Ship the first UK Bracelet of the 2009 World Series of Poker! Congratulations to John Paul Kelly of Aylesbury who navigated his way through 633 players to win the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em bracelet. JP went into the final table the chip leader but would surely have been looking over his shoulder at 8 time bracelet winner Eric Seidel who was just behind him.
However an early rush of cards and activity from JP saw him extend his commanding lead and see Seidel exit in 7th for his 55th WSOP cash. Kelly would take his chip lead into the heads up match with Germany's Marc Tschirch, but wouldn't have it all his own way. Tschirch chipped away at Kelly to put himself in contention of winning the bracelet, but eventually JP dispatched of Tschirch when he hit a 
on the turn of a 
board with his 
and called the all-in of the German, holding 
for middle pair.
This was JP Kelly's first bracelet win and the first bracelet for an Englishman for two years (Previous winner being Ram Vaswani). Kelly also took home $194,434 to add to his lifetime live tournament winnings of nearly $500,000. Kelly is also a force to be reckoned with online, going by the names MavFish and JP 5-Time online, he is always amongst the top ten online MTT players in the UK, having made Sunday Million and FTOPS final tables in the past.
This is a great result for UK poker, not just in the bracelet counts but also in that Kelly is a very popular and humble young player. At just 23 it seems like he has been around forever and has a very mature head on his shoulders. He described this moment as the highlight of his life so far and this result will surely launch JP onto the world stage and will certainly not be the last big result on his already impressive resume.
Nice one UK players, now let's have another one. You can follow all the UK players fortunes in Vegas at our industry leading Live Updates.
20 events in and we ship a bracelet, certainly time for uk strap number 2 imo
20 events in and we ship a bracelet, certainly time for uk strap number 2 imo