Gang Wang Styles 888poker Live London Victory

Chinese player Gang Wang is the 2025 888poker Live London champion. He defeated a field of 357 players at the Grosvenor Victoria Casino to claim the £86,600 first prize. It was a talented final table, that included two double GUKPT Main Event winners, Ravi Sheth and Calogero Morreale, both looking for another trophy to add to their burgeoning collections. Also making the final table was Michael Rosaman, the winner of the Mini Main event earlier in the festival.

Wang played a fearless game involving many all-in shoves. He faced off against Calogero Morreale for the title and emerged victorious after an hour and a half of heads-up play. In the post match interview, runner-up Calogero admitted that Wang’s unorthodox over-betting method of play had been difficult to contend with.

Wang doesn’t speak much English, but did manage to say that his big betting style, with frequent all-in moves, simplified things. Fully aware of the similarity of his name to the PSY 2012 hit that broke the internet, Gang Wang even did an impression of the South Korean singer’s trademark Gangnam Style move (see pic below).

Wang had a very good festival, also claiming 3rd place in the PLO for £2,100, but this is by far the best result of his life. It was not however the first 888 Live event he has won, as he took down a £220 event in London in 2019. 

Star Performers

In addition to Wang, there were several other players who shone brightly during the week, making multiple final tables. Michael Rosaman won the Mini Main Event, taking £26,250 and went very close to achieving a unique double, finishing in 3rd place in the Main Event for a further £38,000. 

Ravi Sheth also made final tables in both the Main Event (6th for £12,850) and the High Roller, in which he finished as runner-up for £29,660. Having won the record breaking GUKPT Coventry event at last month’s Goliath festival, Ravi is now positioning himself as the most likely challenger to Thomas Clack in the National Poker League. 

• Read More: Ravi Sheth Wins Record Breaking GUKPT Coventry Main Event

Clack had taken a commanding lead after finishing second in the Goliath, but as one of the only players in ten top 10 to have not lodged 20 cashes, Sheth can close the gap further on Clack if he maintains his current form at forthcoming GUKPT stops in Edinburgh and Blackpool.

Nuno Duarte also had a great week, winning the High Roller for £43,510 and taking 3rd in the closer for a further £2,120. Ian Burr was another player seemingly on fire, winning the 4 Card PLO for £4,850 and taking 6th in the Mystery Bounty for a further £1,800. But still nobody called the fire brigade and he went on to make a third final table during the week, finishing 8th in the Big Shot for another £1,550.

The Mystery Bounty was won by Welshman Iwan Jones, for £11,730. Jones is a long time regular on the UK poker circuit, had been less active for a few years, but has been smashing it out of the park recently, notching up 29 cashes since the start of 2024. This victory was his first live tournament win since 2017. 

Jones was joined on the final table by another legend of the UK’s poker community, none other than John Duthie, the founder of the EPT, who finished in 4th place for £3,610. There was also success for another old school Welshman, Rana Gurnham, who took down the PLO Bounty event for £2,500.

Ferrero Rocher Moments

There was also glory for two of the 888 Poker ambassadors during the week. The first of these went to Vivian Saliba, who secured victory in the £550 Big Shot for £12,135. She defeated Stephen Bean after a heads-up deal. Saliba had a great week overall, also finishing 4th in the High Roller for £14,010. 

Saliba’s heads-up victim Stephen Bean also made the High Roller final table, exiting in 9th for £4,590. That was his third final table of the week and he was already a winner, having scooped the Crazy 8 Opening Event for £19,603. Saliba was not the only woman to taste victory during the week, as Xuan Zhang bested a field of 130 in the £500 Dragon, to take the £14,420 first prize.

The second ambassadorial victory for the sponsor was achieved by Nick Eastwood, who won the £220 Closer, outlasting a field of 80 players to secure the £4,860 first prize. Eastwood was joined on this final table by fellow ambassador Aaron Barone, who took 5th for £1,090. 

Ian Simpson didn’t have the successful week he was hoping for, managing only two minor cashes, in the Big Shot and the High Roller. He was instead consigned to handing out the Ferrero Rochers on the rail while his fellow ambassadors were taking down the big prizes.

How the Final Table Panned Out

Gang Wang went into the nine-player final table with the second shortest stack, but jumped up the leaderboard early on to stay in contention. 

The first player to hit the rail was Geoffrey Mooney, who was also one of the shorties when play recommenced for the final day. He departed in 9th for £7,100 when his AK was outdrawn by Akshat Bansel’s AT, as a ten fell on the flop. The next player to exit was another short stack, Jamie Dwan, who got his last 130k in with K♥Q♣ against Paul Vas Nunes, who had pocket nines. The board provided no help and Dwan departed in 8th for £8,250.

