UK Poker millionaires on the up

Author: Simon Dexter

The UK’s status as Europe’s ‘Poker Central’ was confirmed earlier this week when a new report revealed there are a growing number of British players who are making serious money from the game. Last year, no fewer than 7 UK-based players each won more than million in ranking events.

Three players, John Kalmar, Joe Beevers and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, each trousered some .2m during the course of 2007. Kalmar shot to prominence after his fifth place finish in the WSOP Main Event, whereas Beevers claimed two consecutive tournaments, victories which helped catapult him into the dollar millionaire category. Meanwhile, Ulliott has become the UK’s ‘Mr Consistency’; he cashed frequently throughout the year and also managed to reach a WSOP final table.

Not far behind poker’s ‘Big Three’ were Julian Thew (surely one for the future?) and Mark Teltscher, who earned £1.18million and .16million respectively. Thew pocketed a fortune for winning a GUKPT and EPT title in quick succession, while Teltscher’s high point of the year was finishing as runner up in the Barcelona EPT event.

The report went on to reveal that in the USA, a total of 34 players won more than m last year, but with a population almost five times larger than the UK, they probably should produce five times the winners.

It’s interesting to note that while each of the guys at or near to the top of the million dollar tree are all professionals, quite a number of them were doing something completely different just a few years ago. This suggests that poker is one of the few games where relative newcomers can still score big within a comparatively short period of time.

Tags: Devilfish, EPT, GUKPT, Julian Thew, poker

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 13th, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under News & Promotions Blog.