One of the highlights of the 2026 UK poker season is currently in motion, seeing as the 2026 UK Poker Championship (UKPC) is in full swing at Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham. The festival kicked off on January 17, and the live poker bonanza is going on at the UK’s finest venue until the twenty-sixth. The opening days have already delivered fireworks, with two trophies claimed in the first 48 hours of play.
Today, January 22, the live coverage from the £560 Main Event will kick off on Dusk Till Dawn’s webpage, a collaboration between “DTD” and poker.pro. There’s been some immense action up until this point, though; for example, the last starting-day flights of the £280 Opener were played yesterday, as was Day 1 of the £1,100 7-Max High Roller. With five days left to go of the festival, there’s still a lot of action to unfold.
Chasing Gold
The aforementioned £280 offered four starting-day flights. Overall, the tournament scored 521 entries, creating a £125,040 prize pool. A total of eighty players secured their Day 2 seats (which is being played today, January 22. They’ve all locked up a £500 min-cash and are fighting for the £21,240 first-place payout. What’s more, the top 20 players will all be awarded with a £560 ticket to the Main Event.
Jack Reape is leading the field going into Day 2 with an 889,000 stack; considering the tournament is resuming with the Big Blind being 6,000, Reape has earned himself great presumptions for a deep run. That being said, there are many skillful players still left in the mix, such as Danish Gandhi, Jonathan Kalmar, Anthony Kendall, and more.
In terms of the £1,100 High Roller, 13 players out of the 27 entries on Day 1 moved on to Day 2, which also resumes with its conclusion on the twenty-second. Late registration is open during the first two levels, and the tournament has a £50,000 guarantee. The well-merited Jay Harwood is leading the field going into Day 2, and it’ll be an intriguing fight for the very prestigious title.
2026 UKPC – £1,100 7-Max High Roller Day 2 Chip Counts
| Place | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jay Harwood | 979,000 |
| 2 | Satnam Sandhu | 892,000 |
| 3 | Jack Loraine | 744,000 |
| 4 | Guy Taylor | 635,000 |
| 5 | Harry Eden | 616,000 |
| 6 | Keith Johnson | 613,000 |
| 7 | Paul Tait | 504,000 |
| 8 | Andrew Hulme | 367,000 |
| 9 | Philip Clarke | 361,000 |
| 10 | Mitchell Johnson | 342,000 |
| 11 | Daniel Golder | 225,000 |
| 12 | Bryan Taylor | 223,000 |
Early Trophies Already Claimed
While the spotlight is now shifting toward the Main Event and the High Roller, the opening days of the 2026 UK Poker Championship have already produced their first champions. Two trophy events wrapped up during the first two days at the DTD.
Event #2, the £60 UKPC 7-Max, drew a healthy field of 155 entries, pushing the prize pool to £7,440. The first trophy of the festival went to an anonymous winner, who elected to keep their identity private after taking home £1,450. They defeated Cheng Zhu heads-up, with Zhu earning £1,105 for his runner-up finish.
2026 UKPC: Event #2 £60 7-Max Full Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Unknown | Unknown | £1,450 |
| 2 |  Cheng Zhu | England | £1,105 |
| 3 | Athul Othayoth | England | £1,045 |
| 4 | Danny Strange | England | £905 |
| 5 | Steven Mitchell | England | £865 |
| 6 |  Edi Neacsu | Romania | £380 |
| 7 | Paul Coughlan | England | £300 |
| 8 | Orlando Anderson | England | £215 |
| 9 |  Steven Frew | Scotland | £215 |
| 10 | Sarah Pearson | England | £150 |
| 11 | Gary Hewes | England | £150 |
| 12 | Richard Singhal | England | £120 |
| 13 | Unknown | Unknown | £120 |
| 14 | Mihai Chitu | Romania | £120 |
| 15 | Steven Adamson | England | £100 |
| 16 | Lewis Wilson | England | £100 |
| 17 |  Pawel Filar | Poland | £100 |
The following day saw a more familiar face step into the winner’s circle in the Event #3 £60 UKPC 8-Max. Nottingham local Ian Morris outlasted a 158-entry field to claim the trophy, £2,250 and a seat to the £500,000 GTD Main Event. The £5,000 guarantee was comfortably surpassed with a £7,584 prize pool as Morris defeated Jack Howes heads-up to secure the win.
Morris is well-known to our poker.pro crew after frequent appearances at events such as the Battle of Malta and the OlyBet festivals. With this win, he has now climbed past $150,000 in live tournament earnings.
2026 UKPC: Event #3 £60 8-Max Full Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ian Morris | England | £2,250 |
| 2 | Jack Howes | England | £1,289 |
| 3 | Kevin Naisbett | England | £880 |
| 4 | Orlando Anderson | England | £600 |
| 5 | Unknown | England | £465 |
| 6 |  Tahir Ahmed | United States | £370 |
| 7 | Emmanuel Sant | England | £290 |
| 8 | Philip Dudley | England | £235 |
| 9 | Shaun Hibbert | England | £185 |
| 10 | Stephen Mooney | England | £150 |
| 11 | Daniel Turner | England | £150 |
| 12 | Wayne Hopkin | England | £130 |
| 13 | Adam Wiklo | England | £130 |
| 14 | Ash Abdullah | England | £130 |
| 15 | Leszek Halicki | England | £110 |
| 16 |  Antonio De Angelis | Italy | £110 |
| 17 | Bruce Ewan | Scotland | £110 |
The poker.pro editorial office will upload daily articles during the 2026 UKPC, recapping all the results from the various events. To stay up-to-date in real time, don’t forget to follow along with the live blog on Dusk Till Dawn.
The 2026 UKPC is kicking off this year’s UK live poker season with a bang, and it’s safe to say Dusk Till Dawn is setting the bar high for coming live poker events this year.
