The AUD2,300 Main Event of APPT Melbourne has been an interesting journey this year, with the usual sprinkling of star names and a strong field size of 523 runners, which generated a prize pool of AUD1,198,300. Ashish Gupta carried a leading chip-stack to the table for the final, but had two competitors right on his heels with similar stacks. For the winner, a shiny trophy and AUD235,875 were waiting.
Read more: APPT Melbourne Main Event – Final 7 Presentation
Early exchanges
The stack sizes at the start of play were a little unusually spread, with three smaller ones, one medium, and three big stacks that were a little over 2 million. While he started today with limited means as far as chips are concerned, Ben McLean came into today with some pedigree in APPT events, having taken home AUD294,780 back in 2010 for his runner-up finish in APPT Sydney. Alas, his experience didn’t help spur him on to great things, and he was the first to exit the final table, taking home AUD30,550. Another short stack coming into this one, Tu Lan couldn’t find much traction either, following McLean out of the door shortly after. He banked AUD37,525 for his 6th place finish.
At this point, the story started to go a little off script, with our third short-stacked starter Raymond Ou picking up chips, and the comfortable 1,325,000 starting stack of Shawn Lee finding its way to zero. Lee will have to console himself with the AUD47,175 he received as our 5th place finisher.
Chop secures huge score for 4th place finisher
The final table underwent another interesting development as a deal was struck for the money, with Jay Prasad having a big chip-lead at the time. Prasad somehow managed to take 4th place sometime later, but had already been rewarded with AUD175,000 in the chop deal. Trung Tran then departed, taking home AUD107,313, leaving former small stack Raymond Ou to face off against start of day chip leader Ashish Gupta. Although he had a chip deficit to overcome at the start of heads-up play, Gupta duly triumphed after a second deal. Because of the chops, he took home AUD124,191 which was significantly less than the 4th place finisher. Ou secures a AUD136,535 payday for his valiant 2nd place performance.
Here are the final payouts in full:
1st) Ashish Gupta – $124,191**
2nd) Raymond Ou – $136,535**
3rd) Trung Tran – $107,313*
4th) Jay Prasad – $175,000*
5th) Shawn Lee – $47,175
6th) Tu Lan – $37,525
7th) Ben McLean – $30,550
All prizes in AUD
Denotes a four-handed deal
Denotes an additional heads up deal
Article by Craig Bradshaw
