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THE Grosvenor UK Poker Tour is underway at Coventry's G Casino - and already promises to be one of the best Midland events of the year.

A three day Main Event starts on Friday with a buy-in of £1,000 which is sure to attract a host of top names.

If it's a sell out, then players could be looking at a mouth-watering £400,000 prize pool.

But for those with a few less chips in their pocket, a series of tasty-looking side events are also scheduled for the Fifth Leg of the prestigious national tour.

For a full list of side events, or to find out more, visit http://bit.ly/omA1ig

HE won the San Remo European Poker Tour title last month - and pocketed a cool £828,000.

Now former Warwick Uni student Rupert Elder, 24, has the poker world at his feet.

The economics graduate gave an exclusive Q&A interview to this blog after his amazing win which has catapulted him into the big time.

Q. When did you first start playing poker and why did you take it up?

A. In 6th form when I was 16 or 17, I just really enjoyed it and I liked the idea of gambling.

2. How well were you doing in those early days?

A. Terribly, for maybe the first 3 years I played I was definitely a losing player at small stakes.

Q. What did you study at Warwick Uni? Before poker came along, what did you see as your future career?

A. I studied Economics but I use studied in the loosest way possible since I spent a lot of time playing poker and only ended up with a pass degree. I wanted to be a programmer or a trader but after applying to jobs no one wanted me.

Q. When did you turn pro - and what did your family think of your decision?

A. After graduating, they were fine with it but I think my dad always hopes that I will one day get a "real" job.

Q. Going into San Remo, did you feel you had a good chance of winning? Was your form good?

So I'm down to the final 10 in the £100 Bounty tournament at the GUKPT at Grosvenor Walsall Casino.

But only the top eight players are getting paid - and I'm card dead.

I'm also stuck in the middle of the two chip leaders, so the chance of stealing blinds are looking slimmer than slim.

But as I'm about seventh in chips, I decide to continue to bide my time and squeeze into the money before unleashing my all-ins.

Big mistake!

Within twenty minutes two players are gone and there are now eight of us left. My plan seems to be working and the pounds-signs are flashing...

I'm now about sixth/seventh in chips with a 25,000 stack - about half the average. Trouble is, blinds are now 1,200 and 2,400 with antes at 200 - and rising fast.

But there is hope.

One player is so short stacked I know he will have to push in before me.

I wait, and wait, and wait, but my chips are just dribbling away.

Eventually, he pushes and turns over pockets fives to his opponents 10/9. Yes!

A coin flip and if this comes down on my side I'm guaranteed £200 for seventh, rising to more than £1,300 for first place.

But, of course, the fives hold up.

A few hands later another short-stack goes in and gets called by my big-blind neighbour.

But my heart sinks when the shortster turns over bullets and his chipped-up opponent turns over a pair of tens. Of course the aces hold.

Eventually, with just a pitiful 7,000 left I'm forced to push with A6 - the best hand I've seen in about an hour and a half.

I get two callers - one of then AJ, which hits the Jack on the flop, sending me bubbling to the rail.

I pocketed one £25 bounty from the event but gained much more in experience in how NOT to play the short stack at the final table.

Of course I should have been pushing with my chips with any two cards much earlier, and not allowed myself to be blinded out so pathetically.

This was an excellent GUKPT tournament and I did play well to get to the final table. But I'm gutted to have flopped so badly when I really felt a big win was possible.

Lesson learned...

* For a full list of results at the GUKPT Walsall leg, visit http://www.grosvenorukpokertour.com/

SHE'S known as the Iron Maiden because of a ruthless poker playing style which saw her win a £1 million event.

But Liv Boeree, 26, has revealed a softer side by admitting she once cried after crushing an opponent - on hit TV quiz, GoldenBalls.

The former astrophysicist became a world superstar in the male-dominated sport after winning a European Poker Tour (EPT) tournament in San Remo last year, scooping the seven figure prize.

Now Liv - who played a top Midlands poker event last weekend - has revealed how one of her first cash wins on Jasper Carrot's GoldenBalls held bittersweet memories.

''I made it through to the final where you have to decide to 'steal' or 'split' the jackpot,'' she recalled.

''Anyone who knows anything about game theory knows that the only option you can really go for is steal, because if you choose split and they choose steal you go away with nothing.

''My opponent chose split, so I won the money (£6,500) - but I felt terrible afterwards and actually cried.

''In poker you can do a deal with opponents at a final table, but on that show we were taken off to different areas, so that was not an option.''

It's that determined streak that has seen Liv rise to the top of the poker scene in just a few years, so far earning an astonishing $2,000,000 in winnings.

IT'S the day that Prince William and Kate Middleton tie the knot in the biggest Royal Wedding since Charles and Di.

But another hotly anticipated spectacular takes place on April 29 that will also include a fair few Kings and Queens - the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Main Event, at Walsall's Grosvenor Casino!

While the rest of the country will be following the royal pair on TV, the best poker players in the Midlands and beyond will be hoping to see their own royal flushes at the annual event.

A series of tournies will run from April 25 to May 1, with a big turnout expected on the first day in the £100 NLH Freezeout, which carries a £10,000 guaranteed prize pot.

Watch this space for more details about GUKPT Walsall....

