Adam Maxwell Wins UKIPT Nottingham Main Event

The Pokerstars UKIPT Nottingham Main Event has come to a close with Adam Maxwell taking home first place and £98,150 along with the prestigious title. The Dusk Till Dawn Nottingham regular topped a field of 582 entrants to bag the victory at UKIPT's return tournament. As a Nottingham local, Maxwell is well-known at the DTD poker club and had already cashed over $225,000 at their live tournaments prior to last weekend's event.

Maxwell entered the final day just shy of the frontrunner and slowly climbed his way through the pack to take the win from Jonothan McCann in the heads up battle. The showdown came to a climax as Maxwell called McCann on a bluff, which exposed a busted flush draw and handed Maxwell a considerably large pot. The hand sparked an agreement between the two, with Maxwell securing £81,010 and McCann settling for £74,500. The remaining £17,140 was left to play for, along with the UKIPT Nottingham Main Event trophy.

PokerStars £1,100 UKIPT Nottingham Main Event Final Table Results

Final Table Recap

The end of Day 2 left many players short stacked after the final table bubble, which saw them in difficult positions heading into Day 3. The big stack gap led to a quick series of knockouts as the final table began.

Tom Simm was the first to hit the rail as his short stack made play extremely difficult. Simm put up his entire stack with ace-quick but fell to start-of-day chip leader David Ledden's pocket-jacks.

Philip Clarke followed suit and shoved all-in with pocket deuces, but was beaten on the turn as it landed Daniel Gormley a pair of 10s.

Next to go was Alex Montgomery who shoved king-ten from the small blind but was met with an ace-nine from Michael Howard, which was enough to take the pot.

The sixth place elimination of German player, Fabio Sperling, ensured there would be a UK champ as just five Brits remained. Sperling threw in his last 11 big blinds with ace-three from the small blind, which received a quick call from Maxwell with pocket threes. The board ran a measly king high and with that, Sperling was sent home.

Next up was Daniel Gormley, who limped in before going all-in for 22 big blinds on a three-bet. Up against Ledden who held pocket-queens, Gormley was in poor shape with ace-ten after the flop proved to be no help. The large pot fell into Ledden's hands as his queens held up through the turn and the river

Down to just 4 players, the next face-off saw Michael Howard and Jonathan McCann put their chips on the line. Howard landed one off of a flush with pocket kings too, but fell unfortunately short to McCann who landed the suited five cards.

The final three was quite the slog, as the triple-handed showdown continued for a while after Howard hit the rail. Maxwell eventually sent Ledden home with pocket tens, but not before McCann took a big chunk of the third-placers stack to earn the chip lead.

Heads up play pretty quickly turned interesting as Maxwell called a bluff from the chip leader. This flipped the table on its head and saw Maxwell become the new first-place favourite. Play was paused for a minute as the two finalists agreed a deal which secured winnings for them both, and left the remaining prize money and event title still to play for.

The winning hand saw Maxwell limp with ace-eight and beat McCann's king-four shove as he turned a straight and was crowned tournament champion as a result.

Maxwell's Reaction

This win gives Maxwell the biggest cash of his career with his previous high being less than a third of this Main Event payout. When asked about the big win, Maxwell said "It feels very good; it's not quite sunk in yet." Although he's well aware of the skill required to bag first place, Maxwell also admits to luck being a helpful factor in heads up play - he said "It was a tough battle, but I feel like the cards went my way".

At just 27 years old, Maxwell has only been playing seriously since his time in university but says that he used to play £10 games at home when he was in school, before switching to online sites. Now he's started hitting the rail with bigger and bigger payouts, he said he's looking forward to grinding more tournaments at Dusk till Dawn.