Black Belt Poker Event Won By Paul Pham

The inaugural Black Belt Poker Live was won by Paul Pham, who picked up $15,000 from his initial $220 investment after defeating a field of 300 players at London’s Victoria Casino.
Despite the low buy-in, the tournament organised by UK pro Neil Channing and his team managed to attract a top tier of players which included Ross Boatman, Karl Mahrenholz, Jake Cody, Rory Liffey, James Akenhead, Praz Bansi, Ian Frazer, and Liam Flood.
However, it was Frenchman Paul Pham who eventually lifted the title and commenting on his victory said: “I play pretty much all of my poker online and am mainly a cash game player. I don’t play live very often and have only played three tournaments so far. I only played this one because the structure was deep and it suited my game.”
Players in the tournament were given a starting stack of 20,000 chip and with hour long blinds the competition allowed for a lot of poker play. By the time the 27-year-old Pham made it through to the final table, he had a commanding chip lead which he put to good use by eliminating half of the remaining nine players.
Eventually, heads-up play was reached between Pham and Karim Louis and after the action went back and forth a few times, all the chips went to the centre of the table on a 7d-10d-Jc board, with Pham holding Kc-Jd to Louis’s Js-6c. A Kd on the turn followed by a 10s on the river sealed the victory for Paul Pham, who took away the $15,000 top prize, while Louis had to be content with the $10,000 runner-up position.
Commenting on his win, Paul Pham said: “There were a lot of strong players in the tournament. Daniel Laming was very good and gave me a bit of a hard time on Day One. So was Jack [McDermott] on my left. He’s a decent player and I managed to get lucky against him on the final table with A-J versus A-K.”