Player Profiles: Seat 1: Andrew Hulme
Before he became established as one of UK poker’s brightest talents, Andrew Hulme was best known in his home country as a hugely successful contestant on the popular television words and numbers show Countdown. Hulme first appeared as an 11 year old, before returning as an adult to claim eight consecutive daily victories, the most the show allows, and the distinction of being a so-called “octochamp”.
Countdown does not pay cash prizes, but poker thankfully appeared in Hulme’s life to take care of that side of things. He progressed through the ranks as both an online and live player, featuring prominently at the PokerStars tables as “stato_1”, while also playing regularly on the EPT and beyond. He has hundreds of major tournament scores online and has also racked up more than $2.2 million in live tournament results, including a $345K payday at the World Series of Poker Main Event in 2023. This EPT Barcelona result is already his best on this tour, bettering a 12th-place finish in Prague in 2016.
Hulme is a graduate of Warwick University, a hotbed of poker talent in the UK, and the alma mater of previous EPT champions Rupert Elder and Zimnan Ziyard. He is now based in Nottingham, near to the Dusk Till Dawn poker club, which has similarly fostered many of the UK’s best players.