Ali Ayub is the first champion of the new EAPT season. He won a tournament in the UK (£67,000)

The first season of the EAPT kicked off last June with the Rozvadov festival, traveling from Bratislava to Barcelona, Milan to Madrid, St Julian's to Bucharest. The first season ended with a huge Grand Final on Cyprus, where Bulgarian player Boris Kolev was crowned champion of a huge $2,200 buy-in tournament with a $2,000,000 guaranteed prize pool, adding an incredible $437,000 to his bankroll.

After such a successful first season, there was no doubt that it would continue. Hard on the heels from the Cyprus event, the cards were already being dealt out for the new festival in Nottingham, UK. The EAPT UK festival took place at the local Dusk Till Dawn casino from the 17th to the 27th of May with a total guarantee of over £750,000. The lion's share went to the Main Event, which had a guaranteed prize pool of £500,000 with the standard EAPT buy-in of £560.

The EAPT UK Main Event could be played either in person at Dusk Till Dawn or from the comfort of your own home. The festival's main online partner, GGPoker, once again offered players the chance to qualify for the series at low cost, with an extensive satellite grid starting from £0.01 and leading up to the EAPT UK Main Event Online Day. Online Day is the full first day of the tournament, except you don't have to travel anywhere to play. The Online Day is similar in structure to the offline version and is played before the prize money is awarded. And only those who make it to the ITM can come to the casino and continue playing with the stack they finished with online.

Live or online, the EAPT UK Main Event attracted 858 players, making it the second largest EAPT Main Event after the Grand Final (1,565 entrants). The prize pool reached up to 170 players with a minimum payout of £1,000. For the second day of play, the field was reduced from 170 to 18 and the final day was played down to a single winner. The path to the final was not the easiest, but the payout was good too: the smallest prize in the final was five times mincash and the first prize was over £80,000.

The final was played at the TV table, a six-hour recording of the stream is available on YouTube showing the players' closed cards:

Final table recap

Ben Clark was the first to leave his title dreams behind. On the turn Q 3 5 4  he went all in with K 9 , Ionut Dumitrana called with Q 6  and the river was 8 . Yinchuan Liu was the next to go: with a stack of 6.5 BB, he shoved with a pair of eights, David Langsdale paid on the big blind with K 7  - and bought a king on the turn.

Trevor Pearson defended the big blind with K Q  against a raise from Ionut Dumitrana from the high jack and a call from David Langsdale in the small blind. On the flop J 10 4  Dumitrana continued his aggression and only Pearson paid. The 8  on the turn gave Ionut a nuts, he bet again and Pearson paid again. On the river 10 , Pearson moved all in - only to be called and finished the tournament in seventh place.

Longmao Fan lost with A 8  to Jason Riley with K Q  and busted out in sixth place, while David Langsdale lost a pre-flop all-in with kings to nines to Ionut Dumitrana.

The last woman in the tournament, Yanwen Lee, made it to fourth place, but she couldn't beat Ali Ayub's aces: on the flop J 10 5 , Lee check-pushed with 9 8 , but she couldn't buy her outs on the following streets. Ali Ayub then took out Jason Riley in a battle of blinds, pushing him all-in with K 8 . Riley called with A Q , but couldn't win. The first card was a king.

With almost equal stacks, Ionut Dumitrana and Ali Ayub split the prize money in half. Ayub was guaranteed £59,900 while Dumitrana was guaranteed £59,500. The £7,500 and the champion's trophy were still up for grabs. And the EAPT winner's trophy was presented in a beautiful hand.

Ionut Dumitrana opened from the button, Ali Ayub paid from the big blind. On the flop 8 3 2 , Dumitrana bet, Ayoub called. Turn J , Ayub checked, Dumitrana bet out again and got a check-raise all-in for all the chips. After using a few time bank cards, Ionut decided to call with 9 3 . It turned out that the chances to the river was almost 50/50, as Ayub had a monster draw and two overcards-5 4 . The river was 7 . Ali Ayub bought one of his twenty outs and made the flush to become the first EA Poker Tour champion of the new season.

In a brief interview after his victory, Ayub paid tribute to his heads-up opponent and said that he felt that the two best players in this final had met in a heads-up. ‘I told Ionut that I respect him and that I wouldn't be too upset if I lose. Luckily I could win. I'm going to stop playing the big tournaments and spend more time with my family and friends. It was a fantastic tournament, well organized, with a great structure and a nice buy-in,' said Ayub. ‘And the trophy is just beautiful!" he added when he saw that his new trophy had an illumination.

- All final table results from the EAPT UK Main Event:

Check out the results of EAPT UK's other major tournaments:

- £340 Luxon Pay Mystery Bounty - 344 entries, winner Mohamed Mia (£16,000);

- £230 DTD Cup - 214 entries, winner Matthew Gray (£9,235);

- £1,100 High Roller - 97 entries, champion Dan Tran (£24,455).

The concept of smaller weekend series in major travel hubs and major poker clubs will continue next season. It is already known that the EAPT will return to Rozvadov and Milan in the coming months, as well as looking to Georgia. The Tbilisi stop will be the first of a long list of new locations selected for the EA Poker Tour.

For up-to-date information on new EAPT stops, festival schedules, series photos, chip counts and tournament results, visit the tour's official website at https://eapokertour.com.