Europe's largest organisation for recreational poker players has a membership of more than 20,000 players and the vast majority of them... no, all of them, especially those from Wales... will have had a huge smile on their faces this morning with the news that Leigh Wiltshire has won the Sky Poker UK 6-Max Poker Championships main event and its £110,000 first-place prize.

Wiltshire is no longer involved on the management side of APAT (Amateur Poker Association & Tour) but the fact that it's membership has grown so successfully is due in no small part to his involvement. Until he put aside his spreadsheet a year ago, Wiltshire had worked tirelessly to promote poker to the masses through APAT and help make it the wonderful community that it is.

APAT has brought together many marvellous people but few would disagree that Wiltshire is one of the finest and his win in the UK 6-Max Poker Championships between 7-17 August 2014 is but a small reward for all that hard work that has brought so much pleasure to others.

When the players assembled for the final day at Dusk Till Dawn on Sunday, Wiltshire started fourth in chips with a 2,080,000 stack, the equivalent of 40 big blinds. Abhishek Khaitan was chip leader with 11,780,000 chips, followed by Andy Young on 4,545,000 and Stephen Devlin on 4,000,000. Only two of the final six had fewer chips than Wiltshire, Paul Haycock on 1,950,000 and Neil Strike with 675,000.

Around 90 minutes into proceedings,Wiltshire gained a full double-up, through Khaitan, when his pocket queens improved to a set on the turn.

Then, shortly after, the final table had its first casualty when Haycock clashed with Devlin, who turned a straight. With two spades on the board, Haycock still had plenty of outs but none appeared and he busted in sixth place for £16,000.

Next to depart was Strike, who bowed out after Khaitan - holding AC-10C - flopped an ace, turned trips and then rivered quads leaving Strike to head home £20,000 better off.

Four-handed play lasted the best part of three hours and ended with Andy Young's exit. A button raise to 200,000 from Young was called by Wiltshire and Devlin in the blinds. Wiltshire checked the 9C-9H-4S flop, Devlin bet 300,000 and was raised to 750,000 by Young. Wiltshire then check-raised to 1,650,000.

Devlin folded. Young called. The turn brought the 5C and Wiltshire put Young in for the rest of his 3,000,000 chips. After much deliberation, Young called and showed pocket eights, which were smashed by Wiltshire’s 9-8, sending Young to the rail in fourth place for £27,500.

Down to three players and Devlin started to get busy with his chips after the cagey play during the previous few levels. When Wiltshire opened to 360,000 on the button, Devlin three-bet to 850,000 from the small blind. With the action back on him, Wiltshire four-bet to 2,000,000 and then called when Devlin five-bet all-in!

Devlin showed pocket twos to Wiltshire’s eights and Devlin was drawing dead after the Q-9-8 flop was followed by a second queen on the turn. Irishman Devlin collected £40,000 for his efforts.

With Devlin’s chips to add to his war chest, Wiltshire went into the heads-up battle with 18m chips to Khaitan's 7m but the contest was far from over. The heads-up battle lasted three hours and saw the lead exchanged on numerous occasions until the final hand saw all the chips go into the middle on a K-6-Q-4-K board with Khaitan holding 10-10 and Wiltshire K-Q for a full house.

Sky Poker UK 6-Max Poker Championships
1 Leigh Wiltshire £110,000
2 Abhishek Khaitan £70,000
3 Stephen Devlin £40,000
4 Andy Young £27,500
5 Neil Strike £20,000
6 Paul Haycock £16,000