BY TOM SOMACH

United Kingdom residents finished 1-2 in the latest competition at the World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

WSOP Event #53 was a $1,500 buy-in, limit Texas hold ‘em shootout tournament with 720 entrants and a total prize pool of $982,800.

The event was won by Ram Vaswani of Hendon, U.K.

He took home $217,438 for the victory.

It was “Battering” Ram’s 13th in-the-money finish at a WSOP event, and unlike most 13-inspired events, this one was lucky, yielding his first WSOP championship gold bracelet.

Finishing in second was Andy Ward of London, U.K., who earned $124,816.

Earlier at this year’s WSOP, Vaswani finished 14th and moneyed in Event #45, a six-handed no-limit Texas hold ‘em tourney.

Previously, he moneyed twice at the 2005 WSOP, four times at the ‘04 WSOP, once at the ‘03 WSOP, thrice at the ‘02 WSOP and once at the ‘01 WSOP.

For his career, he has earned about $2.5 million in poker purses, which includes not only WSOP action but other tourney play as well.

In other action at this year’s WSOP, Mike Graves of Dallas, Tex., USA, won Event #52, a $1,500 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold ‘em tournament with rebuys.

It had 1,048 participants and a total prize pool of $3,226,609.

For his winning effort, Graves took home $742,121.

The runnerup was Theo Tran of Las Vegas, Nev., USA, who earned $387,193.

Three former WSOP main event winners finished as also-rans in this tournament. Jamie Gold of Malibu, Calif., USA, who won last year’s WSOP main event, finished in 84th place and collected $4,840.

Phil “Poker Brat” Hellmuth Jr., of Palo Alto, Calif., USA, who won the WSOP main event in 1989, finished in 95th place and also picked up $4,840.

Joe “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” Hachem, of Melbourne, Australia, who won the WSOP main event in 2005, finished in 100th place and earned $3,327.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)