Two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Praz Bansi took down the GUKPT London title this weekend.

Bansi, who was actually the first ever main event winner in the first season of the tour back in 2007, earned £101,020 with the victory this time around.

The £1,500 buy-in event drew 245 players to London’s Victoria Casino creating a £367,500 prizepool.

The final table also included fellow Hit Squad member Karl Mahrenholz and GUKPT sponsored player Jeff Kimber, who broke the record for final table appearances on the GUKPT with six.

Banzi now has $2,587,356 in career live tournament earnings and sits 12th on England’s all time leading money winner’s list, just behind EPT founder John Duthie.

Next up for the GUKPT is a stop at the Grosvenor Casino Walsall April 24- May 1.

Here’s how the final table finished up in London:

1 Praz Bansi £101,020

2 Manig Loeser £67,070

3 Gary Lindsay £44,100

4 Karl Mahrenholz £26,640

5 Jamie Roberts £19,840

6 Ken Wong £16,170

7 Christopher Kyriacou £12,500

8 Jim Dunsford £10,110

9 Jeff Kimber £7,350

Australian David Gorr surprised many by outlasting Patrik Antonius and Chris Moorman at the final table to win $2 million.
The Aussie Millions wasn’t the only place where poker news broke this week, however, and we’re counting down some of the lesser-known stories below.

This week we’ll take a look at a milestone for Kevin MacPhee, James Keys joining RedKings Poker, talk of legal poker in South Carolina and more.

Thanks to a cash in last month’s EPT Prague, Kevin MacPhee now finds himself in the EPT’s top 10 all-time tournament points earners.

MacPhee, who won EPT Berlin last year, sits in eighth place right behind Arnaud Mattern and just above Jason Mercier.
“It’s amazing to be in the company of such legends and good friends like Jason Mercier, ElkY and Mike McDonald,” said MacPhee. “I started pl

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If Patrik Antonius had his own durrrr Challenge it would likely be against Kagome Kagome and the Finn would be winning by a large margin.

Patrik Antonius

Last night Antonius and Kagome Kagome (formerly IHateJuice) renewed their rivalry at $3,000/$6,000 Limit Hold’em and the Team Full Tilt Pro was absolutely crushing.

In little more than an hour Antonius played 297 hands against Kagome Kagome and soared to a victory of $289k.

It’s been a back-and-forth battle between Antonius and Kagome Kagome in 2011 with Antonius winning their first big session by $410k, Kagome Kagome coming back and winning $290k on Jan. 13

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The Betfair LIVE! series is headed back to Tallinn and PokerListings is offering its players the chance to get there for for free.

The Estonian capital will play host to the tournament series April 14- 17 at the Reval Park Hotel & Casino with tournaments ranging from €100 to the €500+€50 main event with a €50,000 guaranteed prize pool.

Satellite qualification is already underway on the online poker site with $1,350 Betfair Poker LIVE! packages on offer in events starting at just three cents.

Plus, Pokerlistings players can win their way in through a freeroll April 1 at 20:00 GMT on Betfair.

Players need only generate 50 player points on the site March 1-29 to win a ticket to enter the freeroll where one $1,350 Betfair Poker LIVE! Tallinn

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Betfair Poker is offering its player the chance to earn a $100,000 sponsorship deal through the Grand Series of Poker.

The sixth edition of the GSOP begins Feb. 27 on the online poker site and scoring a GSOP Hat-trick is all it will take to win your way in to some of poker’s biggest live and online events.

$100,000 worth of buy-ins is up for grabs for the first player to finish in the top three of any three of 15 GSOP events on Betfair before the series wraps March 13.

Plus, a $15,000 package including entry into the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event is available for the first five who final table three GSOP VI events.

The first ten players to make the money in three events will also win a $1,500 package including entry into the Betfair Poker LIVE!

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Eugene Katchalov beat Daniel Negreanu heads-up to win the $100k buy-in Super High Roller event at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure on Saturday.

Eugene Katchalov

Katchalov, a 29-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who now lives in Brooklyn, NY, took down $1.5 million for outlasting all 37 players in the elite event.

“I feel great about it because the competition was so tough,” said Katchalov. “It

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With the NFL season out of the way, The World Poker Tour’s revamped show takes center stage, premiering on Fox Sports this Sunday.

The WPT has spent the last year getting a facelift and the new, fresh, hip, and edgy version of the show that helped kick off the first poker boom will debut on FSN at 8 p.m. Feb.

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Austrian Octavian Voegele burst onto the live poker scene with three final tables in the series and a third-place finish in the main event at ANZPT Adelaide in 2010.

This year he came back and won it all.

Voegele came into the 2011 ANZPT Adelaide main event final table as the chip leader and kept his foot on the gas the whole way.

He lost his grip on the lead four-handed, but battled back to beat Jesse McKenzie heads-up and collect an AUD$148,900 first-place prize.

A total of 253 players entered the AUD$2,400 event setting a new record for poker in South Australia and creating an AUD$551,540 prize pool that paid 27 spots.

19 different countries were represented in the tournament.

Next up for the PokerStars ANZPT is a stop in Perth March 23-27.

Here’s how the Adelaide final table finished up:

1 Octavian Voegele $148,900

2 Jesse McKenzie $99,260

3 Ian Parnell $55,150

4 Andrew Dales $44,670

5 Charles Caris $35,850

6 John Apostolidis $27,570

7 Jeff Rossiter $19,300

8 Danny Chevalier $14,060

9 Oliver Grujic $11,040

This week, PokerListings’ front page was filled with our Top Five Stories of 2010 and a few high stakes pros last ditch efforts to make the year an even more memorable one.

That meant a few of poker’s smaller stories may have slipped through the cracks.

Fortunately, we caught them and compiled them in our weekly Poker News in Brief feature below.

This week, Poker After Dark returns, the World Cup captains are named, UB goes back to Montreal and more.

Poker After Dark Returns

The new season of POKER PROductions’ Poker After Dark returns to NBC this week.

POKER PROductions inked an agreement with NBC Universal extending the late-night poker show through 2014 in 2010 and the seventh season, filmed at the new Aria Resort and Casino at the City Center complex in Las Vegas, begins airing Jan.

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The PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour crowned its first female champion Tuesday.

2010 APPT Cebu winner Young-shin Im.

Korean Young-shin Im took down the APPT Cebu main event for PHP 5,810,000 (approx. USD $132,500) after qualifying for the event through a $22 3x Turbo satellite on PokerStars.

The win marked Young-shin Im’s fifth cash on the APPT in the last year and a half with her previous deepest run being a 15th-place finish in the 2009 APPT Macau main event.

Michael Fabiano from Australia finished runner-up after Young-shin Im’s partner of ten years, Kim Gap Young, took third place.

Considering their relationship, precautions were taken to prevent collusion at the final table.

The APPT Cebu main event drew 236 players to the Shangri-La Mactan Resort in the Filipino Island paradise.

A total of 23 players also entered the PHP 200,000 High Roller event in Cebu.

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