Jake Dursley Wins Coral Welsh Amateur Title
APAT launched their Season 8 offerings with the Welsh Amateur Poker Championship held at the Rainbow Casino in Bristol, with the 2-day Main Event over 5th/6th July supported by side events on Saturday with NLHE, and PLO on Sunday.
The Main Event attracted a field of 154, and with a 15k stack on a 45-minute clock it allowed for plenty of play between those travelling to Bristol for the weekend for a combination of a good buyin (£75), a well-structured event and added value – plus of course the opportunity to take an early lead on the APAT Player Of The Year Leaderboard – where the player topping the Leaderboard at the end of the Season will win a trip to Las Vegas during the WSOP 2015.
Day 1 ended around midnight after 11 levels of play and with the field reduced to 43 players to return for a midday start on Sunday. APAT stalwart Mark Porter led the field with a stack just short of 150k, but closely followed by Jake Dursely with 128k and Jack Kendall only a few spots down in 5th with 106k. Bottom of the field, Guy Gullen, with a short stack of 6,600 obviously thought little of his chances playing the short stack and taking the top spot prize of £3,670, and consequently Day 2 started with 42 seats occupied.
Chip leader Mark Porter is a regular APAT player, and aiming to build on his Day 1 success to take him all the way to claim his first APAT title, he started the day with double the stack of his nearest rival on his table, and with blinds starting at 800/1600/250 ante, Porter’s stack of 150k looked to have put him in a good spot to go deep.
Early action saw Jack Kendall get it all in with Ad Kc against the Kh Ks of Dave Riches – but it was to be Riches to rags as the dry board to the Turn then produced Ah on the river to end Dave’s event and propel Jack to chip leader on 340k.
Elsewhere, facing a raise to 4.6k and a call, Emily Stuart-Hamilton shoves all in from late position for 34k. The initial raiser folds and after a long dwell the caller calls. Emily tables Qs Kd vs the 8c 8s of her opponent, and on a Board of 5d 10d 7s Js 3c Emily departs. Huge congratulations to Emily on going deep (29/154) on her first ever live poker tournament, and we’re sure we’ll see her again on the APAT Tour where we wish her the best of luck in her new found passion of poker.
3 hours into Day 2 and Mark Porter, who started the day as chip leader but having found no spots, found himself slipping towards the bottom of the chip counts and staring at a 75k stack.
With Amit Patel pushing all in on the SB with Ad Js, Jack Kendall in the BB picked up Ac Ah and an instant call to see a Board only need to go to the Turn with Qc 7c 5c 3c to eliminate Amit and take us to 19 remaining – 1 spot of the prizes.
10 minutes later and our unlucky bubble is Liam Oliver shoving with As 8c for not a lot of chips and is called by the Ad Kh of Dominic Hine. Liam doesn’t improve, and the bubble is burst – and we see Mark Porter limp into the prizes with 0.8 BBs – although he quickly doubles up twice though and gets back to a stack of around 35k – to only soon after double up again to 70k – the Strategy King at his finest!
Meanwhile Mark Porter is working hard at staying in the game and his pre-flop raise is met by a shove from Forum Poker Group’s Dan Crabbe. Mark makes the call with 9h 9s to Dan’s Ad Qc with a board of 7d Jc Qh 6h 6c. Mark slips to a very low stack and, still on the bubble, Dan Crabbe increases to 91k.
This is Dan Crabbe’s 3rd APAT event. In his first ever APAT he finished 5th/240 (APAT Team Event), and in his second game recorded another Final Table (9th in the Main Event of the WCOAP at Aspers). Already having marked the occasion of this his 3rd game by making it 3 cashes from 3 APATs, he’s not done yet as he aims for 3 final tables from 3.
Jake Dursley, who started the day in 2nd spot with 128k, had grinded his way to be sitting on 330k now, still in 2nd spot with Andrew Watts on the same stack, just behind Ben Naylor on 380k with 14 players remaining.
Nigel King, all in pre flop from the small blind, holding the majestic Dolly 95o to be called by 63o of Jack Kendall. Board 36A and he was drawing very slim already…and with no further improvement Nigel finishes in 14th, just before we see the start of day chip leader Mark Porter shoving with A9o and being called by pocket 10s. No help on the board and Mark departs in 13th.
