had already locked up the largest live score of his career.
- PokerStrategy
PokerStrategy reported on November 9, 2026 that four GUKPT Blackpool weekend events produced overlays or shortfalls: the £900+£100 PLO High Roller had 16 entries and 6 re-entries against a £25,000 guarantee, for a £5,200 overlay; the £500+£50 GUKPT Cup had 57 entries and 12 re-entries, for a £15,500 shortfall; the £1,350+£150 High Roller had 46 entries and 10 re-entries, for a £24,400 overlay; and the £1,100+£150 Main Event had 131 entries and 44 re-entries against a £250,000 guarantee, for a £57,500 overlay. It said those events allowed registration until the start of Day 2, that the organizers had heavily promoted the impending overlays, that lower buy-in events beat their guarantees, and that one Sunday side event was cancelled.