The centerpiece of the five day APAT WCOAP festival at Nottingham's Dusk Till Dawn Club was the No Limit Holdem Main event, which attracted 405 runners over two starting days, creating a £42,900 prize pool with a first prize of £12,900. The event was sponsored by www.dtdpoker.com who provided added value across all WCOAP events including a seat into their popular DTD Deepstack to the winner of the Main Event.
APAT members have the chance to win added value throughout a packed season of Live and Online National Championships and leagues. In addition, each of the season’s seventy five amateur, professional and online tournaments are run completely registration free for players.
199 players took part in Day 1a, each starting with 15,000 chips and a deepstack structure affording bountiful play. After 14 levels and 12 hours play 26 players made it through to the final day.
On Day1b 206 players began and, with somewhat tighter play to the fore, 38 players made it through.
Once the chip counts were combined the chip leaders going into Day Two were as follows:
Greg Yates 274600
Simon Hyde 235900
Chris Salmon 235400
David Garden 225800
Gary Orme 213700
64 remained with 45 paid. Average stack of 95,000 represented over 25x big blinds, so it was all to play for.
One player dominated the run down to the final in the first few hours of Day Two, Dave Garden. Such was his donimance that he had 2 million of the 6 million chips in play as the field broke to the final two tables. This chip lead inevitably meant that many other players were playing tournament poker with below average stacks and it was Christian Rzegotta of Germany and Andrew Duffin, by virtue of eliminating Greg Yates in eleventh after finding Pocket Kings in the big blind, that came through the pack to be the nearest challengers as we arrived at the final table
The final table line up was as follows:
David Garden 2166000
Christian Rzegotta 1142000
Andrew Duffin 1060000
Paul Cammiss 385000
Colburn Tomlin 336000
Gary Strang 331000
Bradley Girard 247000
Gary Orme 227000
Mark Sanders 185000
First to exit was Mark Sanders, taking pocket fives in a race against the chip leader with Ace-Queen, only to see Garden flop two Queens. Garden's commanding posiition strengthened further when he knocked Tomlin out in 8th in a rollercoaster of a hand. Tomlin had Pocket Eights, Garden Jack-ten. Garden flopped a Jack on a paired board, Tomlin turned an eight but Garden rivered a thrid Jack to give him a higher full house.
Gary Orme was unfortunate to exit in seventh. Garden shoved an unopened pot in the small blind with four-three and Orme called all in with King-Queen suited. Garden rivered a four to knock out his third player in a row in the early final table stages
Garden continued to cut a swathe through the final table, calling a shove from Bradley Girard with Jack Eight, and beating Pocket sevens to knock Girard out sixth. Paul Cammiss then eliminated Christian Rzegotta in fifth finding Ace-King behind the German's shove with King-Queen.
Gary Strang has clung onto a short-stack all final until he too fell to Garden, who rivered a straight with ten-five in the blinds against King-Jack.
Three handed play slowed until Garden once again accounted for an opponent his Ace-Seven oudrawing Paul Cammiss' Ace-Nine, seven on the flop.
Heads Up Dave Garden started with a 4 million to 2 million chip advantage over Andrew Duffin. This became an equal situation until over the course of two levels Garden took control. In the final hand Duffin pushed Ace-Five suited into Garden's Ace-King. Big slick held and Dsve Garden became the 2011 APAT WCOAP Championship winner, for over £12,000
APAT now moves on to the Irish Amateur Poker Championship at the Macau Club in Cork in late September. Details of this event, and freemembership of APAT, can be found on www.apat.com
APAT WCOAP Main Event
27th-29th August
Dusk Till Dawn Nottingham
Entries 405
Buy In £106
Prize Pool £42,930
1 Dave garden £12,092
2 Andrew Duffin £7,069
3 Paul Cammiss £4,241
4 Gary Strang £2,976
5 Christian Rzegotta £2,232
6 Bradley Girard £1,674
7 Gary Orme £1,302
8 Colburn Tomlin £930
9 Mark Sanders £744
10 Wayne Parker £521
11 Ian Turner £521
12 Greg Yates £521
13 Michal Pempkowiak £521
14 Oluwashola Akindele £372
15 Richard Baker £372
16 Andrew Overton £372
17 Chris Salmon £372
18 Jonathan Walker £372
19 David Montague £265
20 Andrew Macleod £265
21 Mohammed Fassil £265
22 Bruno Abelho £265
23 Michael Holmes £265
24 Simon Hyde £265
25 Gordon Mcarthur £265
26 Ganesh Jayaraman £265
27 Rab Bain £265
28 Adam Mason £212
29 Thomas Stannard £212
30 Allan Doyle £212
31 Darren Moore £212
32 Lee Stavers £212
33 Derek Rowland £212
34 Sara Mariani £212
35 Andrew Cunningham-brown £212
36 Craig Johnson £212
37 Paul Jefferies £159
38 Liaquat Javed £159
39 Ian Burnett £159
40 Wesley Davies £159
41 Ben Burnhill £159
42 Mark Lint £159
43 Gary Metcalfe £159
44 Tom Page £159
45 Nicholas Higgs £159