England’s Dave Garden Wins APAT World Amateur Poker Championship
The centrepiece of the five day APAT WCOAP festival at Nottingham’s Dusk Till Dawn Club was the No Limit Hold’em World Amateur Poker Championship main event, which attracted 405 runners over two starting days, creating a £42,900 prize pool with a first prize of £12,900. The event was run in partnership with www.DTDPoker.com who provided several added value seats to Dusk Till Dawn events for WCOAP Champions.
199 players took part in Day 1a, each starting with 15,000 chips and a deepstack structure affording bountiful play. After 14 levels and 12 hours play 26 players made it through to the final day. On Day1b 206 players began and, with somewhat tighter play to the fore, 38 players made it through.
Once the chip counts were combined the chip leaders going into Day Two were as follows:
Greg Yates 274600
Simon Hyde 235900
Chris Salmon 235400
David Garden 225800
Gary Orme 213700
64 remained with 45 paid, while an average stack of 95,000 represented over 25x big blinds, so it was all to play for.
One player dominated the run down to the final in the first few hours of Day Two, Dave Garden. Such was his dominance that he had 2 million of the 6 million chips in play as the field broke to the final two tables. This chip lead inevitably meant that many other players were playing tournament poker with below average stacks and it was Christian Rzegotta of Germany and Andrew Duffin, by virtue of eliminating Greg Yates in eleventh after finding Pocket Kings in the big blind, that came through the pack to be the nearest challengers as we arrived at the final table.
The final table line up was as follows:
David Garden 2,166,000
Christian Rzegotta 1,142,000
Andrew Duffin 1,060,000
Paul Cammiss 385,000
Colburn Tomlin 336,000
Gary Strang 331,000
Bradley Girard 247,000
Gary Orme 227,000
Mark Sanders 185,000
First to exit was Mark Sanders, taking pocket fives in a race against the chip leader with Ace-Queen, only to see Garden flop two Queens. Garden’s commanding position strengthened further when he knocked Tomlin out in 8th in a rollercoaster of a hand. Tomlin had Pocket Eights, Garden Jack-Ten. Garden flopped a Jack on a paired board, Tomlin turned an Eight but Garden rivered a third Jack to give him a higher Full House.
Gary Orme was unfortunate to exit in seventh. Garden shoved an unopened pot in the small blind with Four-Three and Orme called all in with King-Queen suited. Garden rivered a Four to knock out his third player in a row in the early final table stages
Garden continued to cut a swathe through the final table, calling a shove from Bradley Girard with Jack-Eight, and beating Pocket Sevens to knock Girard out sixth. Paul Cammiss then eliminated Christian Rzegotta in fifth finding Ace-King behind the German’s shove with King-Queen.
Gary Strang had clung onto a short-stack throughout the final until he too fell to Garden, who rivered a Straight with Ten-Five in the blinds against King-Jack.
Three handed play slowed until Garden once again accounted for an opponent, his Ace-Seven out-drawing Paul Cammiss’ Ace-Nine, a Seven falling on the flop.
Heads Up Dave Garden started with a 4 million to 2 million chip advantage over Andrew Duffin. This became an equal situation until over the course of two levels Garden took control. In the final hand Duffin pushed Ace-Five suited into Garden’s Ace-King. Big Slick held and Dave Garden became the 2011 APAT World Amateur Poker Champion, winning over £12,000, the Championship Trophy & Gold Medal.
