Alan Armitage Wins Scottish Online Championship
By
Armitage: Scottish Online Champion
The fourth online event of Season Three provided the most experienced trio of medal winners in APAT Championship history. Ninety two players entered the APAT Scottish Online Poker Championship. The $55 buy in gave them all a shot at a $1,380 first prize, national title, gold medal and an entry to a £1,000 buy in Grosvenor UK Poker Tour main event.
This tournament saw a number of highly ranked players absent due to tournament commitments elsewhere in the UK, providing a great opportunity for the entrants to win an APAT major and push their way up the National Rankings. As normal in Championship events players started with a 10,000 chip deepstack and 15 minute blinds. Within fifteen minutes of the start we had already lost one player and after four hours of further play, Antony Wolsey (‘Pilf’), who final tabled the Irish Online Championship, burst the final table bubble and exited in eleventh.
This left the final table line up as follows;
Seat 1 Honeycroft
Seat 2 Deal2aces1
Seat 3 lubandige
Seat 4 mattblue
Seat 5 gardengnome
Seat 6 harapin
Seat 7 deanman1
Seat 8 daveyb147
Seat 9 MrsJambo22
Seat 10 bigalhx3 (chipleader)
‘bigalhx3’ went into the final table as the chip leader and we quickly lost one of the short stack players ‘Harapin’ in tenth.
‘daveyb147’ who was also relatively short stacked pushed all in with AK and was looked up by ‘Honeycroft’ with AJ. A Jack on the flop however sealed daveyb147’s fate and he was out in ninth with ‘Honeycroft’ assuming the chip lead.
Bodman: Silver Medal
‘Honeycroft’; the captain of the South London team in the APAT National League and APAT WCOAP Razz Champion, was starting to dominate the final table and was collecting blinds at will, until ‘lubandige’ doubled up through ‘MrsJambo22’ with AA vs AK. This gave ‘lubandige’ the impetus he wanted and he became the new table aggressor, building a big stack in the process.
Eventually ‘Deanman1’ took a stand with A10 and was looked up by Honeycroft’s QQ. The flop saw an ace fall but the cruel 10 on the river gave ‘Honeycroft’ the broadway straight and ‘Deanman1’ exited in eighth place with two pair.
‘Deal2aces1’ exited in seventh place after raising his short stack all in from the cut off with Q2 suited and finding himself dominated by ‘mattblue’ with AQ in the small blind.
‘mattblue’ was the next to exit and was a victim of lubandige’s continued aggression this led to ‘lubandige’ assuming the chip lead and ‘mattblue’ out in sixth.
Smyth: Bronze Medal
‘lubandige’ was still bringing the aggression, bordering maniac, and was running over the table, like a freight train, building a dominating chip lead. This aggression did lead to some interesting plays and added some fast paced action to the table, all of which ‘lubandige’ seemed to win.
‘MrsJambo22’ decided to have a little fight back and managed to double up with A8 suited against lubandige’s 22 spiking an 8 on the turn and completing trip 8’s on the river, but then shortly after exited in fifth as A7 failed to improve against ’Honeycroft’s KK.
Four handed and the aggression continued ‘gardengnome’, who had been very quiet, was finding it difficult to play back and was now short stacked. He then announced to the table that “any Ace or picture and I am all in”. Sure enough 2 hands later ‘gardengnome’ in the big blind pushed all in with A3 and ‘bigalhx3’ called with K9. Fortunately the A3 made two pair on the river and ‘gardengnome’ doubled up.
‘bigalhx3’ then doubled ‘gardengnome’ again with a blind on blind confrontation 93 vs J5, after the flop the chips went in and the paired Jack vs the paired 3 was good enough and ‘gardengnome’ was back in contention, however ‘lubindige’ had something to say about that and, with the train still running at full steam, called an all in from ‘gardengnome’ with A8, ‘gardengnome’ tabled KQ suited to be only slightly behind (46%) but needing to hit to survive. The board ran out a 2 4 9 7 8 rainbow and ‘gardengnome’ exited in fourth just missing out on the medals.
At this point ‘lubindige’ was the signigficant chip leader with ‘Honeycroft’ second in chips and ‘bigalhx3’ bringing up the rear.