After the first hour of play, Calogero Morreale had assumed the chip lead, on over 3.5m, with Vas Nunes not far behind on 3m. Gang Wang had moved up to third place with just over 1m, while Ravi Sheth and Mario Trattou were the short-stacks. Soon afterwards, the field was reduced to six. Mario Trattou’s 8♠8♣ was downed by Akshat Bansel’s A♥9♦, with the 9♦ on the flop sealing his fate. Mario collected £9,950 for his 7th place finish. 

Ravi Sheth had been hoping for as high a finishing position as possible, in order to maintain his challenge on the National Poker League leaderboard, but had to settle for 6th place and £12,850, when his pocket sevens were felled by Michael Rosaman’s A♠J♠. The flop delivered the J♣ and that was that for Ravi, who collected 21 NPL points. He moves up to just under 300 points on the NPL leaderboard, but is still over 90 points behind Thomas Clack. 

Gang Wang had been relatively quiet since his early double up, but after a creatively played hand by Akshat, which fortuitously made a flush on the river, he found himself at the bottom of the chip chart. But as the prize money jumps became more significant, the rapid pace of exits came to a halt and it was quite some time before another bust out occurred. 

During this phase of the final, Gang Wang made several audacious raises, including shoving all-in with bottom pair against Vas Nunes, who was then the runaway leader. It was moves like this that prompted the commentary team to describe his way of playing as ‘Gang Wang Style’. 

Soon after stepping up his activity, Wang won a massive pot from Paul Vas Nunes to move up to over 4m chips and assume the chip lead. Gang Wang’s style certainly opened up the table and copycat massive shoves began to occur by some of the other players. Unfortunately for Akshat Bansel, the timing of his all-in shove with K♠7♦ was a little off and he walked straight into aces, held by Wang. He then walked to the cash desk to collect £17,650 in prize money for his 5th place finish.

By then Wang had grown his stack to over 5.5m and was over 3m ahead of second placed Calogero Morreale. During the next stage of the final, Wang continued to dominate, pushing his stack above the 6m mark with an amazing run of cards that saw him dealt AK, AA and KK within a lap of the table. 

Wang’s good card distribution then continued as he found pocket queens against Paul Vas Nunes sevens. The one time chip leader was down to 775k at this point and was the short stack of the remaining four. He did not hit one of his two outs and was sent home in 4th place for £25,500, having been chip leader just 20 minutes earlier. 

With three players left, Gang Wang now had a commanding lead, possessing three quarters of the chips in play, equivalent to 102 big blinds, while both his opponents were in the danger zone with 22 big blinds (Morreale) and 10 big blinds (Rosaman) to their names.

The tournament then went heads up when the two short stacks got in against each other, Michael Rosaman being the player who was at risk, holding K♦4♣ to Calogero Morreale’s Q♥9♠. 

The flop of 7♦Q♠8♠ put Calogero firmly in the lead and after a turn of 9♦ it was all over for Rosaman, whose dream of winning Mini and Main shattered, but with a consolatory £38,000 for his 3rd place finish.

Heads Up for The Title

After taking out Rosaman, Morreale was still at a significant disadvantage, still with an almost 4-1 chip deficit. After a short comfort break heads-up play began, with almost £30,000 still to play for. After initially increasing his lead, Calogero won a series of small pots to push his stack over 3m after 30 minutes of play.  Within another fifteen minutes he had pushed over the 4m mark, thanks to an uncalled preflop all-in reraise with K♣Q♠. 

However soon after the run of the green began to favour Wang once again and he took down a sizeable pot with pocket kings to shunt Morreale down to nearly 2.5m. But by the time the players went on break, Morreale, who was seeking his second major title of the year, had regained much of that, climbing back up to 3.5m.

Although Morreale did get up to over 4m chip once again, it was not meant to be. He had been pegged back to 2m by the time a hand played out in which both player connected well with the flop.

Gang limped with J♥8♦ and Calogero with 9♣8♠ checked, upon which they saw a flop of 8♣6♣6♠. Calogero checked, Gang made it 325k to go and after a few seconds pondering, the triangle went in the middle, followed by the rest of Calogero’s chips.

Gang made the call and it was all over when the J♦ on the turn made the 7♥ on the river an irrelevancy. Calogero Morreale banked another £57,200 for 2nd place, while Gang Wang styled his way to a lifetime best £86,600 payout.

Vic Refurbishment Wows Players

The recently refurbished Grosvenor Victoria Casino continued to impress those who were experiencing the upgrade for the first time. Speaking to Phil ‘The Tower’ Heald on one of his walkabouts was John Duthie, who urged those who have not yet been to see the upgrade to take a visit, stating that the Vic is now “Completely different, its transformed.”  With that in mind, I wonder what the venue’s pronouns are now?

888 Poker ambassador Saliba also praised the venue’s refurb, saying “I think its beautiful, so much brighter, happy, its more modern and way more pleasant to be here.”

_{Photos courtesy of 888poker Live & Grosvenor Poker}