The inaugural PartyPoker Tour UK kicked off with a bang on April 19 with hundreds of players battling on the opening day of the 2025 PartyPoker Tour UK London at Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford City in East London from April 19-27.
The £150 Mini Main Event kicked off the first of its six opening flights with 172 runners already in action. Each opening flight plays down to 25 percent of the field advancing to Day 2 on April 23 before the field is narrowed down further for the third and final day on April 24. Grace Smith had a strong day playing under the 30-minute clock and bagged the overnight chip lead after parlaying the 50,000 opening stack nearly 10-fold into 487,500 with Ivaylo Dimitrov (468,000), Luke Hammatt (341,500), Robert Kucma (332,000), and David Gassian (327,000) all finishing in the top five on Day 1a.
Meanwhile, Ding Fan earned the title in the £100 8-Game for £445 after agreeing to a heads-up deal with Masoud Etemadiherisi, while Jitin Dhawan shipped the £200 NLH Knockout for £2,175 plus bounties.
Read on to learn more about the opening day of the 2025 PartyPoker Tour UK London at Aspers Casino Westfield Stratford City.
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Ding Fan Wins £100 8-Game
The PartyPoker Tour UK offers something for every player. While most of the tournaments are in either no-limit hold’em or pot-limit Omaha, yesterday boasted something special at Aspers in the £100 8-Game.
For those of you unfamiliar with this format, 8-Game is exactly how it sounds as the event boasts a rotation of eight different games including the five limit games of HORSE in Hold’em (H), Omaha h/l (O), Razz (R), Stud (S), and Stud Hi-Lo (E). This is combined with no-limit hold’em, pot-limit Omaha, and limit 2-7 Triple Draw for an action packed affair.
A dozen players got into the mix to create a £1,020 prize pool with the top three players finishing in the money. The final two players agreed to a heads-up deal after Thomas Getgood hit the rail on the podium in third place for £205.
Masoud Etemadiherisi (second – £370) earned a little bit more thanks to the deal but fell short of the title with Ding Fan earning the first victory of the 2025 PartyPoker Tour UK London and the £445 top prize.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ding Fan | £445 |
| 2 | Masoud Etemadiherisi | £370 |
| 3 | Thomas Getgood | £205 |
Jitin Dhawan Wins First Hold’em Trophy
The £200 NLH Knockout witnessed 79 runners add £9,875 to the prize pool along with another £3,950 for £13,825 in prizes to be played for.
The entire final table of nine players each finished in the money for at least a £315 min-cash plus bounties. The final three players agreed to a deal locking in £2,175 plus bounties each between Jitin Dhawan, bwin streamer Aleksandar Georgiev, and William Redding.
Dhawan got the job done to earn the final bounty at the end along with the first no-limit hold’em trophy of the festival with many more big events to come.
| Place | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jitin Dhawan | £2,175 |
| 2 | Aleksandar Georgiev | £2,175 |
| 3 | William Redding | £2,175 |
| 4 | Patryk Pietrzykowski | £980 |
| 5 | Ryan Wakefield | £710 |
| 6 | Richard Wheater | £545 |
| 7 | Anish Suri | £435 |
| 8 | M K | £365 |
| 9 | Rhys Crump | £315 |
£150 Mini Main Day 1a Chip Counts
| Player | Chips |
|---|---|
| Grace Smith | 487,500 |
| Ivaylo Dimitrov | 468,000 |
| Luke Hammatt | 341,500 |
| Robert Kucma | 332,000 |
| David Gassian | 327,000 |
| Jordan Caplan | 311,000 |
| Jinlin Huang | 301,000 |
| Ben Skinner | 298,500 |
| Matthew Skeadas | 262,500 |
| Chee Tan | 259,000 |
| W X | 256,000 |
| M J | 251,000 |
| Edwin U | 245,000 |
| Christopher Knight | 237,000 |
| Krzysztof Michalik | 215,000 |
| Rovshan Gasimov | 205,000 |
| Stephen Okeeffe | 203,000 |
| Valentin-Catalin Ardeleanu | 200,500 |
| Peter Denly | 200,000 |
| Emanuele Bossone | 199,000 |
| Dean Robb | 197,500 |
| B K | 191,500 |
| Arnav Patel | 188,000 |
| Barry Smith | 185,000 |
| Danas Gerdziunas | 178,500 |
| Lami Ulkumen | 176,000 |
| R E B | 167,500 |
| Raheel Bhatti | 160,500 |
| A G | 150,500 |
| Michael Delaney | 149,000 |
| Adrian Ming | 143,500 |
| Iulian Rautu | 142,000 |
| Van Le | 107,000 |
| Pedro Luis Martinez Sedano | 101,000 |
| Samuli Gurko | 99,000 |
| Hexing Lin | 96,000 |
| J K | 93,000 |
| Stephen Brown | 93,000 |
| Gary Dallison | 90,000 |
| I H | 86,500 |
| Ryan Johnstone | 83,500 |
| Alcymar Borges Nunes De Oliveira | 76,500 |
| Matthew Tibbles | 76,000 |
2025 PartyPoker UK Tour London Easter Schedule (April 20)
Some poker players will be celebrating Easter with their families while many others will join the fun on Sunday, April 20 at Aspers Casino for another action-packed day highlighted by our very own event in the live-reported £200 poker.pro PLO on Sunday.
Before this big event, players will battle in the £20 Mini Main Satellite at 11 a.m. and Day 1b of the £150 Mini Main Event at 2 p.m. The evening wraps up with a £60 Main Event Satellite. This is in addition to the cash games running 24 hours a day at Aspers Casino throughout the event.
Check out Sunday’s schedule below or head to our PartyPoker Tour UK announcement to check out the full schedule.
| Time | Event |
|---|---|
| 11 a.m. | £20 Mini Main Satellite |
| 2 p.m. | £150 Mini Main Event Day 1b |
| 6 p.m. | £200 poker.pro Omaha 7-Max |
| 9 p.m. | £60 Main Event Satellite |
