Brighton Champion Crowned in First Stop on Unibet's UK Poker Tour

Photo by Unibet, License CC BY 3.0

The first stop of the Unibet U.K. 2018 Poker Tour has crowned its champion. Unibet, of course, is a leading online racing and sportsbook. Croydon's Paul Romain topped the field of 289 hopefuls in the Unibet U.K. Poker Tour Brighton Main Event, scooping a first-place cash prize of £13,000. The total prize pool generated by the field came to £57,800, which was distributed throughout the top 27 event finishers with prizes from £480 to £14,470.

Following a steady start to the tournament, which took place from 23rd to 25th March at the Rendezvous Brighton Casino, Romain's day two commenced with a 12 big-blind stake. After a day of play, he improved to almost 50 big blinds and progressed to the final nine where he made short work of most of his opponents. After an intense play against his heads-up opponent, the pair agreed to a deal to flatten the original pay structure, leaving the victor to collect £13,000 instead of the previously decided £14,470.

As part of the first prize, Romain also won a €2,000 Unibet Open Malta package, which entitles him entry into the 2018 Unibet Open Malta Main Event with its €1,100 buy-in on May 17 where he will also be hoping to make European poker news headlines with another win. Meanwhile, Unibet's U.K. Poker Tour will continue with its next stop in Glasgow from 29th June to 1st July 2018.

The Unibet U.K. Poker Tour has been running annually throughout the British Isles since 2016. This third season has four stops in total with two dates at the Rendezvous Casino in Brighton. Online qualification for each event starts at €1 with Main Event buy-ins for all four tour stops set at £220. The Main Event prize pool in each of the tournament dates is guaranteed at a minimum of £40,000 and a €2,000 Unibet Open package will be awarded to the longest lasting online qualifier at each of the stops. The U.K. tour will end in Manchester at the Manchester235 Casino complex and will take place across the 7th to 9th November. The higher stakes European 2018 Unibet Open Tour will conclude in the Archipelago of Malta in May.