Martin Jacobson Goes From Short Stack to Champion in UKIPT Main Event (£232,300)

The £1,100 UKIPT Main Event at the PokerStars European Poker Tour London from the Hilton Park Lane hotel has come to an end after just over three hours of play on the final day. The finale of UKIPT's flagship event saw Martin Jacobson conquer the 1,458-entry field and win the grand prize of £232,300 which was the lions share of the £1,399,680 prize pool.

Jacobson’s win is his third official EPT victory but by far his largest as his previous ones came in side events in London in 2013 and in Vienna in 2014 for smaller amounts as he noted afterward.

“That was a big win back then as I had kept getting second and third before then so actually winning a tournament was very nice” as he reflected on EPT memories of the past.

£1,100 UKIPT Main Event Final Table Results

This win opens up a new era for Jacobson as this result comes in as the twelfth largest live score of Jacobson’s illustrious poker career, the largest since 2017 and his first six-figure win since 2018 to add to his more than $17 million in career earnings.

Jacobson’s run was a bit of a fairy tale one as he entered Day 3 as the shortest stack out of the remaining 28 players at that point. But that’s when pocket aces became the theme of the tournament for Jacobson as he used them to triple on one occasion to claw back from the super short stack depths and then he found them again in a wild hand from yesterday when he accidentally exposed his cards but they were not seen by his opponent.

Jacobson was supported by his wife and in-laws throughout the final day.

“That always feels nice to win in front of them. Home field (advantage),” he added.

Action of the Day

The day began a bit slowly but kicked into gear when Olivier Arnault became the first victim of the day when he jammed his pocket jacks from the small blind into the aces of the start-of-day massive chip leader Conor Beresford. There was a jack on the flop but also an ace to tease Arnault just enough before sending him out the door.

Vincenzo Schiavottiello was the next to go only ten minutes later when he lost a flip to Jacobson.

The field continued to shrink at a steady pace as Jon Kyte was taken out by Beresford about half an hour later to set up three-handed play which would not last very long as the short stack Martin Caride was eliminated after laddering up a few spots for a nice third place cash.

That set up heads-up play, which ended up being longer than all of the previous action of the day with both players being deep-stacked. Beresford entered with a 2:1 chip lead and was looking to finish a dominating final table performance but it was not to be as Jacobson ended up taking control quickly by gathering several substantial pots in a row. Good fortune seemed to smile upon Jacobson all throughout heads up as he had the better of Beresford in nearly every pot.

The final hand ended up being the real sting in the rail as Jacobson turned a set of aces to crush the flopped two pair of Beresford to give him the title.

That wraps up the PokerNews coverage for this UKIPT Main Event. Be sure to keep it with the Live Reporting team for updates from the floor throughout EPT London.