Adam Wilkinson Leads the Grosvenor National Poker League After 2025 Q1

The best-performing player in the Grosvenor National Poker League (NPL) during 2025 receives a £40,000 sponsorship package, entry to a £100,000 Champions Invitational, and a shiny trophy to show all and sundry. The NPL is already one quarter of the way through the year, and it is Adam Wilkinson who finds himself in pole position, although Yucel “Mad Turk” Eminoglu is hot on his heels.

Players earn NPL points when the finish in the money place of the following tournaments:

• GUKPT festival events
• Grosvenor 25/50 tournaments
• The Grosvenor UK Open
• 888poker UK Poker League (UKPL) events
• 888poker LIVE events
• Grosvenor Mini-Series events
• GUKPT Online Closer tournaments

The current NPL started during the Grosvenor Behemoth in Coventry in December 2024; it concludes at the 2025 edition of the same series. Only a player’s best 20 results count toward the leaderboard, and Adam Wilkinson has already racked up 16 qualifying cashes!

Wilkinson has 75 cashes between February 2007 and July 2024 but has enjoyed 24 since then. Perhaps the catalyst for his uptick in volume was finishing second for $159,715 in the $1,600 BetMGM Poker Championship in Las Vegas in July 2024.

Adam Wilkinson’s 2025 NPL Cashes

_{Wilkinson also cashed in an Online Closer. However, those results do not appear on The Hendon Mob Database}

Although Wilkinson has his nose in front in the 2025 NPL’s relevant infancy, a talented group of players is chasing him down.

Yucel Emingolu, the seasoned grinder affectionately known as “Mad Turk”, is only 11.42 points behind Wilkinson in the race for the £40,000 sponsorship package. Eminogu’s style means he often goes deep or goes home early. Among his qualifying results, Eminoglu can boast a fifth-place finish in the £300 Behemoth worth £10,090, a runner-up finish worth £22,180 in the £560 GUKPT Manchester Mini Main, and a second-place finish for £10,000 in the £250 Grosvenor 25/50 Walsall event.

Unlike Wilkinson, Eminoglu swerved the 888poker LIVE Glasgow festival, instead heading to Cyprus for the Merit Poker Carmen Series. Although he missed out on NPL points, Eminoglu added to his trophy cabinet by taking down the $1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Mix-Max event for £70,100.

GUKPT Coventry Main Event runner-up Keith Littlewood occupies third place, with Alexander Rizvi and reigning champion Matthew Davenport rounding out the top five.

Dale Wilson, Mindaugas Kurlenskas, Stephen Barnes, Robert Douras, and Stefan Lazer complete an impressive top ten.

Current Grosvenor National Poker League Top 10

Plenty of Points to Play for at 888poker UKPL Newcastle

NPL-chasing players are out in force in the North East of England for the 888poker UK Poker League (UKPL) Newcastle festival. The city is buzzing after Newcastle United won the League Cup a couple of weeks ago. It is now full of a different kind of player hoping to lift a poker trophy.

While it is too late to enter the £250 Opening Voyage, which has reached its Day 2, and the £150 PLO 4/5/6 Card (won by Alexander Rizvi), there are still plenty of NPL points-awarding tournament for you to get involved with if you head to the Grosvenor G Casino on St. James Boulevard in Newcastle.

Matthew Pitt hails from Leeds, West Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom, and has worked in the poker industry since 2008, and worked for PokerNews since 2010. In September 2010, he became the editor of PokerNews. Matthew stepped away from live reporting duties in 2015, and now concentrates on his role of Senior Editor for the PokerNews.

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