While we wait about another month for the World Series of Poker Main Event to conclude, the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific (WSOP APAC) doled out its first two bracelets of the year over the weekend. First up at the Crown Melbourne casino in Australia was the conclusion of the AU$1,100 Accumulator Event, a tournament in which players could compete in all three starting flights and carry all of their chips forward to Day 2. Australia’s Luke Brabin emerged as the champion, starting as the big stack at the final table and ending with all the chips.
The final table of the Accumulator was an interesting one because all ten players were Australian. Sure, the tournament was held in the country, but even so, you expect at least one person to be from abroad. It was also a fairly short final table, needing 121 hands by WSOP.com’s count for the nine eliminations. In fact, within 20 hands, four players were already gone. After that, things slowed down a bit, as almost 40 more hands were needed for the next two eliminations.
But once Brabin nailed the biggest pot of the day, the tourney was all but over. On Hand 111, with three players remaining, Brabin raised to 32,000 pre-flop and was called by Daniel Murphy. On the flop of T♣-7♦-6♦, Murphy checked, Brabin bet 44,000, Murphy raised to 109,000, and Brabin called. The T♠ landed on the turn, prompting Murphy to continue his charge and bet 127,000. Brabin then went all-in for 586,000 and after taking time to think, Murphy called, covered by his opponent. Murphy had T♦-2♦, good for made trips plus a flush draw, while Brabin had T♥-9♥ for just trips, but with a better kicker. The A♥ was the final card, a brick for Murphy, giving Brabin the pot and crippling Murphy. Brabin’s stack was now up to 1,471,000, while Murphy’s was at just 102,000 and Didier Guerin had 260,000.
Murphy was knocked out a few hands later to send Brabin into heads-up with Guerin with a huge lead, 1,617,000 to 216,000. It was just a seven hand affair. Guerin moved all-in with 9♦-8♦ and Brabin made the call with K♠-Q♣. The community cards brought out nothing but a draw for Guerin and Brabin was able to add a Queen on the river for good measure to take the first bracelet of the 2014 WSOP APAC.
WSOP APAC Event #1: AU$1,100 No-Limit Holdem Accumulator – Final Table Results
1. Luke Brabin – AU$131,365
2. Didier Guerin – AU$81,220
3. Daniel Murphy – AU$59,334
4. Stephen Lindeblad – AU$43,986
5. Ryan Hong – AU$33,080
6. Zane Ly – AU$25,234
7. Brian McAllister – AU$19,521
8. Piyush Gupta – AU$15,318
9. David Profaca – AU$12,189
Event #2 was the AU$2,200 No-Limit Hold’em Event. 215 players teed it up on Day 1 and just 31 made it to Day 2. Monday saw the final ten get together in what looked like it should be a very competitive final table. Feng Zhou was the chip leader with 241,500 chips, followed by Junzhong Loo with 205,500. After those two, the field was bunched up, with three players around 150,000 and another three around 100,000 chips. That prediction was correct, as it took just about as long, in terms of number of hands, to get down to three players as it did for the first event to finish. It took almost 30 more hands to get to heads-up and, in stark contrast to the Accumulator, one-on-one play required 60 hands to finally determine a winner.
The aforementioned Loo came out on top, beating his good friend Aik-Chuan Nee, a man he actually taught how to play poker, heads-up for the title. Loo also made history, becoming the first poker player from Malaysia to win a World Series of Poker bracelet.
WSOP APAC Event #2: AU$2,200 No-Limit Holdem – Final Table Results
1. Junzhong Loo – AU$107,500
2. Aik-Chuan Nee – AU$66,400
3. Luke Spano – AU$48,358
4. Martin Kozlov – AU$35,763
5. Peco Stojanovski – AU$26,862
6. Samuel Ngai – AU$20,490
7. Sam Ruha – AU$15,867
8. Feng Zhou – AU$12,470
9. Michael O’Grady – AU$9,946
