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The Nottingham stop of the PokerStars.com UK & Ireland Poker Tour was one for the history books, as the £500 NLHE tournament drew 1,058 players, set a prize pool of £529K, and recorded participation from players in 39 countries. Not bad for the second stop of the UKIPT’s Season 2.

It all started with 478 players entering Day 1A of the tournament at the Dusk Till Dawn poker club, and another 580 joined in the action for Day 1B. The field reduced quickly, though, as only 215 started Day 2, which brought them to the money, courtesy of a three-way bubble hand that allowed the last 128 players to be paid a minimum of £955 for their troubles. By the start of Day 3, only 12 players were left standing, and eventually it was the elimination of Ian Gilchrist in ninth place that allowed the official final table to continue toward the end.

At that final table, David Heaton was the first to be eliminated, and Romano Pizzo took the reins to eliminate Thomas Rolfe in seventh place. Chris Dowling fell to Brett Angell, and Pizzo took charge again, sending away Mike Hill in fifth and Tim Bettingen in fourth. Pizzo looked unstoppable with 10 million chips, but Angell doubled through him, as did Gareth Walker. Pizzo was soon the short stack, and despite a double-up through Walker, it was Walker who eliminated the Italian soon after in third place.

Heads-up started with the two UK players, Walker holding approximately 11 million chips and Angell with 4.6 million. Angell did manage to double up and climb into the chip lead, but Walker doubled back through. The final hand came down at 4:30am local time when Walker moved all-in with 9c-6c, and Angell called with a solid Th-Td. But the board of Kc-3c-4d-5c-Tc gave Walker the undisputed flush, which left PokerStars qualifier Brett Angell out in second place with £68,700. Gareth Walker, who final tabled the same UKIPT event in 2010, claimed his first victory and the £109K that went with it.

Final table payouts:

1^st place:  Gareth Walker (UK) £109,000
2^nd place:  Brett Angell (UK) £68,700
3^rd place:  Romano Pizzo (Italy) £40,750
4^th place:  Tim Bettingen (Germany) £31,700
5^th place:  Mike Hill (UK) £24,350
6^th place:  Chris Dowling (Ireland) £19,050
7^th place:  Thomas Rolfe (UK) £13,750
8^th place:  David Heaton (UK) £7,950

The UKIPT will head to Manchester for its next stop, a £500 Main Event with a £200K guarantee beginning on March 10.