Luke Brabin tops an all-Australian final table to claim the first of 10 gold bracelets at this year’s World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.
Luke Brabin has just earned more money in one event than the whole of his live tournament cashes, from the past seven years, after taking the top prize of AU$131,365 in the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific (WSOP-APAC) Event #1 AU$1,100 No-Limit Hold’em Accumulator.
It’s the first of 10 gold bracelets – five more than was distributed during the inaugural WSOP-APAC event last year – and it came about after an all-Australian final table. It was a vastly inexperienced final table with none of the final nine ever cashing in a WSOP event before.
Brabin started the final day of action with the chip lead, and he would drag it all the way to the finishing line, beating Didier Gerin, in heads-up action, after calling Gerin’s [9d] [8d] shove, with [Ks] [Qc] – and although the flop handed Gerin an open-ended straight draw, a queen on the river cemented Brabin’s victory as he headed into the WSOP record books.
The WSOP would have wanted to get off to a great start, but it didn’t materialize after only 611 entrants entered the event to create a total prize pool of AU$611,000; numbers that were dwarfed last year when Bryan Piccioli defeated 1,085 players en route to the AU$211,575 first prize.
The list of well known pros, who cashed in the event, looks like this, with last years WSOP-APAC bracelet winner Aaron Lim leading them all with a 14th place finish: Jeff Madsen (19th), George Danzer (22nd), Dan Heimiller (31st), Antonio Esfandiari (45th), Gary Benson (47th), Sam Cohen (50th) and Brandon Shack-Harris (53rd) finishing that list.
The significance of those finishing places is felt in the WSOP Player of the Year (POY) race, as the German George Danzer overtakes Brandon Shack-Harris at the top by just two points.
Final Table Results (Prizes in AU$)
1st. Luke Brabin – $131,365
2nd. Didier Gerin – $81,220
3rd. Daniel Murphy – $59,334
4th. Stephen Lindeblad – $43,986
5th. Ryan Hong – $33,080
6th. Zane Ly – $25,234
7th. Brian McAllister – $19,521
8th. Piyush Gupta – $15,318
9th. David Profaca – $12,189
