EPT London Crowns Champion

Posted by PokerFelts on Oct 06, 2010 Posted in Poker News | No Comments »

The European Poker Tour London Main Event has been in action for the last 6 days and with a record breaking player field of 848 players, you can see why the action took so long to play out completely.

The tournament saw both amateur and more experienced poker players competing against each other for a first place prize of £900,000 in tournament winnings.

Although there was a large percentage of amateur players in the field, there were plenty of more familiar names who took to the tables too, four time World Series of Poker bracelet winner John Juanda to name but one.

Day 6 saw the final eight players returning to battle it out for the title and the prize money on offer, with all players guaranteed to take home a minimum of £66,800 before the action even started, an amount that would give a number of the participants their biggest ever live poker tournament cashing.

Before the action got underway people were tipping either Juanda or Kyle Bowker to take home the first place spot as between them they held over half of the total chips in play, other players taking their seats with little more than twenty big blinds.

With the chip count so short for a number of players, action was always going to be lively and the players didn’t disappoint any watchers as they looked to lock horns and double up their chip stacks to ensure that they were able to get a firmer grip of their tournament life.

Although the action was hard fought, it still took an hour of play for the first player to be eliminated from the tournament with Per Ummer heading to the rails in 8th place.

7th place fell to Tom Marchese after the play seemed to tighten up a little and players seemed to express more caution in their approach to their hands. Due to the increased caution of play, it took another hour before Marchese was sent to the rails to join Ummer after he clashed with 23 year old Scottish professional David Vamplew. Marchese won’t be too downhearted though after banking £100,000 for his efforts in the tournament.

With the tournament down to a final 6 players, the play once again hit top speed and it took only 40 minutes for a further 2 players to head out of the tournament, first Brazilian Fernando Brito then Kayvan Payman.

Brito was sent to the rails after running into Kyle Bowker who raised the action only for Brito to make an all in shout over the top with Ah 6d. Bowker turned over Jack/Ten diamonds and needed to catch up with the help of the community cards.

The community cards were turned and Bowker took the hands with a King high straight, sending Brito crashing out of the tournament.

Play didn’t need too much longer to claim Payman, with the player showing that he was looking to either double up or exit the tournament after moving all in over three consecutive hands. The third all in move drew attention from a number of players and that was the end of his tournament participation, cashing out £190,000.

Now down to the final four, it wasn’t looking like it was going to take too long before the next player was eliminated from the tournament and that was right, Arthur Wasek falling next.

Wasek did well to reach this far in the tournament after some questionable plays throughout the final two days of the tournament but his unpredictability factor seemed to have carried him through.

His exit from the tournament came via four times World Series of Poker bracelet winner John Juanda after the professional raised the action before Wasek moved all his chips into the pot for a total of 1,300,000.

Wasek revealed that he had been dealt pocket 5’s while Juanda was holding Ace/Jack offsuit. The community cards offered no outlet for Wasek with Juanda catching a Jack on the river, leaving Wasek heading to the rails £240,000 richer.

Now the tournament was down to the final three players, it seemed that everyone was looking to wait for their premium starter hand before looking to get a taste of the action but after a hour of play between the trio, Kyle “kwob20” Bowker called an all in move by John Juanda with pocket Jacks.

Bowker’s Jacks were to face off against Juanda’s pocket Tens, leaving Juanda at more than a four to one shot of winning the hand.

It seemed that luck was on the side of John Juanda at this late stage of the tournament, the community cards offering him the victory after presenting four Clubs on the table, giving the professional a flush.

Bowker was shocked to have been beaten in the hand and left the table to collect his £300,000 prize money.

Now that Juanda had eliminated another player from the tournament, he entered into the heads up section with 19,660,000 chips compared to David Vamplew’s 5,595,000.

The action was fierce and you would be forgiven for thinking that Juanda was going to make short work of his opponent but little did he know that Vamplew was going to switch up his game and increase the heat on the chip leader.

Looking down into his hole cards, Vamplew found  Ten/Nine of Clubs and decided that making small bets at this late stage in the tournament against a huge chip leader would be suicide and so he pushed all in, Juanda calling with Ace/Five off suit.

The community cards offered Vamplew the victory in the hand after avoiding the remaining Aces in the deck and presenting a Ten of Spades on the turn, cancelling out Juanda’s pair of Fives.

From that moment on, Juanda seemed to lose his focus and his chip stack seemed to be leaking with each and every hand played until he only had 3,400,000 chips remaining infront of him.

Downhearted and not completely sure of how he could have thrown away such a large chip lead, Juanda placed all his chips into the pot when he found King/Two of Hearts looking back at him from his hole cards.

Vamplew quickly made the call and turned over Ace/Three offsuit.

The cards fell to the table with the flop showing as 3s-Ad-Qs, giving Vamplew two pair, there were still two cards to come but as the Nine of Spades followed on the turn card, both players were stood up and shaking hands as the final river card of the tournament confirmed the victory with a Six of Spades.

Juanda was heading away from the playing area before the river card had even hit the table, realising that he was drawing dead and looked to be heading to collect his £525,000 runner up prize money.

Vamplew’s victory meant that not only had he been able to over come a huge chip leader but the £900,000 prize money also meant that he had jumped into the number one spot for the Scottish all time money listings.

Not a bad title for a 23 year old who only started playing poker five years ago before turning professional only a year ago.

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