‘lubindige’s continued aggression, saw him raising from the button for four big blinds and ‘bigalhx3’ coming over the top all in. ‘lubindige’ thought for a few seconds and then called with A6 suited, ‘bigalhx3’ was ahead with 88. The board ran out Q 4 7 J 7 rainbow ‘lubindige’ missed and ‘bigalhx3’ took a double up and the chip lead.
Another big hand developed shortly after with ‘lubindige’ and ‘bigalhx3’ determined to fight it out between each other, ‘Honeycroft’ could only sit and watch as ‘bigalhx3’ took a further 180k pot down, showed A5 for two pair and this propelled him into a massive chip lead and left ‘lubindige’ short, and seemingly coming off the rails, with just over ten big blinds on 109k.
bigalhx3 600k
Honeycroft 225k
lubindige 109k
It was starting to look inevitable that ‘lubindige’, having gone from chip leader to short stack, was on his way out in third and this proved to be the case two hands later when ‘bigalhx3’ raised three times the big blind on the button and ‘lubindige’ pushed all in on the big blind. ‘bigalhx3’ tanked for a short while and made the call.
‘lubindige’ tabled 63 suited clubs, and ‘bigalhax3’ showed A3 to reveal he had ‘lubindige’ dominated and his train was just about to come to its final destination. K 2 10 on the flop was no help but an Ace of clubs on the turn provided ‘lubindige’ with a flush draw, however the river brought a 3 of hearts giving ‘bigalhx3’ two pair and sending ‘lubindige’ to the rail in third place, receiving a bronze medal for his podium finish.
So with ‘Honeycroft’ happy these two had collided, we were heads up. ‘bigalhx3’ was holding a significant chip lead and had roughly a 3.5 to 1 chip advantage.
Heads up continued the aggression that had been prevalent on the final table and rarely did a button get raised by less than three bets. It was fast and furious action all the way with the chip lead swinging between the two players.
The first swing saw the two players going to the flop and seeing a board of 8 5 6, both players ended up all in with ‘Honeycroft’ dominating proceedings with K6 against bigalhx3’s Q6. This was important for ‘Honeycroft’ as his tournament life was on the line, he need not have worried as the turn brought a 7, giving some split pot opportunities and the river bringing another 7 for two pair, top kicker. This gave ‘Honeycroft’ a 5:4 slight chip advantage.
‘Honeycroft’ then extended his lead further with more aggressive play but then found himself with a decision when ‘bigalhx3’ pushed all in with A8 suited. ‘Honeycroft’ thought and then called showing KQ. The board ran out 2 3 8 3 2 giving ‘bigalhx3’ the double up and the 5:4 chip advantage in his favour.
‘bigalhx3’ then began to dominate the heads up encounter and surged into a 2:1 chip lead and with the blinds at 8k/16k with 920k there was still a lot of action that could be had.
All the remaining action favoured ‘bigalhx3’ and he pushed to a 5:1 chip lead leaving ‘Honeycroft’ short and in desperate need of a double up.
The final hand was a standard encounter as usually any Ace, King or pair is good for a short stack shove in heads up. Sure enough ‘Honeycroft’ shoved all in for his life with KJ and ‘bigalhx3’ called with 22
So Quack Quack verus Kojak it was then. 22 (50%) and KJ (49%), and we were going to the races with ‘Honeycroft’ having to hit to remain in the tournament.
The board ran out 4 6 Q 8 A and it was game over.
A very happy ‘bigalhx3’ scooped the gold medal, national title and an entry to a £1,000 buy in GUKPT main event.
‘Honeycroft’ collects a silver medal for an excellent second place.
The final prize allocation was :-
1st bigalhx3 $1380
2nd Honeycroft $920
3rd lubandige $575
4th gardengnome $437
5th MrsJambo22 $345
6th mattblue $276
7th deal2aces1 $230
8th deanman1 $184
9th daveyb147 $138
10th harapin $115
The top 18 players received Online Championship ranking points. The top three players also received an option to enter the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship in Edinburgh.
The top three players were Alan Armitage (‘bigalhx3’), from Halifax, Mike Bodman (‘Honeycroft’), from London and Gerard Smyth (‘lubandige’), from Ellesmere Port. They will be presented with their Medals at the Scottish Amateur Poker Championship on July 18th & 19th.
The APAT European Online Championship will be played at Blue Square on Saturday August 1st at 8.00pm.
A free APAT membership can be taken out via www.apat.com.
