GUKPT Walsall Won By Daniel Haglund

Daniel Haglund has won the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) Walsall, after defeating a field of 152 players over three days to lift the title, and collect the £45,100 ($73,453) first place prize.
The young Swedish pro predominately plays online, but has also now cashed in four live tournaments since 2011 including an 8th place finish last year at the WSOP $1k event for $64,186. With his GUKPT win Daniel Haglund’s live cashes currently stand at $164,274 and commenting later on his remarkable victory in Walsall, said:
“I ran pretty good..I wasn’t thinking too much, to be honest, I just tried to play decent poker and hoped to run OK.”
The £1k buy-in GUKPT Walsall Main Event saw some of Britain’s most talented tournament players turn out hoping to bag a share of the £153,000 prize pool. These included such pros as Chaz Chattha, Julian Thew, Dan Carter, Jeff Kimber, Sunny Chattha, Jerome Bradpiece and Stuart Fox.
However, none of these players made it past day one and by the time the final table of nine had been reached Daniel Haglund (457k) was lying in 3rd place behind chip leader Steve Holden (683k) and Chris Gavriel (603k).
Daniel Haglund then proceeded to eliminate two players from the competition on his way to the heads-up, including Dave Clark in 4th (£12,240), and a short stacked Martin Holmes in 3rd (£19,890), whose A-9 fell to the Q-J of Haglund, with a queen appearing on the flop.
As the heads-up phase got underway, Daniel Haglund and the UK’s Steve Holden were fairly even in chips and the two competitors battled away for 75 minutes before Holden with pocket fours announced “all in” and was snap called by Haglund’s pocket nines. With no help from the board, Holden then had to content himself with a runner-up finish worth £31,125, while the Swede walked away richer to the tune of £45,100, plus a ticket to the 2012 Champion of Champions event.
The GUKPT Walsall Final Table payouts were as follows:
1. Daniel Haglund £45,100
2. Steve Holden £31,750
3. Martin Holmes £19,890
4. Dave Clark £12,240
5. Chris Gavriel £9,560
6. Terry Owens £7,720
7. Jonathan McCann £5,740
8. Arulmaran Sivaguru £4,210
9. Simon Deadman £3,060