Crown Perth Western Classic; Dale Marsland wins Main Event as Kamiya and Gillet Bag a Double

Crown Perth’s Western Classic poker festival has now been running for the best part of a decade, and while the Aussie Millions outshines most other festivals on Australian shores, the Western Classic should not be overlooked when it comes to premier poker festivals in the country. Field sizes are consistently solid each year with most events paying out five-figure top prizes, and Crown Perth is a great location to be playing tournament poker. The 2019 edition of this festival is now wrapping up, delivering headlines and repeat winners in the process.

Event 8 – AU$2,000 (US$1,354) Western Classic Main Event – Winner: Dale Marsland

This year’s Main Event drew in a crowd of 171 entries across two starting days, creating a prize pool of AU$307,800 (US$208,382). There were plenty of strong players involved, few with more proven pedigree in this festival than Dale Marsland. Since the Western Classic’s inception, Marsland has collected five titles in the series, including the Main Event title in 2012.

As the event pressed on past the bubble, with 64 runners getting paid, Marsland continued to pose a threat. By the time the final table was set, Richard Balkau led the way with 875,000. Marsland was 3rd with 444,000. As the finalists started to drop however, Marsland rocketed up the counts with 7 remaining. He remained one of the bigger stacks until finally getting heads up with Dylan Duncan. The players battled away heads up for over 2 hours before Marsland was finally able to eliminate Duncan and claim his second Main Event title.

The final payouts are as follows:

1st – Dale Marsland – AU$87,000 (US$58,899)

2nd – Dylan Duncan – AU$55,400

3rd – Jaxon Byrne – AU$41,000

4th – Andrian Chin – AU$31,600

5th – Marco Lee – AU$22,300

6th – Richard Balkau – AU$15,400

7th – Aaron Taylor – AU$10,800

8th – Andy Brown – AU$8,400

9th – Joey Hornby-Waring – AU$6,100

Event 4 – AU$1,150 (US$779) 6-Max – Winner: Melissa Gillet

The fourth event of the festival brought the largest buy in and prize pool of the festival outside of the Main Event, with 106 total entries helping the prize pool to hit AU$106,000 (US$71,763). Melissa Gillet had bested a field of 219 total entries to win event 3 the previous day, and remarkably, she was among the big stacks with just a few players remaining.

The neutrals hoping to see a back to back victory were not to be disappointed, as Gillet felled her final opponent heads up to take the trophy.

Here are the final payouts:

1st – Melissa Gillet – AU$35,000 (US$23,695)

2nd – Mile Krstanoski – AU$22,200

3rd – Andrea Rispoli – AU$14,300

4th – Dale Marsland – AU$11,000

5th – Andrew Miller – AU$8,000

6th – Romeo Kojic – AU$5,800

7th – Graziano Lucisano – AU$4,000

8th – Danny Poolman – AU$3,200

9th – Vesko Zmukic – AU$2,500

Other events

Event 1 – AU$400 (US$271) Terminator

Entries: 156

Prize Pool: AU$39,000 (US$26,403)

Winner: Samuel Ingram – AU$8,100 (US$5,484) *Deal made

Event 2 – AU$250 (US$169) Repechage/Accumulator

Entries: 278

Prize Pool: AU$61,160 (US$41,406)

Winner: Leo Kamiya – AU$16,300 (US$11,035)

Event 3 – AU$200 (US$135) Hyper-Turbo

Entries: 149

Prize Pool: AU$23,840 (US$16,140)

Winner: Melissa Gillet – AU$7,800 (US$5,281)

Event 5 – AU$350 (US$237) NLH

Entries: 181

Prize Pool: AU$54,300 (US$36,761)

Winner: Andrew Miller – AU$9,080 (US$6,147) *Deal made

Event 6 – AU$550 (US$372) Shot Clock

Entries: 106

Prize Pool: AU$53,000 (US$35,881)

Winner: Benjamin Breadsell – AU$17,500 (US$11,848)

Event 7 – AU$550 Old School Freezeout

Entries: 127

Prize Pool: AU$63,500 (US$42,990)

Winner: Prakash Valji – AU$10,000 (US$6,770) *Deal made

Event 9 – AU$200 (US$135) PLO Rebuy

Entries: 51

Prize Pool: AU$23,460 (US$15,883)

Winner: Nick Lim – AU$5,850 (US$3,960) *Deal made

Event 10 – AU$575 Bounty Deepstack

Entries: 91

Prize Pool: AU$47,320 (US$32,036)

Winner: Leo Kamiya – AU$14,800 (US$10,020)

Article by Craig Bradshaw