The last day of 888poker LIVE Festival London Main Event that required a buying of £1,100 saw 21 players returning. They survived the field that was 656-players strong, and all of them were competing for a prize of £121,000 along with a trophy. The first two levels went by pretty quick, but the final table turned into a real struggle which lasted until 2:30 am. The tournament took place at the Aspers Casino which is located at Westfield Stratford City. However, all one player managed to win this hefty sum, and it was James Williams who is a professional poker player from the UK who specializes in cash games. His main opponent in the heads-up play was Derek Lawless is not even a pro player but plays poker recreationally. Lawless is, in fact, a decorator, and making it to the heads-up play in such a big poker event is a great success for him. Although the final table lasted long, the heads-up ended pretty quickly, mainly due to Willimas’ experience. Lawless wanted to bluff his way out during one hand, but Williams was good enough to catch it and win the game.
The third place belonged to Antoine Labat who actually made it to the 9th place in the 2018 WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas. Labat had a great second day during this tournament and played very aggressively all along. However, his intuition wasn’t good enough to take the trophy home. Labat played overall great and his poker skills are indeed great. He even managed to pull a jack-high bluff when he faced Lawless. They were serious opponents and clashed alone several times during the tournament. On the other hand, some of the other players who participated in the final table are (starting from the ninth place) Craig Sweden, Christos Xanthopoulos, Philippe Souki, Aleem Kanji, Adnan Dacic, and Hak-Hyun Lee.
Back to the heads-up play, Lawless wanted to bluff once but Williams was able to see through it and gained a cheap lead of 9-1. However, Lawless doubled up two times after that and restored a balance to the game. Nevertheless, that was not enough for Lawless who tried to bluff one more time. This time, it was fatal for him and he had to settle for a sum of £85,000. This concluded a successful festival that took place at the Aspers Casino at Westfield Stratford City. All other events went great as well, and most of them surpassed the guaranteed prize pools. Some of the players that traveled to the Aspers Casino to try their luck are John Cynn, Scott Blumstein, Tony Miles, Michael Mizrachi, and a host of 888poker ambassadors – David Peters. None of them managed to achieve significant results on the events that took place but they certainly gave us some top-notch poker to watch.