944 enter for Pokerstars Festival London main event

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Mar 4, 2021

Local player Rehman Kassam takes first prize of GBP 89,320 after a three-way chop

944 entries were recorded for the GBP990 buy-in PokerStars Festival London main event, which played out in Leicester Square’s Hippodrome Casino over the weekend.

At the four-handed stage survivors Rehman Kassam, Daniel Harwood, Eric Cech and Yuriy Boyko paused to discuss a chop but were unable to reach agreement, and play resumed.

Boyko subsequently busted out and the remaining trio again huddled to negotiate a split. This time it was successful as chip leader Harwood agreed to take GBP95,000; Kassam GBP81,320 and Cech GBP70,000, with the trophy and GBP8,000 left on the table for the ultimate winner.

When Cech busted out, Harwood remained in the lead by 2 to 1 going into the heads up against Kassam, however the latter scored a decisive double up which overcame Harwood’s advantage and eventually enabled Kassam to seize victory and the extra cash and trophy, banking GBP 89,320.

Harwood’s second placing paid the agreed GBP95,000.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.