Tom Bentham – tjbentham

High stakes cash pro Tom Bentham takes down the GUKPT Heads-Up Championship….

Thomas Bentham earns his crust as a high stakes online cash pro but this month he also gave the ‘live’ UK regulars a lesson in tournament poker at the GUKPT.

The Kent based player, better known as ‘tjbentham’ on PokerStars, took down the £2,500 Heads-Up Championship at the Vic in London to pocket £20,000 (or $28,029) after defeating pre-tournament favourite Richard Gryko in the final. Bentham had also previously defeated Neil ‘Badbeat’ Channing in the 1st round of the event and tournament sponsors Blue Square had cut his price into 4/6 before the final match-up after a wave of support for the online phenom.

You have probably seen the alias ‘tjbentham’ in the highest stakes NLH games on PokerStars for most of the year, being seen regularly at the $200/$400 tables and making a more than decent living off his skills against some of the worlds best (Poker Table Ratings shows him up almost $500,000 from his previous 92,000 Hold ‘Em hands on the site). He also had a couple of cashes at the 2008 WSOP, finishing 57th ($5,586) in the $2,500 NLH & 87th ($6,972) in the $1,500 NLH. He also had some good success on the MTT scene before turning to cash games, taking down the Stars $100 Re-Buys for over $39,000 in 2007 as well as numerous final tables in the $200 Re-Buys up until 2008. However, he has hardly played an online tournament over the last 6 months and that goes to show that he is enjoying the high stakes games and is showing no signs of slowing down.

Congratulations to Bentham for his heads-up victory and we look forward to seeing him perform at the Champion of Champions tournament in December!