The 2014 World Series of Poker Asia/Pacific (WSOP-APAC) is creeping closer to its $10,000 Championship Event, but there’s still a bit of work with the preliminary events left to wrap up. One of those tournaments on Saturday (Friday in the U. S.) was Event #7, the $2000 Six-Max No Limit Hold’em tournament, which saw its final table play out at the Crown Casino in Melbourne.
Although Steven Zhou came to the final table as the chip leader (with 315K in chips) and 2014 WSOP Championship Event “November Niner” Bruno Politano (on the short stack with only 65K in chips) were also on the felt, all eyes in the Crown were on the legendary Phil Hellmuth. Looking to add to his bracelet collection, Hellmuth was the second shortest stack at the start of the day’s battle, but he was only about 50K behind Zhou in the fight. Alex Antonios, Michael Tran and Yu Kurita rounded out the field as the cards hit the air on Saturday afternoon.
With his short stack, it was figured that Politano would need to catch a big hand quick to get back into the fight. On the seventh hand of play, Politano made an opening bet and Hellmuth three-bet the action after asking Politano about the health of his stack. Politano responded to Hellmuth’s move by plopping his remaining chips into the center and Hellmuth called. It was the situation that Politano had been looking for, his pocket Queens against Hellmuth’s A-K, and the flop was kind to Politano in coming down J-J-5. The turn, however, went against Politano in coming with a King to push Hellmuth into the lead. Looking for one of the two remaining ladies in the deck, Politano instead saw a seven hit the river as he hit the door in sixth place.
Now nearly equal to Zhou in the chip counts, Hellmuth ramped up his aggression on the table. This would prove to be his downfall in his pursuit for Bracelet #14, however, as he entered into a fight with Antonios. Seeing Antonios three bet the action pre-flop from the button after his raise out of the cutoff, Hellmuth called to see a 7-J-5 flop. Hellmuth popped up with his own check-raise here, pushing the action to 77K, and Antonios called. The Ace on the turn brought another bet out of Hellmuth, which was called by Antonios, and the duo would slow down (for some reason) with dual checks on the deuce on the river.
Showing first, Hellmuth put out a pocket pair of sixes but it wasn’t good enough. Antonios opened up an A-K for a turned pair of Aces to take the pot as Hellmuth went into one of his trademarked tirades against his opponent’s play. As Antonios stacked the chips (which would bring his stack to the 500K mark), Hellmuth continued to fume as he scraped together his 140K in ammunition.
The battle against Antonios seemed to knock the “Poker Brat” off his game. Although he would work back over the 200K mark, a hand against Michael Tran would knock him into the danger zone with only 55K in chips. After Tran shifted his attention to Kurita for a moment (eliminating her in fifth place), Hellmuth’s run at another page of WSOP history would be ended by Tran when Hellmuth’s A-7 couldn’t catch up with Tran’s pocket fours on a Q-5-6-3-Q board. In untypical fashion, Hellmuth was gracious in his departure as he took home the fourth place money.
The battles with Kurita and Hellmuth pushed Tran into the lead by about 130K in chops over Antonios as Zhou was now the one on life support (with only 120K in chips). Over the span of 20 hands, however, Zhou came to life and actually moved into second place on the leaderboard as Antonios slipped. The players tentatively shuffled chips around the table as almost 90 hands passed before what would be the eventual hand that determined the tournament was player.
On Hand 202 and with Zhou and Antonios fighting it out for the chip lead, the two men clashed after all three players entered a pot. A K-7-5 flop brought checks from Antonios and Tran, but Zhou opened the betting for 32K. Antonios popped out a three bet and, following Tran’s fold, Zhou pushed all in for more than 340K to build the biggest pot of the tournament. Antonios struggled with his decision but eventually made the call, finding himself behind with his A-2 against Zhou’s K-9. With an over card and a flush draw, Antonios actually added outs when a four came on the turn; one of those outs, an Ace, came on the river, giving the pot to Antonios and sending Zhou out of the tournament in third place.
The defeat of Zhou pushed Antonios into a nearly 10:1 lead over Tran (1.286 million-172K) and, although Tran fought valiantly over 20-some hands of heads up play, that deficit was too much to overcome. On the final hand, Tran shoved and Antonios called, with Antonios’ K-4 off suit ahead but Tran with live cards in his 10-9 off suit. Once the 7-6-Q-7-3 board ran out, Tran was eliminated and Antonios was the champion.
1. Alex Antonios, $128,784
2. Michael Tran, $79,646
3. Steven Zhou, $55,365
4. Phil Hellmuth, $38,909
5. Yu Kurita, $27,624
6. Bruno Politano, $19,809
