All the action from our latest event in Leeds
This month the tour rolled into Leeds and it proved to be as epic an event as the hype had promised.
A sell-out crowd of 151 – a competitive mix of online qualifiers, local veterans and familiar faces – descended on the popular Gala cardroom to duke it out for the £15k prizepool and the tasty £5k top spot.
It was immediately obvious that while the atmosphere may have been friendly the play certainly wasn’t going to be. Loose-aggression was the order of the day and within the opening few levels, over 30 players hit the rail.
Local talent
As the field whittled down, a clear chipleader emerged in the shape of Clinton Speight, a 21-year old local boy who bucked the usual trend of plying his trade online and was resolutely a live player.
Speight led the pack going into the dinner break but his reign was brought to a screeching halt by the man on his left Dave Stannard. The two had battled back and forth all afternoon with Speight particularly keen to nick Stannard’s big blind. But on one occasion his eagerness got the better of him and he ran J-5 into A-Q. Speight was still in, just, but remained chirpy. ‘I’d do the same again!’
Stannard was in massive ascendancy thanks to that hand and a controversial moment when his all-in was called by Paul ‘Big Buck’. Big Buck’s one deaf ear caused him to mistakenly get it all-in with J-6 against pocket nines and although Stannard magnanimously offered to let him take his bet back, the tournament rule had to take precedent.
The final countdown
Stannard reached the final table with a substantial 100,000 chiplead over his nearest rival and threw his big stack around with some vigour. As play hurtled towards three-handed, he looked to have it locked up but the patient, aggressive play of Dave O’Connor and Gary Hills seemed to stop him in his tracks and he was dialled in for a premature exit.
The pace slowed right down at this point and as the loyal railbirds dogged it out into the early hours of Sunday morning, it was difficult to see where the end would be in sight. Perhaps sensing the need for a swifter conclusion Stannard and O’Connor got it all-in fairly light with Kh-10c against Kd-10d.
A split pot and share of the spoils? No chance. Two hearts on the flop and a heart on the turn ramped up the tension - and then the unbelievable, a heart on the river. Stannard now held a 2/1 chiplead over Hills and stretched this to 3/1 in the early moments of heads-up play.
No deal
Impressively neither player was interested in doing a deal, despite the large gap between 1st and 2nd. Hills had battled determinedly to get to this point and he was never going to give it up easily. He managed to claw back to parity and gradually turned the tables on Stannard. With the blinds now prohibitively high, Stannard eventually got it in with J-10 suited only to run into Hills’ killer Aces.
Hills’ perserverance had paid off and he took the title of Leeds PokerPlayer UK Tour title. See you at the Grand Final Gary!
The Final Results
1. Gary Hill – £5,000
2. Dave Stannard – £2,870
3. Dave O¹Connor – £1,740
4. Helen Aspinall – £1,260
5. John Hicks – £890
6. Ernest Thomas – £650
7. Jarrod Hollingdrake – £540
8. Sean Scott – £470
9. Peter Crawford – £400
10. Rudoph Paluch – £330
Related Posts
About PokerPlayer
