888poker LIVE Lights Up London with Fantastic Weekend of Poker Festivities!

888poker LIVE returned to the iconic Victoria Casino poker room from 17 – 20 February for a weekend jampacked with poker and other festivities.

On 17 February, we hosted Day 1B of the £444 buy-in Main Event, with Day 1C on 18 February and Days 1D and1E taking place on 19 February.

Those surviving Day 1 played Day 2 on Sunday, 20 February.

The much-anticipated Chris Eubank Jr. KO Challenge took place on 18 February. Despite Storm Eunice’s best efforts, the event went ahead as planned!

In all, 602 entries ran the Main Event creating a massive prize pool of £240,800!

Chris Eubank Jr. Takes off the Gloves!

The Christ Eubank Jr. Knockout Challenge saw online qualifiers, 888poker ambassadors, and StreamTeam members compete for Chris’ £10K bounty and a £10K prize pool.

Four of the Qualifiers made the final table, where they pitted their wits against one of boxing’s most lethal players. Chris’ his poker chops aren’t anything to sneeze at either!

Chris eventually found himself all-in on a diamond-draw flop holding 3♦2♦. He hit the third diamond on the turn. But his opponent in the hand, Salvatore Sciarotta, held the A♦.

You could feel all the air go out of the room as the fourth diamond fell on the river.

Salvatore won the hand and collected his bounty. But not before going heads-up with the StreamTeam’s David Gibson for the tournament win.

Ultimately, it was David Gibson’s scintillating heads-up play that won out. Backed up by a wild and very vocal rail, it seemed like Dave was on a date with destiny.

He took top cash as well as some snazzy 888poker swag for his efforts!

The StreamTeam’s All Together!

Most of the 888poker LIVE Weekend London event was live-streamed on the Twitch 888pokerTV channel.

On Saturday, we got all the StreamTeam together – many of them meeting for the first time in person – for a special Play With Friends episode.

The team were able to bond over a friendly game of poker. But make no mistake, friendship aside - each and every one of them wanted this win - badly!

Joining the StreamTeam’s Josh Manley, David Gibson, Nick Eastwood, Jordan Banfield, and Ricardo Mateus were 888poker ambassadors, Vivi Saliba and Sam Abernathy. Twitch streamer, RichyRob, rounded out the numbers.

It took just 1 ½ hours of play to crown a winner. The title and bragging rights went to our Portuguese streamer, Ricardo Mateus.

His win includes an invite to our next 888poker LIVE event later this year.

The Main Event Goes Down a Storm!

Despite the inclement weather conditions, the 888poker LIVE Weekend London Main Event went down a storm!

A whopping 602 entries built an impressive £240,800 prize pool with £60,000 going to first place and a £990 min-cash.

Day 1 entries were whittled down to 155 runners surviving to play Day 2. Day 1A was played the day before at Grosvenor Casino’s Luton location.

Here’s how the numbers at The VIC location stacked up –

Of the 155 Day 2 players, by midnight UK time, we had whittled that down to a final table of nine.

The battle for the top prize at the final table was hard-fought. It took around four hours for local Londoner Joe Hindry to bag the £60,000 first-place money, the title and the trophy.

Much respect must go to his heads-up opponent, Brazilian Rodrigo Gwaderaaze.

He put up a good fight and walked away with the runner-up payout of £40,930.

We had a blast at this event, and we’re already looking forward to the next one.

Until then, see you on the felt!