Welsh Amateur Poker Champion is crowned in Cardiff

The latest stop on APATs Season 10 tour saw the circus head to Grosvenor Casino on Atlantic Wharf in Cardiff. 173 players took to the felt for the 3 day event. Several APAT regulars, Cardiff Grosvenor regulars and players new and old were amongst those taking part.

A lively day 1a table featuring APAT regulars Jo Howard, Ger Smyth and local favourite Diane Chevrier saw Jo take an early lead – winning a lot of chips and plaudits for her creative play. However, it was Diane who reached the day 1a break with the chip lead of 66,000.

Meanwhile on day 1b, it was Steve Redfern with 97k who lead the way. Steve had started the day sending Stuart Greenan to the rail in an Aces vs Kings encounter, and had steadily built from there dispatching a number of opponents on his way.

At the end of day 1a, a large hand developed between Gholam Modir, Karen Mead, Wai Gao and Ian Mason. After a small flurry of pre-flop betting, 4 players saw the flop of 4s Ac 8d. All checked to see a turn of 2d, and again checked to see the river of 3c. At this point things got interesting, with Gholam first raising to 3k, Wai popping to 13k, Karen folding, Ian calling and Gholam shoving all in. The remaining 2 players made the call. Gholam and Ian both showed 57os for a straight, but Wai had 5c 6c to scoop the 90k+ pot, propelling him to near the top of the leaderboard.

Two large stacks collided at the end of day 1b. On a board of 2s Qd Qh 8h 6s and with around 35k already in the middle, John Rees moved all in for another 30k. Frome’s Mark Morris went deep into the tank, whilst John employed his own brand of speech wizardry. Eventually, Mark made the call… with Ace high. This was good enough to beat the Jh Th of John, and gave Mark a top 5 stack of 96k to take into day 2.

The top 10 stacks heading into day 2 were as follows:
1. Lukman Islam, 156k
2. Richard Evans, 109k
3. Tristan Chaplin, 103k
4. Wai Gao, 97k
5. Mark Morris, 96k
6. Luke Jenkins, 92k
7. Diane Chevrier, 90k
8. Thomas Lynch, 84k
9. Steve Redfern, 82k
10. Alex Toporeanu, 79k

3 hours into the day and Steve Redfern’s demolition of his opponents continued. Steve with 322k had almost twice as many chips as his nearest rivals: Loose Cardiff regular Rais Kham, who had come from left-field with creative play to obtain a 183k stack, and Diane Chevrier maintaining her forward progression. Players fell in quick succession for the next hour, with Paul Mearns the unlucky bubble boy when his Jd Td failed to outdraw Richard Evans’ Kc Qd. With the blinds beginning to bite, Steve Redfern was out in 13th place when he jammed Ad 6h into the Tens of Anthony Gregg in a 500k pot.

By 7pm we had reached the final table:

S1. Rais Khan, 161k
S2. Darren Coleman, 220k
S3. Luke Jenkins, 465k
S4. Keith Thomas, 190k
S5. Richard Evans, 433k
S6. Mark Morris, 224k
S7. Diane Chevrier, 194k
S8. Wai Gao, 142k
S9. Anthony Gregg, 567k

Right from the off, Rais seemed to engage another gear. Within 3 hands he had moved from small stack to a 600k mountain. Aces beating Queens and AQo sending Keith Thomas and his Kings to the rail, the two back-to-back hands propelling Rais to this figure.

Mark Morris was next to depart with a classic AK vs TT race against Anthony Gregg. The Ten on the flop put paid to Mark’s tournament.
Another flip, sent Wai Gao home in 7th spot, when his Tens were outdrawn by the AQo of Richard Evans.

The popular Diane Chevrier was next to fall when her two pair of 7h Ts on a board of 7d 3d Tc was counterfitted when Rais’s 9s Th found running Kings on the turn and river.

Luke fell shortly after, with Anthony Gregg taking the medal bubble when his AJ was outdrawn by the A7 of Richard Evans on the river.
Richard Evans is the Welsh Bronze medalist, when his A7 could not outdraw the Aces of Darren Coleman. A delighted Richard took £1,580 cash for his efforts.

Heads up was an exciting affair, with the very loose aggressive style of Rais Khan playing off nicely against the more structured tight-aggressive style of David Coleman. Rais looked to be trying to tilt his opponent by showing some big bluffs and semi-bluffs and making some big calls with marginal holdings. Was David going to wait to trap Rais, or play him at his own game?

A pivotal hand occurred when Darren in the small blind raised to 90k. Rais made the call to see a flop of Qs 3d 9s. Rais checked and Darren continued for 125k. Rais looked to be bluffing again when he stuck a chunk of 25k chips in. Before the dealer could count the chips, Darren was “all in!” and Rais insta-called.

Rais had Qd Jh
Darren had Th Ts
The turn was a Th. The river was a meaningless 4h and Darren made a massive double-up to over 1million chips. Rais was left with 600k.

The very next hand, Rais raised blind to 115k. Darren was “all in” again and Rais called (again blind):

Darren Td Js
Rais 9s 4d

There was to be no further twist in the tale, with the board running out Th 6h Ad Tc and Qh, and the tournament was finished.

Rais Khan, took 2nd place, £2,520 and a Silver APAT Medal.

Darren Coleman, won £3,825, an APAT Gold Medal and the added value of a Vegas 2017 Package.

APAT’s 10th Anniversary tour continues, where each Main Event gives the ADDED VALUE prize of a 10th Anniversary Vegas 2017 prize to all our Champions:

30-31 Oct 2016 Irish Amateur Poker Championship, Dublin
10-13 Nov 2016 Benelux Amateur Poker Championship, Namur
26-27 Nov 2016 UK Amateur Poker Championship, Portsmouth
4-5 Feb 2017 Scottish Amateur Poker Championship, Edinburgh
11-12 Mar 2017 UK Team Poker Championship, Blackpool
8-17 Apr 2017 WCOAP, Manchester