But for a full run-down of the 2011 legs, visit UK Poker News.

INCREDIBLE roller-coaster start to Isildur1's new PokerStars partnership.

The mystery player signed for the site last month, but initially suffered big losses - including a $40,000 defeat to Issac Haxton in a Superstars Showdown.

But all that was forgotten when Isildur1 turned another $10,000 deposit into an astonishing $300,000 in just two days, after blowing away all-comers at the cash tables.

So could 2011 be the year of the still unidentified internet sensation?

HE came, he saw, he kicked some ass - and walked away with a cool $9 million.

Jonathan Duhamel won the the World Series of Poker Main Event title last night and became the world's most famous Canadian.

The 23 year-old Team PokerStars pro was overwhelmed to take down the biggest ever poker win but spoke of his delight at the end of a tough final table.

"It is surreal. I could never dream of that. It's so huge -- so big -- it's a dream come true for me," Duhamel said after winning the gold bracelet.

"I don't know what to think right now, I don't even know what I feel. It's just -- it's amazing."

"I was aggressive on the final table, so I wanted to mix it up a little bit.

"I didn't fold at all, but I limped a little bit just to try to confuse him and have a good balance in my game."

It didn't hurt that Duhamel started the night with a big chip lead and put away John Racener before the 24-year old tournament specialist could pick up good cards.

"He was patient and kind of threw me off a little bit," said Racener, of Port Richey, Fla., who got his start in poker by turning a $50 stake from his mom into $30,000 within six months.

"I was like, 'Wow, you know, this is going to be harder than I thought," Racener said.

With many of poker's biggest names watching, Duhamel took the last of Racener's chips after 43 hands.

Racener was never better than a 4-1 underdog in chips in a session that lasted just over an hour -- the finale for a tournament that started July 5 with 7,319 players paying $10,000 to enter.

On the last hand, Duhamel pushed Racener all-in and Racener called with a suited king-eight of diamonds. But Duhamel had an unsuited ace-jack, giving him a 60 percent shot to win.

A flop of two fours and a nine helped neither player; and Racener didn't improve with a six on the turn and a five on the river. Duhamel won the hand -- and the tournament -- with an ace high.

"The only thing that I was thinking for the past four months was to be sure that my game is sharp and that I play good on the final table," Duhamel said.

Racener won $5.55 million for second place, never finding real traction in the biggest heads-up card match of his life.

Duhamel had nearly 90 percent of all the chips in play when players took a 10-minute break after 36 hands. He put the pressure on after that, pushing all in on three straight hands and dropping Racener's stack to just above 16 million chips.

TO the poker world he is affectionately known as "Mad Marty'' Wilson.

And five minutes on the phone with the larger-than-life gambling legend is enough to understand why the Wolverhampton star earned his nickname.

"I've got no idea where I am. I'm wandering around Weston-super-Mare. Can you call me back when I've had my beans on toast?" Marty says, in the charming Black Country tones that have helped him become a poker hero on both sides of the Atlantic.

Having won $4 million in tournaments around the world in a career spanning three decades, Marty is due back in Birmingham next month to host a major tournament - the Genting Poker Player Championship - at Star City's Circus Casino.

"I don't play so much anymore. I get paid to stand there and talk, which is much easier," he told the Sunday Mercury.

"I remember in the old days it was a struggle. Just to find a game was hard enough, but now poker is everywhere, online, in pubs, clubs, casinos. It has exploded."

Marty found fame as a fast-talking, big-betting character on the Channel 4 Late Night Poker TV series in the late 1990s. But the Black Country boy made good has been playing for a living since the 80s.

"When I first went to the World Series in Las Vegas back in 1985, there were only 220 runners. Now there are 7,000. That's how much things have changed," he said.

"I've always enjoyed playing the game, and poker has been very good to me, provided me with a great standard of living and let me travel the world."

Growing up in Wolverhampton in the early 70s he was a Pendeford High School pupil set to work at local firm Lucas Aerospace, when he turned to gambling to make a living.

"All the kids had a compulsory interview with Lucas," he said.

"I turned up an hour-and-a-half late because I'd been watching Wimbledon, and when I told them about it they weren't too pleased.

"They put me in a side room with an entrance exam, but they made a mistake because the posters on the walls had all the answers to the questions.

"They thought I was some sort of genius, so instead of a hammer and a file, they gave me some books and sent me to college to study advanced mechanics.

"It's the closest thing to a real job I ever had, I only stayed at college a week."

Doing odd jobs, Marty soon found a flair for betting, and made money on racing, sports and even the Eurovision Song Contest. A keen card player, he was invited to a game of poker that was about to take Britain by storm.

CHAMPAGNE corks were popping at Dusk Till Dawn last night after its Grand Prix sold out - setting a new world record.

Owner Rob Yong had hoped to smash the UK attendance record for a live poker event and put his money where his mouth in by betting £20,000 he could do it.

Now, with a week to go before the start of the £40,000 Grand Prix, he can collect his winnings after every one of the 900 places was sold.

The £50 entry event, which is being televised, starts on October 29 at the award-winning Nottingham venue and finishes on October 31.

Congrats to Dusk Till Dawn and good luck to all those competing in what should be a cracking event.