Melbourne Champs Main Event wrap up

[Glyn Parsons]

Always a big event on The Crown Casino calendar, the Melbourne Championship series wrapped up yesterday with the Final Table of the $1100 Main Event. The popular unique repercharge format, gives players the opportunity to buy in up to three times if they are unsuccessful on each day one. This allows for greater prize pools and more entrants, this year vying for the $104,000 first prize.

The 888 Poker League had the pleasure of entering twenty one players into the event, all who had won an online or in venue satellite in their respective States. Day 1c was the most popular day to play all prepared for a long day of grinding, but it was our Day 1a representative; Bernard Mathot who shone and managed to surge his way to the top 5 chip counts heading into Day 2. At this point it was also brought to our attention that our latest Grand Final winner Shaun Elliott had entered the event and also finished in the top counts.

Whilst many of our entrants were unsuccessful in their quest for glory, and most did not make it through to the second day, we still had some hopefuls who had made it through looking to claim victory and stamp their name in the history books. Only one name emerged, however, and his name was well known amongst the Queensland 888 Poker community; Shaun Elliott. The March Grand Final winner surged into the top three counts of day two and stayed there for most of the day heading into the cash early Sunday Night, and eventually the Final Table where he sat fourth in chips with the likes of Grant Levy and well known Melbourne Tournament specialist Minh Nguyen closely behind.

The ten handed Final Table began yesterday afternoon, and many were prepared for a very long day of grinding each hoping others would bust so they could jump payouts on their way to the six figure first prize. We lost three players pretty quickly, but after that seven handed would continue for quite some time before we lost another; the last female in the field who’s pocket eights fell at the hands of Shaun’s pocket tens leaving us with six remaining.

Shortly after, Grant Levy fell short of the title in dramatic fashion when his pocket fives were counterfeited on the river. With five remaining Shaun picked up his aggression and it wasn’t long before he had another victim. In a three way pot and on a flop reading (7 9 8) Shaun faced a three bet shove, only to instantly call with the flopped nuts! With four remaining, he was the clear chip leader at this point.

Following another elimination we were down to three handed play at around seven that night. Shaun held roughly two thirds of the chips in play going to the dinner break. Once play had resumed, his aggression continued, but backfired after doubling up both the short stacks and finding their roles reversed, he now nursing the short stack eager for a double up. It wouldn’t take long for him to put all his chips in the middle when he found (AQ) in the big blind and shoved after the button had raised, unfortunately Shaun ran into a dominating pair of Queens heading to the flop. The board bricked out and Shaun exits in third place collecting $50, 100 in prize money.

This was an incredible effort by Shaun, who only recently won our Grand Final for just over $54,000 in March. His determination, perseverance, and quiet friendly nature got him through three long days of play to be well rewarded for his efforts. We cannot forgot our other entrants as well, many of whom had not played in a major tournament before, all who did a fantastic job representing the 888 Poker League.
Congratulations to them and Shaun, we wish you many more Final Tables and victories in the future.

[bennymacca]

that is pretty damn awesome, 100k in cashes in a couple of months is just sick.

well done!

[sunbury2]

Congrats Shaun.
I very much enjoyed the experience of playing in the Melbourne Champs Main Event, Hopefully will be able to participate again in future.