HitSquad Reign at APAT’s Grosvenor UK Team Championship in Blackpool
Grosvenor Casino, Blackpool played host to the UK Team Championship this weekend, with 33 teams of 8 players stumping up the £75+£7 buyin to create a juicy split prize pool – 264 runners generated £19,800 with 50% going to the top 3 teams with the Team Champions taking home £5,000 (2nd £3,000 and 3rd £1,900) and the remaining 50% being paid to the top 18 individuals, with £2,900 up top plus an Added Value APAT Destination Vegas 2017 package.
For the first year ever in the UK Team Championship every team scored points, and finishing lowest in 33rd place was Punters Lounge, whilst at the other end of the leaderboard it was into Day 2 on Sunday before it boiled down to 3 teams fighting for the Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals – HitSquad, Kracked Kings and ScotSquad.
ScotSquad were shortly confirmed in 3rd spot and taking the Bronze National Championship Medals, and it was too close to call between HitSquad and Kracked Kings with both of them having multiple players left. With the departure of any player ensuring increased points for all remaining, it was of Darrell Hall (NOT playing for either team) leaving in 17th when his Ah Jc didn’t hold against the 10d 7s which made trip 10s on the Turn. This ensured that the minimum score that HitSquad could earn was greater than the maximum that KrackedKings could achieve, and so the Silver Medalists were confirmed as Kracked Kings and HitSquad crowned UK Team Champions.
The individual prize money was reached when Steve Healey shoved his short stack holding 6s 3s and couldn’t improve beyond the Kc 4d of Neil Sheehan – especially with the flop 4c 4s Kd! and Steve was out in 19th on the Bubble.
Mark Roberts 160k
Terry Evans 300k
Richard Clarke 380k
Paul Bond 390k
James Lee 640k
Neil Sheehan 420k
Stuart Greenan 390k
Carl Norris 600k
Amy Coshan 340k
On the Final Table 9 Paul Bond departs in 9th when his Ac 10d doesn’t improve past the Jc Jh of James Lee, and is followed in 8th when Mark Roberts hits mid pair on the Flop and gets it all in only to see pocket Aces of Neil Sheehan.
Carl Norris goes in 7th when his pocket 10’s are cracked by the AQ of Stuart Greenan, followed by Amy Coshan, James Lee 5th and on the individual medal bubble is Neil Sheehan, leaving the Gold, Silver and Bronze to be fought between Stuart Greenan, Terry Evans and Richard Clark.
Stuart Greenan made a min raise and Terry Evans in the Big Blind re-raised to 250k – Stuart asks how much Terry has ‘behind’ and then Stuart shoves and Terry calls… Terry is ahead with As 4s to Stuart’s Kc 5d, but a K on the Flop is the killer blow and Terry departed in 3rd place with a National Championship Bronze Medal.
Heads Up between Stuart Greenan and Richard Clarke and chips pass between them for a while before they are pretty evenly stacked and Richard raised to 150k and Stuart called. The Flop comes Ad 2c 3c… Stuart check raises all in and is snap called by Richard who flips over Ac 2h, and Stuart shows 7c 9c… Turn comes 8s and River 3s and Richard wins the hand… but a count is needed before it’s declared Richard had 1.84m and Stuart had 1.8m… Stuart finishes runner up and Richard Clarke takes the top spot and Gold Medal plus the added value Destination Vegas 2017 package.
Next up for APAT is the World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) at the Grosvenor Casino, Manchester Bury New Road starting on 8th April and running until Easter Monday with 18 Championship Event… full details bit.ly/APATWCOAP2017
