The Beer Poker Tour London took place at Genting Stratford from 10-15 June, 2025. It was a jovial and good-natured week of poker, for this unusual and unique tour, in which two new champions emerged from the key events on the schedule.
It’s a low buy-in poker tour designed for recreational players, themed almost as if it was a night of poker at the pub, rather than in a casino. Sides had added drinks vouchers, either for KO’s or added to pots in two booze themed bomb-pot style turbo events, all for free, added to the prize pool by tour.
Considering the price of a pint in the capital, it must have added up to quite a sizeable bar tab by the end of the six-day festival. In addition to the virtually free-flowing beer, participants were also treated to free pizza during breaks in the Main Event.
The Double Mystery Bounty Main Event
The Main Event had a unique format, dubbed a Double Mystery Bounty by Beer Poker Tour operator Merivan Hassan. Essentially this meant that even on the starting day flights of the £185 buy-in event, players could win mystery bounties, albeit much smaller than on Day 2. The Day 1 mystery prizes ranged from £5 to £200. while on Day 2, the lowest was £100, with a top prize of £5,000. There were eight starting flights, with 849 entries combined, from which 130 players progressed to Day 2, where the prize money and biggest bounty prizes awaited.
Will Kassouf had seven bullets before making it to the end of a starting flight, but was one of the first to depart when play resumed for the second and final day of the £100,000 guaranteed tournament. After busting, Will provided impromptu live running commentary for players opening their mystery bounties, whether they liked it or not.
The event was won by online pro Dan Spataru, a Moldovan who lives in London, who not only banked the first prize of £11,800, but also scooped the majority of the biggest mystery prizes on offer.
His haul of bounties included the largest of £5,000, plus others worth £2,000, £1,000, £500, £300 and several worth £200 and £100.
The Final Table
It was a relatively inexperienced final table, with most of the last nine only having a handful of previous live results each. Joshua Wooldridge, with over $60,000 in cashes on his Hendon Mob profile, was the only one with more than $30,000 in live winnings.
Spataru established his claim to title with two tables left and held the chip lead when the final table began. Perhaps the most active player on the final table was Lithuanian VV, who chose to remain anonymous. He was also the most talkative player on the final table, however not the most talkative person at the table, as Will Kassouf won that award, watching and commentating from the side-lines.
Spataru steadily increased his stack throughout the final table and held the chip lead once these two got heads-up for the title. After Giuseppe Cerri had been taken out in 3rd place, Spataru had a 30m to 12m chip lead over VV and it only took a short while before the final hand played out.
Spataru’s K♣Q♦ was well in front of VV’s K♠4♣ and Will Kassouf provided a running commentary, as the board was dealt out, saying
“oh, put a four down there, you’ll be 4-high like a boss when you iron him out with that monster”
But the deck had other ideas and the 8♥8♠8♦ was not one of the fours that the Lithuanian was looking for. Neither was the 2♦ on the turn, nor the 7♥ which fell on the river.
Having been fully focused on achieving the win, most of the players on the final table had forgotten that the name of this tour is related to beer. All but one chose to stick with soft drinks throughout. Having secured the victory, Spataru allowed himself some time to enjoy his win and had a little fun during the post-match award ceremony.
The Beer Poker Tour London Main Event Final Table Payouts
| Position | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Dan Spataru | £11,800 |
| 2nd | VV | £8,250 |
| 3rd | Giuseppe Cerri | £6,000 |
| 4th | Jean Rupert | £4,400 |
| 5th | Joshua Wooldridge | £3,225 |
| 6th | Serhii Lubyk | £2,400 |
| 7th | Lai Tan | £1,825 |
| 8th | Leigh Gillson | £1,450 |
| 9th | Yordan Yordanov | £1,190 |
poker.pro Omaha Championship
The other core event during the Beer Poker Tour London was the festival opener, the £150 4/5/6 Card Pot Limit Omaha, sponsored by poker.pro. There were four starting flights for this event, from which 30 players progressed to Day 2, from a total of 193 entries, creating a prize pool of £24,340
Legends of the UK poker scene. Ram “Crazy Horse” Vaswani and Jac Arama both fired multiple bullets, but neither managed to bag a stack for Day 2. Will Kassouf also had a couple of bullets in the opening flight of this, but his nuts didn’t convert to the coconuts, on about the fifth or sixth hand in-a-row that he played.
Locals Sam Acheampong and Dillan Patel were among those who returned for the second day of the tournament, both making the final, with Dillan dispatching Sam in 4th place.
It was won by Slovenian Ljubiša Nedimovič, who overcame the huge chip lead that Matthew Cox had taken onto the final table. Cox established his dominance with two tables left, busting Anthony Robert in 9th with a straight flush versus an ace high flush.
On the final table, with three players left, Cox still held the chip lead and Nedimovič was the shortest, Dillan Patel being the meat in-between their polarised chip-stack sandwich. Unafraid to play big pots, the Slovenian won a series of hands from both players, whittling away at Patel’s stack and taking a few big pots from the chip leader to close the gap. He then took a massive pot from Cox, to assume the chip lead.
Matthew Cox fought back, but after Nedimovič had busted Dillan Patel in 3rd place, he faced a 4-1 chip deficit when the heads-up stage began. The final skirmishes lasted for a dozen or so hands, before Nedimovič emerged as the winner, taking the title and the beer mug trophy in a 6-card hand, collecting the top prize of £6,290.
poker.pro 4/5/6 Card PLO Final Table Payouts
| Position | Player | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Ljubiša Nedimovič | £6,630 |
| 2nd | Matthew Cox | £4,260 |
| 3rd | Dillan Patel | £2,800 |
| 4th | Sam Acheampong | £1,820 |
| 5th | Lotfi Boughanmi | £1,250 |
| 6th | Matas Gerdziunas | £970 |
| 7th | Nigel Pinto | £760 |
Jason Glatzer Wins Inaugural Poker Experience Tour Event
The Beer Festival London was also the setting for the inaugural Poker Experience Tour (PET) event. It’s a brand new tour with low buy-in festivals in Manchester and London already scheduled for 2025. But to kick things off, a one-off event was held at the Beer Poker Tour, hosted by Glenn Brown and Paul Moyce.
It was a £95 PKO, with added PET Main Event seats, worth £240 each, on Glenn and Paul’s heads. It was a lively affair, with many of the room’s regulars raising the volume level, especially during multi-way all-in situations, which somehow always seemed to involve Sam Acheampong.
The trophy was won by none other than poker.pro’s Jason Glatzer, who was delighted to have made his first ever cash at the venue. It’s a feat that has eluded him several times, soft bubbling more often than he cares to remember. It looked like he might miss out on a payday once again, as he found himself short-stacked and all-in on the bubble, against the big stack on the table, who this time opted to fold.
Having successfully navigated his way into a payout position, Glatzer played more freely, owning the chip lead by the time he got heads up with Sam Anderson. In the final hand Glatzer’s A♦8♠ held on against K♦Q♥, to take the first prize of £865 and over £1k in bounties.
