De Mel wins in Bolton

Lucky number 10 for Priyan de Mel as he walks away with first place trophy from the 2010 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour at the G Casino in Bolton

Londoner Priyan de Mel has secured his second consecutive win after securing the top spot in the first leg of the 2010 Grosvenor UK Poker Tour at the G Casino in Bolton. He has now walked his way into the record books as the first player to win back-to-back 1,000 main events and has become only the third player to have won two main event titles after his win at Blackpool's main event in November. De Mel triumphed over a total field of 148 players in Bolton to secure himself a total prize of £44,600 as well as an elegant trophy courtesy of the tour's new sponsor, g.casino.com.

There was tough competition for de Mel in the final table, with Andrew Purser from Margate making De Mel work hard for his victory. Purser, playing in his first main event final table, eliminated third place Jamie Skyes from Harrogate to narrow the gap between himself and de Mel to just 50,000 chips out of a total of 2.2m. Play continued with over an hour's heads up between the two players before purser moved in with K-T and was called by de Mel, who had A-4. The board of 8 Q 4 9 9 settled the game in favour of the 36 year old.

The final table at this year's event was ten handed, after a departure from the nine-handed final played in previous years. Ironically enough, de Mel was seat number 10, leading him to remark afterwards that ten is his lucky number. The other players in the final table included previous event winner Jeff Kimber, who finished eighth and fourth place Liverpudlian Terry Owens, who was competing in his second main event final table. Marc Wright, Cornwall, finished fifth, Manchester's Justin Davenport sixth, and the pair from Preston, Philip Booth and Mark Robinson finished seventh and tenth respectively.

Next up in the GUKPT event calendar is the inaugural GUKPT Club Championships tournaments, which will be held in every Grosvenor & G Casino with a poker room. The first set of a total of 200 NL Hold'em freezeouts will take place on 13th February at the G Casinos in Blackpool, Coventry and Thanet followed by the Grosvenor Casinos in Leeds and Swansea. All players will begin with 10,000 chips and playing commences at 2pm for all events.