WCOAP Day 1: First Bracelet Awarded

The World Championship Of Amateur Poker (WCOAP) has gone from strength to strength over the years and the 2015 offering kicked off on Saturday at Aspers Stratford Casino in East London starting a 10-day 20-event spectacular for amateur players to hone their skills, or even cut their teeth, in a plethora of events that includes PLO, Irish, Crazy Pineapple, Razz, HORSE, OFC, PLO8, PLO456, Heads Up and in addition to the many NLHE events such as Mix Max and 6-Max, the ever-popular International Team Championship.

Saturday was Day 1 of the 2-day PLO Championship but it was event #2 the Irish Championship that concluded in the early hours of Sunday (with the clock going forward 1 hour!).  Playing with 4 dealt cards and pre-flop betting being Pot Limit, players then bet the flop as No Limit before discarding 2 cards prior to the Turn and then playing the event out as NLHE.

With 46 entrants at £50 the prize fund of £2300 was paid to the Top 6, the first payee being Oliver Perkins calling a shove by big stack Vinny Anderson and on a Flop of 2s 3h Qd Oliver discarded 2 cards to be left holding Ad 5d against Vinny’s Kc Kd – with no help on the Turn or River.  Ryan Johnson departed in the very next hand.

In addition to WCOAP Bracelets for each event Champion, the top 3 would also win Gold, Silver and Bronze Medals, so on the ‘medal bubble’ we had:

S2 Vinny Anderson 440k
S3 Alan Ellis 115k
S5 Christian Ciuperca 60k
S6 Silvia Uaguero 65k

With blinds at 8k/16k and Vinny holding a commanding chip lead, Alan Ellis eventually got it all in on a flop of 10s Jd Jh and is called by Vinny – Alan tables Qd Qh only to be crushed by Vinny showing Kd Kh and with a Turn Jc and River 5c Alan left in 4^th position.

Silvia had nursed a small stack for some time, being all in on occasions and surviving, but raising on the BB she found Vinny pushing all in and felt committed to call – the flop came Ad 3d 4d and Silvia shows Ah 8d with some hope – only to see Vinny turn over Ac Qd to totally dominate her, and not improving Silvia left the table with £345 and an Irish Championship Bronze Medal – she’ll be back later in the week to represent Spain in the 2-day Team Championship (Thu/Fri).

Heads Up between Vinny and Christian didn’t take long.  Within a few hands Christian pushed all in for 91k and was called by Vinny – flop 10c 5s Jc and Christian elected to retain 8c 8c and was relieved when Vinny choose to keep 6s 6d – Turn 2h and River 4h doubled Christian up to 182k.

The next hand saw Christian push the 182k all in, with Vinny calling.  Flop As Kc 5h has a smiling, happy and verbal Vinny turn over Ac Kh, but Christian has a chance when showing Jh 10d.  Turn 3d and River 4s however dashed his hopes and Christian had to be satisfied with £525 and Irish Championship Silver Medal, leaving the WCOAP 2015 first Champion as Vinny Anderson winning £790, Championship Gold Medal and Championship Bracelet.

Elsewhere in the cardroom, 14 players will return for event #1 PLO Championship, including the 2014 Champion Paresh Doshi and 2013 Champion Michael Perry.  The event restarts at midday today with the following chipcounts:

The full 10-day 20-event schedule can be found on the APAT Forum http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=17555.msg238191#msg238191, with individual event details also http://www.apat.com/forum/index.php?topic=17563.0