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APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championships at the Fitzwilliam Club, Dublin on 30-31st May 2009

The APAT Irish Amateur Poker Championships held at the Fitzwilliam Club, Dublin was the third event of APAT's third season, once again sponsored by BlueSquare.com. Once again an APAT National Championships was sold out confirming APAT's popularity and highlighting the attraction of these events to a wide range of poker players.

The APAT buy in to National Championship events remains at £75 for Season three, and all live events will remain registration free for the third consecutive season. The structure of APAT National events has evolved to include antes in Season Three. Levels increase to 45 minutes and players once again start all main events with 10,000 chips.

The winners of the five National Championship events including this event receive entry to the prestigious GUKPT Champion of Champions event, while the winners of the World Amateur Championship and European Amateur Championship main events will receive entry to the GUKPT Grand Final all courtesy of Blue Square.com.

Including alternates, 144 runners took part with a prize pool of £10,800. Included amongst the runners were past APAT Champions Darren Shallis, Tim Magnus, Steve Redfern and Jason Jones.

Play and the pace of exits in the early stages was noticeably quicker than in previous APAT National events. Andrew Tracey took a hit early on when his Kings were cracked by flopped Quad threes and as play continued after the dinner break a series of big hand confrontations were to shape the chip counts at the end of the Day. Brian Yates, already with a large stack, found Aces against similarly chipped Steve Bayliff's Kings. Paul Garnham found Aces against Ace-King and then Yates again was in action. Seeing a spectacular Q-Q-6 flop holding Q-6 against and opponent holding K-Q. Yates lost a little ground near the end when losing a race with AK versus Andrew Tracey's Queens to double Andrew up and put him right in contention as play closed.

At the end of Day One chip leaders were as follows:

Brian Yates 99,100
Ben Dixon 95,300
Andrew Tracey 80,900
Sean Kenny 79,500
Paul Garnham 71,300

Play at the start of Day two began with blinds of 1500-3000/200 and 29 players remaining. Six players departed in the first level and the main beneficiaries were Brian Yates and Brian Murphy who found Aces when Michael Patterson had Kings the same hand. Darren Shallis eliminated Sean Kenny when he raised with Queens, kenny re-raised on the steal all-in and Darren's hand held up.

Elsewhere Paul Garnham was hugely unfortunate. Brian Martin pushed all-in in late position with J9 and Paul found Aces in the blinds. The 8-10-Q flop though was decisive, and knocked him out. As we moved into the money positions Brian Yates moved into a commanding position with a third of the chips in play when his Kings four-flushed to eliminate Nick Newport whose AK had flopped an Ace. Joint chip leader was Brian Murphy, finding a succession of pairs against small pairs to make considerable progress. Also moving through the field were Richard King and previous winner Steve Redfern, though Redfern wa to lose a race that eliminated him on the final table bubble.


The final table line up was as follows:


1 Richard King from Bradford 116,700
2 Brian Murphy from Dublin 226,400
3 Will Young from Wrexham 153,000
4 Andrew Tracey from London 48,000
5 Brian Yates from Walsall 429,700
6 Martyn Sharp from Cannock 70,300
7 Brian Greene from Dublin 125,000
8 Ben Dixon from Oxford 156,400
9 Darren Shallis from Newport 88,300

First to exit the final was Ben Dixon whose Queens were outdrawn by Brian Murphy's A10 on a 10-10-5 board. Short-stacked Martyn Sharp was next, knocked out by Richard King when having to move in before the blinds passed through him. In seventh was Darren Shallis who lost a 60-40% versus Yates, A10 v KQ, rivered.

Will YOung left in sixth, losing most of his stack on a steal and then knocked out by Richard King. Andrew Tracey had recovered from running Queens into Aces with eleven left and had done well to rebuild through the final by picking the right spots and situations. Despite getting his money in ahead in the key spots with five left he was outdrawn three times to depart in 5th.

By this stage Yates and Murphy were commanding chip leaders ahead of King and Greene. In a family pot four handed Yates then flopped bottom set against Greene's flopped top pair and flush draw. Bottom set held and Brian Greene was out in 4th.

Three handed play took over a level as the deep structure afforded plenty of play. Eventually Yates' pocket eights on the button collided with King's A9 in the blinds in a Race situation. Eights held, King exited in third and Yates took a 6:1 chip lead into a heads-up with Brian Murphy.

Heads Up was brief. Murphy took A8 against Yates KJ. Yates flopped two pair to win him the tournament. Thus Brian Yates became the APAT Irish Amateur Poker Champion 2009 winning 3400 Euros, a seat in the GUKPT Champion of Champions event and the Championship trophy. Brian has achieved a unique double. APAT Online Champion 2008 and Live National Champion in a 2009 event.