Christopher Brammer open-raised from the button and Mohamed Kerkeni moved all in for 2,750,000. Brammer snap-called to put his opponent at risk as the cards were turned.
Mohamed Kerkeni: A♥10♣
Christopher Brammer: K♠K♥
Kerkeni needed help to overcome Brammer's pocket kings and he found it on the river as the board ran out J♠8♠J♣5♣A♣ to give Kerkeni a pair of aces. He won the pot and got the early double up.
Tuan Le, 43, won the inaugural UKIPT Blackpool £1,100 Main Event for £53,630 in 2023, and now has sights set on victory in the PokerStars Open here in Manchester. With over $275,000 in live tournament winnings, Le is a keen recreational player. “I just play for fun,” he said. “The only game I can play is Texas Hold’em, I actually don’t know the other games…”
Le is a Manchester local and business owner in the mental health sector. As for the first PokerStars Open to be held in his city, he said, “I love it. The card room and staff are really good and the structure – it’s the best I’ve played ever, to be fair. Other comps I’ve played, it gets to the final two, three tables and it’s a crapshoot. You’ve got plenty of play here, so it’s the best tournament I’ve played!"
Seat 2: Adam Andersson, Sweden – 2,400,000
Adam Andersson
Adam Andersson, 35, works in the hotel industry in Sweden but describes himself as “a semi-pro, maybe.” He has been playing poker since 2008; wherever he finishes in the Main Event, this will be his biggest live win.
Andersson qualified online through a $109 PokerStars satellite. “It was good value actually,” he said, “It was a last second decision with 30 seconds left of late registration – I just jumped in.”
He plays Texas Hold’em exclusively, 95% of the time online as ‘lolet’. “I like to mix [online] with some live tournaments,” he said. As for this one, he said, “It was really great. Actually, this is the first year I’ve played a PokerStars event and I’ve really enjoyed it."
Seat 3: Christopher Brammer, United Kingdom – 8,725,000
Christopher Brammer
Christopher Brammer is the most well-known player on the final table, having won $2.8 million in live cashes alone (he first came to the poker world’s attention as an online crusher) and a WSOP bracelet over the last decade. Brammer made the final table of the first UKIPT Manchester way back in 2010, came third at UKIPT Nottingham last year for £90,000 and now returns in dominant shape for the new
PokerStars Open. He warmed up this week by finishing 4th in the 161-runner £220 Deep Stack for £2,480.
Southampton-born and bred, the 37-year-old continues to travel the live tournament circuit while also battling the mid-to-high-stakes tournaments online. Of his run to the final, he attributed it to form, “winning all my flips”, but has been a persistent threat at the short-handed last two tables and has more experience at live final tables than most of his opponents.
Seat 4: Mohamed Kerkeni, France – 3,050,000
Mohamed Kerkeni
Mohamed Kerkeni, 40, is a poker professional who plays the gamut of “cash, tournament and Spin” with live results totalling over $245,000. He is most regularly found online; in the past he has been Supernova Elite on PokerStars. Kerkeni bought into the PokerStars Open Main Event in large part because it was convenient: he resides in Manchester and plays tournaments that are relatively local, with the exception of the WSOP and EPT Barcelona, for which he regularly travels.
With a middling stack going into the final day, he said that at one point on Day 2 he was down to just 13,000, but finished the day on over 800,000, a strong comeback that involved a bit of luck with a flush drawing ace-eight suited overcoming pocket kings. He reflected, “Day two was incredible, but I have been bullied by [Brammer]…” Interestingly, he describes his non-poker hobby as ‘perfumes’.
Seat 5: Sinead Davenport, United Kingdom – 1,275,000
Sinead Davenport
Sinead Davenport is a 35-year-old professional poker player from Macclesfield who travels wherever the live No Limit Hold’em tournaments she prefers are registering. With over $500,000 in tournament winnings, turning pro in 2022 and living partly on the road has proved profitable.
Davenport learned to play poker at 18 by watching pub games, then trying it out once a month or so for fun. She took a break from the game for a while, and when she came back to it, more seriously, she met her husband-to-be in a tournament in Luton in 2022. That event was not one of the trophy-collecting ones; in fact, he knocked her out.
Davenport’s successes include a $45,000 3rd prize in the WPT Ladies Championship at the Wynn in 2024, and nine final-table five-figure scores split between the USA and the UK.
Seat 6: Hasmukh Khodiyara, United Kingdom – 3,950,000
Hasmukh Khodiyara
Hasmukh Khodiyara, 38, plays poker on and offline whenever he can find the time off from work. Based in Leicester, he frequents the Dusk Till Dawn poker club and is a No Limit Hold’em specialist, with the occasional dabble in Pot Limit Omaha. Previous tournament successes include a runner-up finish in the Nottingham WSOP International Circuit event in 2019 (worth £112,000) and a UKIPT final table appearance in the same city in 2012, where he finished 5th for £62,500.
Regarding the Manchester leg of the PokerStars Open, Khodiyara says that the venue and tournament were good, he hopes it will return, and that it was a bonus to come to the home of the football team he supports – Manchester United. The tour of Old Trafford put on by PokerStars would have been a hit, if he hadn’t been focused on playing late into the night. “I would have gone – but [11:30] is too early! I’d have been knackered."
It's time for the Final Day of the PokerStars Open Manchester Main Event, running at the Deansgate Hotel and hosted by Hippodrome Casino. Six players return to the final table to compete for their share of the £1,000,000 prize pool, each eyeing up the top prize and the shiny PS trophy.
UK pro Christopher Brammer returns as the chip leader with 8,725,000 chips, just slightly ahead of 2023 UKIPT Blackpool winner Tuan Le, who sits back down with 8,250,000. Between them, Brammer and Le have almost two-thirds of all the chips in play.
Still, all it takes is a double up or two and it's anyone's game. Don't rule out any of the other competitors as the event plays down to a winner. Hasmukh Khodiyara, Mohamed Kerkeni, Adam Andersson and Sinead Davenport will all need to spin it up to claim the top spots.
Start of Final Day Chip Counts
Rank
Player
Country
Chip Count
Big Blinds
1
Christopher Brammer
United Kingdom
8,725,000
58
2
Tuan Le
United Kingdom
8,250,000
55
3
Hasmukh Khodiyara
United Kingdom
3,950,000
26
4
Mohamed Kerkeni
France
3,050,000
20
5
Adam Andersson
Sweden
2,400,000
16
6
Sinead Davenport
United Kingdom
1,275,000
9
Christopher Brammer
All players have locked up a cash worth at least £35,440, while the winner is set to walk away the huge six-figure sum of £174,400.
Remaining Payouts
Place
Prize
1
£174,400
2
£109,000
3
£77,860
4
£59,890
5
£46,070
6
£35,440
The six finalists return to Level 31 with blinds on 75,000/150,000/150,000. Levels are 60-minutes, which is played as a set number of hands, as has become the norm for PokerStars final tables. The tournament resumes at 12.30 p.m. local time.
Stay tuned to PokerNews as we catch all of the final table action until a new PS Open champion is crowned.