With 11 remaining Claire ‘Duffy’ is all in with KK against her opponent Roger Smith’s QQ – with a blank board to the Turn it is devastating for Duffy as a Q arrives on the river to have her now running on fumes (4k = 40% of a bigblind), and Duffy is out the next hand.
With 10 remaining and playing to a Final Table of 9, soon after Duffy’s departure Roger Smith knocks another player out, again on the river…. this time Stu Greenan is the unlucky chap who finds Roger holding 9s 10s raising and raising to 28k (2.8 BBs) – Stu announces all-in for 52k, and Roger – now finding himself pot committed – makes the call with again the board running out very safely for his opponent right until the river…. which lands a fateful 9h to beat Stu’s 7c 7d and send him packing in 10th spot.
Final Table with blinds 6k/12k/1k:
1. Dominic Hine 207,000
2. Jack Kendall 416,000
3. Mark Morris 122,000
4. Jake Dursley 221,000
5. Brendan Payne 189,000
6. Daniel Crabbe 132,000
7. Ben Naylor 322,000
8. Roger Smith 274,000
9. Andrew Watts 398,000
After a couple of big calls Dominic Hine departs in 9th position, followed by Ben Naylor in 8th which saw Brendan Payne getting it all-in for 180k over the top of Ben’s 140k, which had been called by Andrew – Andrew called the rest. Brendan’s Ah Kc v Ben’s Ad 7s and Andrew’s 10c 10s on a Board to the Turn of 8c 6c 5c 2d before 4c on river gave Ben the straight but also the flush for Brendan who scooped a monster pot of 570k and moved into chip leader.
A monster shift of chips from Roger Smith to Jake Dursley. Holding 6d 7h on a board of 7c 8c Jc 6h and facing an all-in from Roger, Jake makes the call against Roger’s 9s 9d for a river Qd to take a 500k pot and reduce Roger to fumes.
Daniel Crabbe, making his 3rd Final Table in a row from only 3 APAT events played, is all in with Ad 8c and called by Jake Dursley with Ac Jh, but finds no improvement on a Board of 10d 7h Qc Js Qs to depart in 7th place, rounding off an immense overall APAT record of 5th, 9th and 7th from field sizes of 240, 300+ and 154.
On the departure of Mark Morris (6th) and Roger Smith (5th), after 10 minutes of 4-handed play we saw Jack Kendall with Ah Jh calling Andrew Watts’ all-in with As Qc for the board to come 6s Kh 4c 7h 8h to double up Jack and leave Andrew with 50k who departs on the very next hand in 4th spot and £1,030 richer.
Now into the ‘medals’ positions with all 3 fighting for the coveted APAT Gold, Silver and Bronze along with top prizes of 1st £3,670, 2nd £2050 and 3rd £1,370 stacks are Jake Dursley 1.2m
Jack Kendall 640k and Brendan Payne 360k.
Not long into 3-handed and Brendan Payne shoves all in and is quickly called by Jack Kendall. Brendan has 9c 6c against Jack’s Ac 8s and the board of 6s 8d Kd 4h Qc brings Brendan’s run to an end and the award of the APAT Bronze medal and £1,370.
With Heads-Up blinds at 20k/40k/4k it was a full level of to-and-fro stack movements before getting into 25k/50k/4k, and with very little folding pre-flop, after 90 mins of play Jack Kendall raised to 150k and Jake Dursley jammed back for 1.2m and Jack called without any measurable delay. The cards were flipped, and the race was on… Jake Dursley had Ah 10d and Jack Kendall 3s 3c, the Board ran As 2s Qs on the Flop, 2h changed nothing on Turn and a River 6h saw Jake’s flopped As hold up to take the title of APAT Welsh Amateur Poker Champion and the Gold Medal and £3,670 – plus the added value of entry to APAT’s World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) Main Event at Aspers Casino, London in April 2015 – leaving runner-up Jack Kendall with the Silver Medal and a £2,050 payday.
