WSOPE: John-Paul Kelly completes cross-Atlantic double
JP Kelly wins his second WSOP bracelet this year after beating 608 runners to take down Event #1 in London. He was also the winner in Event #20 in Vegas earlier this year.
WSOP Europe 2009 sponsored by Betfair Poker kicked off with the £1,000 NL Hold'em Event on 18th September. After two days of Day 1 play, a total of 608 participants signed up to generate a very respectable £608,000 prize pool.
Despite the relatively low buy-in, the event generated a great deal of interest from the top poker pros. Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, John Juanda，Barry Greenstein, Phil Ivey and Erik Seidel were all in attendance to add glitz to the proceedings.
The pros however found the going tough in this tournament as only Chris Ferguson was able to make a deep run in the event, finishing 15th and winning $6,980. Last year's WSOPE Main Event winner John Juanda also cashed in 43rd place for $2,803. Most of the other top pros did not make it past Day 1.
John-Paul Kelly defeats Fabien Dunlop for the title
In the end, it was John-Paul Kelly who outlasted everyone to take home the £136,803 first place prize. With this win, Kelly completes a double of WSOP and WSOPE titles as he had won a bracelet in the $1,500 NL Hold'em Event in Vegas earlier this year. Kelly also becomes the first ever British winner in the WSOPE.
Kelly went into Day 2 as the overwhelming chip leader and continued his fine form to enter the final table with the third largest chip stack. In the end, Fabien Dunlop was the last player standing in Kelly's way and Dunlop held a commanding 3 to 1 chip lead at the start of Heads-Up play.
Dunlop's lead did not faze Kelly one bit as he evened up the chip counts at the very start, as Dunlop went all-in on the first hand. It then became a roller-coaster ride for Kelly as he raced off into a commanding lead before losing it again. Kelly kept his cool however and eventually found the cards to send Dunlop home in second place.
The crucial deciding hand came 3 hands before the end when Kelly made a better flush with 
against Dunlop's 
. Dunlop was left crippled with just 19,000 chips after that and despite doubling up in the very next hand, there was no miraculous recovery in store for him.
Here are the results from the final table:
| WSOP Europe Event #1 Results |
||
| Place | Name | Prize |
| 1st | John-Paul Kelly | £136,803 |
| 2nd | Fabien Dunlop | £84,512 |
| 3rd | Adnan Alshamah | £55,468 |
| 4th | Richard Allen | £38,499 |
| 5th | Anthony Roux | £28,181 |
| 6th | Neil Suarez | £21,700 |
| 7th | Will Martin | £17,535 |
| 8th | Thor Drexel | £14,835 |
| 9th | James Tomlin | £13,115 |
