Sam Higgs sees off an all-star cast, on the final table of the World Series of Poker Asia Pacific Event #5: AU$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha, to win his first gold bracelet and AU$127,843 in prize money.
Australia wins four bracelets from five as local boy Sam Higgs overcame a star-studded final table to capture the World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet in Event #5 AU$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO).
Higgs was making his second WSOP-APAC final table in successive year’s, after finishing in fifth place in the AU$5,000 No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) 6-Max back in 2013 – and this time he made it count, securing the first prize of AU$127,843.
There was more heartache for Mike ’SirWatts’ Watson as he once again ran out of steam within inches of the WSOP finishing line. It was Watson’s sixth final table, and third time that he has reached the heads-up stage, only to pull up short of the flash of the winner’s photo.
Despite the loss, Watson continues to show an impressive vein of form, Down Under, with a 14th place finish in the AU$1,650 version of the PLO, and a 13th place finish in the AU$1,650 NLHE Terminator event.
Higgs had to come through a Canadian snowstorm as the former WSOP Main Event Champion, Jonathan Duhamel, joined Watson and Higgs in the final three-way action. It was Duhamel’s second WSOP-APAC final table, after finishing fourth in last year’s AU$1,650 PLO event, and he climbed one more rung of the ladder, in 2014, before being eliminated by Higgs.
That elimination saw Higgs take a 804,500 v 395,500 chip advantage, into heads-up; and despite Watson taking the lead midway through that finale, Higgs fought back to secure his first WSOP bracelet.
There were also good performances from Ismael Bojang and Jeff Rossiter. Bojang was making his third cash of the series, after finishing 20th in the Terminator event, and 11th in the smaller buy-in PLO event; and the Australian High Stakes player Jeff Rossiter was making his first-ever WSOP final table. Former WSOP final tablist Jamie Pickering also made the final table.
Once again the numbers were sparse, as only 80 players entered the event. Higgs and Watson had both previously won PLO events in the Aussie Millions, in 2013 & 2014 respectively.
WSOP-APAC Event #5 Results
1st. Sam Higgs – AU$127,843
2nd. Mike Watson – AU$79,099
3rd. Jonathan Duhamel – AU$52,068
4th. Jamie Pickering – $AU36,449
5th. Jeff Rossiter – $27,011
6th. Ismael Bojang – $21,123
