It seems there may be a new poker Mecca and it’s located in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom’s Matt Perrins won the 9th event of the World Series of Poker only days after his best friend of 20 years, Jake Cody, won the prestigious heads-up event. Both of these poker prodigies hale from the small town of Rochdale with a population of less than 100,000 people.

Last Friday, Cody won the $25,000 buy-in heads-up event and bested 127 other heads-up players. He won $851,192 and became the youngest player (and only the third player) to win poker’s “triple crown” with wins in the European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour as well. The 22-year old passed the $2.6 million mark in career winnings with this huge victory.

Matt Perrins, also from the Manchester town, collected the bracelet for his win in the $1,500 buy-in draw no-limit deuce-to-seven lowball event. Perrins had just learned the game only two hours before the event making the story even more impressive. He admitted to not “really know[ing] what was going on.” He learned the game by watching a half hour’s worth of tutorials on YouTube. He beat out Sweden’s Chris Bjorin and the rest is history.

Congratulations to Jake Cody and Matt Perrins for their historic wins in this year’s World Series of Poker. Stay tuned to FlopTurnRiver for more on the World Series of Poker (and perhaps stories of FlopTurnRiver’s own antics in Las Vegas!).