Fri, 12/24/2010 – 14:43 – PokerPages Staff
#5 Jude Ainsworth
Our number five position this week goes to a PhD in biochemistry who lives in Galway, Ireland. Jude Ainsworth shot to prominence in the 2008 Irish Poker Championships when he won €145,000. As a Team PokerStars Sponsored Pro, he plays under the name “J. Thaddeus” and, in the space of two years, has accrued a tidy sum of $383,683 in poker winnings.
#4 John-Paul “JP” Kelly
Marching into fourth place with a handsome $1,199,654 in total winnings is London-based John-Paul “JP” Kelly. This young man won his first WSOP bracelet last year at the tender age of 22. But he has been playing poker since way back, winning seven tournaments in the UK and Europe in just 15 months when he was only 18 years old! JP plays as a Team PokerStars Sponsored Pro under the screen name “JohnDuthie.”
#3 Liv Boeree
Beating JP into third place by almost a million dollars is a graduate in astrophysics from East Molesy, England. Liv Boeree became the third woman ever to win a European Poker Tour Championship when she took home a breathtaking €1,125,000 in April this year. She now has total poker winnings of $2,105,307.
#2 Julian Thew
This week’s runner up is a former draughtsman for an engineering company in Nottingham, England. That was before he began crushing the tournament circuit to become one of the UK’s highest earning poker pros; Julian Thew today has total winnings of $2,391,808. He uses the screen name “JulianThew” when playing as a Team PokerStars Sponsored Pro.
#1 John Duthie
But the king of the UK Team PokerStars Sponsored Pro castle is an accomplished TV director who also happens to be an outstanding poker player. John Duthie, who lives in London, is the man who founded the dazzlingly successful European Poker Tour. He has total poker winnings of $2,967,481 to his credit – and he’s still directing.