The 2026 UK Poker Championships came to a memorable close at Dusk Till Dawn in Nottingham, with Hong Pham delivering one of the most inspiring performances the series has ever seen. Competing while 35 weeks pregnant, Pham outlasted a massive 1,159-entry field to capture the £560 NLHE UKPC Main Event, earning £101,000 from the £556,320 prize pool and etching her name into UKPC history.
Pham began the final day facing long odds. Sixteen players remained, including several familiar faces on the UK circuit, but only nine would make the final table. Despite starting the day among the shorter stacks, Pham surged at exactly the right time and arrived at the final table holding the chip lead, while overnight leader Amir Zaregairizi fell in tenth place to burst the final-table bubble.
The early stages of the final table were shaped by Haydn Dickinson, who eliminated Alistair Massie after catching a queen-high bluff with an overpair. Dickinson followed that up by sending John Hall home when his pocket kings crushed Hall’s pocket queens, flopping a decisive set.
Jose Bazan exited in seventh place after a brutal sequence of hands, repeatedly running into stronger holdings. His tournament ended when his short stack with ace-jack could not overcome the ace-five of Nicholas Rose.
From that point on, the table belonged to Pham. She collected her first knockout by calling Stephen Blow’s shove with ace-queen and holding against ace-ten. Moments later, she dispatched Rose as well, winning another kicker battle when her queen-ten dominated his queen-nine.
Jacque Ramsden, the 2023 APT Phu Quoc champion, fell in fourth place after Pham called his ace-seven shove and rivered an eight with jack-eight. The defining hand of the tournament soon followed. Paul Tait three-bet Pham’s button open, unaware she held pocket aces. After picking up a flush draw on the turn, Tait moved all-in, only for Pham to snap-call and fade the river to send him out in third place for a career-best £43,450.
Heads-up play began with Pham holding a commanding chip advantage, and she never let it slip. Haydn Dickinson battled on, but the final blow came at the 1,000,000/2,000,000 level when he shoved with ace-five and was instantly called by Pham’s pocket kings. The board ran clean, and with that, Hong Pham was crowned the 2026 UKPC Main Event champion.
The £101,000 payday marked Pham’s first six-figure live score and pushed her lifetime tournament earnings beyond $522,000, an extraordinary achievement considering she typically plays events with buy-ins between £200 and £500. Since recording her first live cash in 2021, Pham has steadily built an impressive résumé, including multiple five-figure scores, a runner-up finish in the WSOPC Main Event, and deep runs on major international stages.
Her UKPC victory confirms what many on the circuit already suspected: Hong Pham is a rising force in live tournament poker — and a name worth remembering.
