Major GPI Achievers of the Week

Poker journalist Eric Danis has compiled a list of major poker players on the Global Poker Index (GPI) list who made headlines recently.

Poker player Alex Spencer won the first major live poker championship title of his career when he won the Sky Poker UK Poker Championships hosted by the Nottingham Dusk Till Dawn. Spencer had to beat Danny Blair in the heads-up match to win this title.

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Mike Leah won the World Poker Tour (WPT) Fallsview Poker Classic preliminary event, a $1k buy-in event, which was held at Niagara Falls in Ontario in Canada. The champion won more than CA$100k. Pratyush Buddiga, a native of Colorado, won the other preliminary event, a $2,500 buy-in event, and won more than CA$240,000, which happens to be the first cash prize won in the course of his career.

The top players of the Los Angeles Poker Classic Playboy tournament, a $1,600 buy-in tournament, got to share a million-dollar prize pool. After Amit Makhija busted in the seventh place, the six players left standing struck a deal, according to the terms of which they would share the prize pool, but leave a part of it to play for. Adam Weinraub won the championship title, David Baker busted in the third place, and Kyle Bowker finished fifth.

Paul Hockin, a New Zealand poker player won two major poker titles last week when he won the APT Cebu, which was held in the Philippines, and took home a large prize of PHP 3,235,000. Hockin, who has won cash in live poker tournaments only four times in the course of his career, became the ANZPT Melbourne champion in Oct 2012.

Poker players have plenty of opportunities to win big money in the near future as live poker events are scheduled to be held in the US, Europe, and other parts of the world. In the US, the WPT Los Angeles Poker Classic, one of the largest WPT live poker events, began on Saturday. The next stop is going to be San Jose.

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) Las Vegas Main Event is also round the corner and will be held at Caesars Palace; and the Heartland Poker Tour (HPT) St. Louis Main Event will be held at River City Casino.

Several major UK poker pros, including Liv Boeree, will take part in the UKIPT Dublin and the St. Vincent leg of the Italian Poker Tour (IPT) this week.