Brian Yates Wins APAT Welsh Online Championship

The second tournament of the Amateur Poker Association & Tour’s Online Season took place at Blue Square, when 139 players entered the APAT Welsh Online Poker Championship.

The players, including recently crowned UK Amateur Champion Steve Redfern, enjoyed 10,000 starting chips and a structure closely aligned with APAT’s Live Amateur Championship structure.

The first player to exit was ‘chuck2003’, who managed to get his remaining 900 chips into the middle after 23 minutes with King Ten suited, earning a call from ‘Loggie66’ with a pocket pair of Twos. Despite overcards and developing flush opportunities for his opponent, the Twos of Don Logan; playing from Barbados, held up.

The final table was reached after close to four hours and the final ten players lined up as follows:-

Seat 1 – ‘BOINGBLITZ’ – 54k
Seat 2 – ‘MintTrav’ – 34k
Seat 3 – ‘mattblue’ – 125k
Seat 4 – ‘oldham00’ – 58k
Seat 5 – ‘saint1john’ – 137k
Seat 6 – ‘Scooby500’ – 47k
Seat 7 – ‘Ant66’ – 88k
Seat 8 – ‘GB2Loose’ – 325k
Seat 9 – ‘goater1414’ – 180k
Seat 10 – ‘warwickman83’ – 315k

With blinds at 6k / 12k and most stacks relatively short, the final provided lots of excitement for the large number of railers who continued to watch and cheer their favourites.

A very short ‘MintTrav’ survived being the first casualty when his Ace Four made a full house against the Ace Six of ‘GB2Loose’, in a pot worth close to 110k chips. However, ‘Scooby500’ could not find similar luck when putting his remaining 30k into the middle with Queen Jack. He found himself dominated by ‘oldham00’ with Ace Queen, who hit trip Aces on the flop to knock ‘Scooby500’ out in 10th.

Chipleader ‘GB2Loose’ lost another significant hand shortly after, when his Ace Jack could not topple the all in pocket Tens of ‘oldham00’, in a pot worth 147k.

Next to sample the gauntlet was ‘BOINGBLITZ’ who pushed all in with Ace Four suited, finding himself ahead of ‘warwickman83’, who held Ace Two. The timely double up took ‘BOINGBLITZ’ up to 139k chips. The man from the midlands found himself all in again shortly afterwards, when his Ace Ten beat ‘saint1john’ holding King Queen. ‘BOINGBLITZ’ now had 151k and was building the momentum that would eventually land him the Welsh title.

Play continued and ‘GB2Loose’ lost a third massive pot, when his Ace Jack could not deliver against the Ace Queen of ‘goater1414’, who scooped over 336k chips – leaving once chipleader ‘GB2Loose’ short with 65k.

‘BOINGBLITZ’ went to war again shortly after, when his Ace Jack held all in against the King Seven suited of ‘goater1414’ in a pot worth 240k chips.

A short while later, ‘BOINGBLITZ’ was priced in to call the all in re-raise of ‘mattblue’, who held Ace King, well ahead of his opponent’s Six Five. The inevitable Five on the flop and Six on the turn knocked ‘mattblue’ out in 9th.

The next to go was ‘saint1john’ in 8th, who lost a 250k pot with a pocket pair of Eights, to the flopped King of ‘warwickman83’.

‘goater1414’ followed in 7th, when his all in push with Queen Nine, lost to the Ace King of ‘BOINGBLITZ’.

The ‘blitz’ continued when the Ace Queen of ‘BOINGBLITZ’ bettered the Ace Ten of ‘Ant66’, knocking him out in 6th.

Next to go was ‘MintTrav’ in 5th, who’s Ace Three failed to improve against the Ace Eight of the unstoppable ‘BOINGBLITZ’.

At this stage, it was all ‘BOINGBLITZ’ and the constantly re-raising ‘warwickman83’; who between them held over 1.1m of the 1.4m chips in play.

‘GB2Loose’ staged a spirited fightback doubling through ‘warwickman83’ and taking several small pots to get back to over 400k, before going out in 4th when his pocket Sevens could not improve all in against the pocket Eights of ‘BOINGBLITZ’.

‘oldham00’ had nursed a short stack for the majority of the final to ladder his way to a guaranteed Bronze medal position and with a little over 33k chips, he threw caution to the wind in a final push for the title. He survived his first all in with a rivered Ace, survived again when doubling up with a Queen high to peak at 280k in chips, before succumbing in 3rd, when his Ace Eight failed to improve against the Ace Ten of ‘warwickman83’.

‘BOINGBLITZ’ held a close to 2:1 chiplead going into heads up but ‘warwickman83’ showed the same class that had seen him reach heads up without having put his tournament life on the line. Several re-raises saw him take the chiplead, before the pivotal hand of the final saw him within a single card of the title. A series of raises and re-raises saw all of the chips in the middle, with ‘BOINGBLITZ’ showing an Ace Five unsuited, which was well behind the pocket Queen’s of ‘warwickman83’. With a mere 21k back, ‘warwickman83’ survived the flop and turn until a cruel Ace on the river saved ‘BOINGBLITZ’, effectively landing him the title.

‘warwickman83’ did double up twice after but the chip deficit was too great and ‘BOINGBLITZ’ took the Championship when his King Seven paired on the flop, awarding ‘warwickman83’ the Silver Medal and ‘BOINGBLITZ’ the APAT Welsh Online Championship Title, Gold Medal and an entry to a GUKPT main event.

While ‘BOINGBLITZ’ enjoyed one or two moments of fortune in the tournament, he played a very aggressive game and was a significant force throughout the event and final table in particular, earning himself a well deserved victory.

The final payouts were:-

1st – ‘BOINGBLITZ’ – $1,877 – Gold Medal – GUKPT Main Event Entry
2nd – ‘warwickman83’ – $1,112 – Silver Medal
3rd – ‘oldham00’ – $695 – Bronze Medal
4th – ‘GB2Loose’ – $556
5th – ‘MintTrav’ – $487
6th – ‘Ant66’ – $417
7th – ‘goater1414’ – $348
8th – ‘saint1john’ – $278
9th – ‘mattblue’ – $209
10th – ‘Scooby500’ – $139

The top 18 players received Online Championship ranking points and in total, 20 players cashed.

The top three players were Brian Yates (‘BOINGBLITZ’), from Wednesbury, Christopher Burton (‘warwickman83’), from Cardiff and James Oldham (‘oldham00’), from Hayes. They will be presented with their Medals at the Welsh Amateur Poker Championship, which takes place in Cardiff on April 4th & 5th.

The APAT Irish Online Championship will take place at Blue Square on 18th April at 8pm.

For further information, go to www.apat.com