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Renee Xie has become the first woman to win a Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) Main Event, capturing the £560 GUKPT Luton title in the tour’s 20th season. She defeated a field of 396 entrants to claim £35,435, surpassing her previous career-best of £33,000 earned as runner-up in the 2017 GUKPT Leeds Main Event.
The £188,100 prize pool paid out the top 50 finishers, including Charlie Waters, Adam Wilkinson, John Bousfield, and Keith Littlewood among others who made the money. Yifei Dong was the first at the final table to exit, earning £3,120 for ninth place.
Notable finishers included Timothy Chung, the 2022 GUKPT London Main Event champion, who took eighth for £3,790, and Ciaran McCullagh, who banked £8,480 for fifth place after also winning the £1,000 High Roller side event for £16,620 earlier in the series.
Play eventually reached a three-handed stage, where the remaining players agreed to an ICM-based deal, adding £9,100 to the eventual champion’s prize. Christopher Gallagher benefited most from the arrangement, receiving £26,930 for his third-place finish instead of the original £18,600.
Xie then faced Sanjay Ranchhoddas heads-up. The decisive hand saw Xie’s ten-eight defeat Ranchhoddas’s ace-three of hearts after the board ran out ten-nine-nine-seven-queen, sending Ranchhoddas to the rail for £28,545 and sealing Xie’s historic win.
Despite the milestone, Xie’s victory drew mixed reactions online, with some players alleging unresolved staking disputes dating back nearly a decade. The GUKPT season continues in Leeds from September 24 to October 4, featuring a £1,000 buy-in Main Event with a £200,000 guarantee.
