Nuno Duarte Crowned 2014 High Roller Champion On WCOAP Day Two

The second day of the APAT 2014 World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) saw two event s completed at the Aspers Stratford Westfield and two more champions crowned. Nuno Duarte binked the High Roller event and Chris Webber the Mixed Game event.

Event #3 was the High Roller event that commanded a £220 buy-in. This sum was paid by 61 players, creating a prize pool of £12,200 and a first place prize of £3,670 – not bad at all for a day’s work! Those 61 entrants were reduced to a much more manageable final table of nine, although it too more than 11 hours of intense poker action to do so.

2014 WCOAP High Roller Final Table
1 Nuno Duarte 186,000
2 Steve Bayliff 87,000
3 William Langton 95,000
4 Ruslanas Rudycenas 112,000
5 Henry Wride 325,000
6 Liam Crawford 118,000
7 David Charalambous 247,000
8 Bruce Salmon 365,000
9 Daniel Sharpe 294,000

The excellently named Ruslanas Rudycenas was the first player to bust from the final table. Steve “Scouse” Bayliff had been super aggressive from the second play started at the final table and had added a good 50 or 60,000 to his stack by getting a number of shoves through uncontested.

When he tried moving all-in to steal the blinds for a third time, he was looked up by Rudycenas who held {A-Spades}{K-Diamonds}. Bayliff could only muster the {6-Clubs}{5-Clubs}, which took the lead on the {7-Clubs}{4-Spades}{6-Spades} flop, stayed best on the {4-Clubs} turn and then improved t an unnecessary flush on the {A-Clubs} river, the ace rubbing salt into Rudycenas’ wounds.

Daniel Sharpe was the next casualty, busting after a clash with Nuno Duarte. Sharpe’s {J-Clubs}{10-Clubs} flopped an open ended straight draw with a flush draw thrown in for good measure, but somehow missed his plethora of outs to lose to top-pair top-kicker of Duarte.

Next to go was Henry Wride who committed his stack with {K-}{J-} in an attempt to win the blinds and antes but instead of winning those he was looked up by David Charalambous and his {A-}{5-}. The baby ace held up and the tournament was down to its final six players.

Sixth place went to William Langton who fell afoul of the Bayliff run-good! Bayliff open-shoved with {K-}{8-} and Langton re-shoved to isolate him with what turned out to be the dominating {A-}{K-}. By the river the board read {J-}{7-}{6-}{8-}{5-} gifting Bayliff an unlikely straight and when the chips were counted out, Langton was left with only 3,000 chips!

Langton fell soon after at the hands of Charalambous.

Charalambous lost a couple of coinflip and saw his stack dwindling and in the need of some reinforcements! The action folded to Charalambous on the button and he moved all-in with {10-}{9-}, folding out the small blind. Duarte was sat in the big blind with {6-}{6-} and decided to call, creating another coinflip for Charalambous to be involved in. Sadly for him, it was another coinflip he would lose as the board ran out {K-}{5-}{K-}{7-}{J-} to leave Duarte’s pocket sixes as the best hand.

Bayliff had pushed his luck throughout the final table but ran out of it as the clock struck 1:00am. Bayliff looked down at {K-}{5-} and opted to move all-in for around 200,000 chips and Liam Crawford decided to take a punt with his {Q-}{10-}. The {3-}{Q-}{9-}{J-}{J-} board was kind to Crawford, not so much to Bayliff and the tournament lost another player.

Despite helping himself to Bayliff’s stack, Crawford was the next player eliminated from the final table. His {9-}{8-} needed some help from the community cards as his all-in bet was called by Bruce Salmon’s {A-}{3-}. That help failed to materialise as the cards fell {Q-}{Q-}{5-}{6-}{3-} to bust Crawford and take the tournament to the heads-up stage.

Salmon took to 1.06 million to 766,000 chip lead into the heads-up match against Duarte and soon extended that lead by putting in large raises that the APAT blogger said Duarte was having trouble countering.

Then, all of a sudden, a major hand took place that turned the tie onto its head. All the chips went into the middle on the river of the {7-}{6-}{K-}{8-}{5-} board, Salmon turning over {4-}{3-} for a straight and being called by the {9-}{6-} of Duarte who held a higher straight. That hand left Salmon with less than 300,000 chips and in dire straits.

Salmon doubled as he tried to leap up the chip counts, but Duarte reeled his stack in to win the tournament. The final hand saw Duarte raise to 90,000 and then instantly call when Salmon three-bet all-in. Duarte showed {7-}{7-} and Salmon the {A-}{J-} and when the five community cards fell {3-}{6-}{8-}{9-}{Q-} it was game over for Salmon and victory was Duarte’s.

2014 WCOAP High Roller Final Table Results
1 Nuno Duarte £3,670
2 Bruce Salmon £2,560
3 Liam Crawford £1,645
4 Steve Bayliff £1,220
5 David Charalambous £915
6 William Langton £370
7 Henry Wride £610
8 Daniel Sharpe £485
9 Ruslanas Rudycenas £365

Chris Webber Walks Away With Mixed Game Title

Event #4 of the 2014 WCOAP was the £55 Mixed Game that saw 74 players sit down and play alternating rounds of No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha.

Poker action aside, there was a mini drama mid tournament after it was discovered one deck had 53 cards in it instead of 52! The problem was brought to light when a player caught the {J-Diamonds} on the flop only to realise he had the {J-Diamonds} in his hand already! The excellent Aspers tournament staff reviewed video footage, found no wrongdoing and restarted the event, but not before rolling back some of the action on the tables.

The final table was reached at around 2:20am, just as the High Roller was finishing up, and the players lined up as follows:

2014 WCOAP Mixed Event Final Table Seat Draw
1 Paresh Mahendra 209,000
2 Don Roberts 46,000
3 Chris Webber 108,000
4 David Howard 236,000
5 Stefan Roder 51,000
6 Shaun Conning 101,000
7 Mark Cugigao 70,000
8 John Murray 106,000
9 Richard Palser 181,000

Stefan Roder was the first player to bust, his {K-}{8-} being no match for the {K-}{J-} in Mark Cugigao’s hand. Roder was followed to the sidelines by UK circuit regular Shaun Conning before Richard Palser’s aces were cracked by the {7-}{5-} of Cugigao to leave the tournament with only six players.

Those six were reduced further with the bust outs of Don Roberts, John Murray and Dave Howard, all remarkably busted during the No Limit Hold’em round and not the variance-fest that is PLO.

Third place, £775 and a bronze medal went to Paresh Mahendra, leaving Cugigao and Chris Webber to lock horns heads up for the title. Cugigao paid the price for slow playing a set as Webber hit a straight on the river.

The final hand saw every chip in play go into the middle with the board reading {7-Clubs}{5-Clubs}{3-Spades}{4-Clubs}. Cugigao was the all-in player at risk, having tried to represent the exact hand that opponent held! Cugigao was forced to show just {K-Spades}{J-Spades} and was dead against Webber’s {A-Clubs}{8-Clubs}! game over for Cugigao.

2014 WCOAP Mixed Event Final Table Results
1 Chris Webber £1,125
2 Mark Cugigao £775
3 Paresh Mahendra £495
4 David Howard £370
5 John Murray £275
6 Don Roberts £220
7 Richard Pasler £185
8 Shaun Conning £145
9 Stefan Roder £110

Thursday marks the start of the eagerly anticipated World Amateur Teach Championship, the Antes Only Championship and the ever-popular H.O.R.S.E championship.