According to the Global Poker Index (GPI), Toby Lewis is the number one ranked live tournament player in the UK. They refer to him as The Jester, and whilst I have no idea where that nickname comes from, it kind of suits, because this kid is surely having a laugh.
It’s been a fantastic few days for British poker. Ashley Mason secured fourth place in the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) in Melbourne for $52,653, Tom Middleton was victorious at the European Poker Tour (EPT) Barcelona for $1,260,000, and Lewis has just bagged himself a World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) bracelet after taking the top prize in Event #6: $2,000 $215+R NL Hold’em (Turbo) for $189,379.
That win for Lewis puts his lifetime online cashes just under the $3.5m mark, and he currently ranks as the top online poker player in the UK, according to the PocketFives ranking system, proving that Lewis can win money playing poker equally well irrespective of whether you stick him in front of a computer screen or in a smelly old poker room.
And yet the accolades for Lewis don’t stop there. When Middleton took down that seven figure score in Barcelona guess whom his backer was? Yes you’ve guessed it. So that means in the course of a few days Lewis is one of the biggest winners in world poker – talk about getting it quietly.
Lewis is not the only British player to have started WCOOP in solid fashion. Stephen ‘woody1234321’ Woodhead took his lifetime online earnings to $1.2m with a sixth place finish in WCOOP Event #3: $215 NLHE $1.5m Guaranteed for $68,286; and three more Brits found their way to the final table of WCOOP Event #5: $320 NLHE 6-Max Shootout $250k Guaranteed. The unknown British entity, Aduobe4 took first for $68,208; another unknown Brit Luckbox4life finished third for $34,992 and former EPT San Remo Champion Liv Boeree put in a good showing finishing fifth for $15,552.
This year the WCOOP has $40m worth of guarantees spread over 66 world championship events.
Alex ‘IReadYrSoul’ Millar Crushing High Stakes Online Cash Games
Toby Lewis is one of the more affluent of British poker players these days, but one man who could sit down and match him roll for roll would be Alex Millar. The high stakes cash game pro plays under the alias ‘Kanu7’ on PokerStars (PS) and ‘IReadYrSoul’ on Full Tilt Poker (FTP), and it’s the latter where he has been taking down chunks this past week.
Millar logged an impressive win of $1.2m, over 3,346 hands to make him the biggest winner of the high stakes universe this week. The victory was a crucial one as Millar had once been down $1.6m on the year, whilst playing at FTP. He is now up $570k for the year on FTP and $330k on PS.
