Richard Lee – Photo Credit: World Poker Tour
Richard Lee gained the highest prize on the World Poker Tour Australia most important occasion on Sept. 27 at The Star Gold Coast on the japanese shores of the island continent. The 26-year-old from Los Angeles, California joined the WPT Champions Club along with his first most important tour title, and the highest prize value $550,267. Lee additionally secured a seat within the WPT World Championship in December at Wynn Las Vegas. Lee is primarily a cash-game participant, so this was the most important money of his event poker profession by a large margin.
“I don’t think it will ever sink in,” mentioned Lee to Lynn Gilmartin from the WPT after the win. He continued, “I think I was really fortunate to have a really good seat, two of the better players were to my right so I didn’t really face any bullying. For the most part, it was as smooth as it could have gotten.”
Lee was on the tail finish of a two-month journey within the land down underneath when he made the choice to hop into the primary occasion. His making the ultimate desk even difficult issues along with his flight dwelling. “I was like, ‘If I [final table] this, I might as well cancel my flight.’ But I missed my flight today. Played it. Shipped it. So I’m glad the flight didn’t go to waste,” mentioned Lee when he was requested about his journey conundrum on the ultimate day of the event.
This was Lee’s second remaining desk of the journey, having beforehand completed fifth in an APL Million occasion for one more $33,080. These two scores in Australia noticed Lee earn a complete of two,205 Card Player Player of the Year factors, sufficient to maneuver him into 124th place within the 2023 POY standings offered by Global Poker.
The $8,000 AUD buy-in no-limit maintain’em most important occasion attracted a pleasant even variety of 600 entries, and that put the entire prize pool at $2,896,519. A min-cash of $5,388 was ready for the highest 76 gamers within the event. After two beginning flights there have been 227 gamers remaining, they usually had three days to play all the way down to the ultimate desk.
The cash bubble burst simply on the finish of Day 2 with 73 bagging up on the finish of play. Day 3 noticed the sphere shrink all the way down to 24, and Day 4 had the ultimate desk of six set with Lee in the course of the pack for chips.
Lee acquired in on the motion on the remaining desk when he took out Romain Morvan in fifth place to maintain tempo along with his remaining opponents, and scored one other windfall when he doubled as much as take the chip lead within the largest hand of the event as much as that time. Lee saved his momentum rolling when he knocked out Gary Lin in fourth place.
Martin Kozlov was in a position to get a bit little bit of a foothold after eliminating Nino Marotta in third place, however he nonetheless confronted a chip drawback larger than 2.5:1 in opposition to Lee’s dominant stack. It took simply half a dozen arms earlier than it was throughout. Kozlov known as all in with QJ preflop, and Lee had him coated holding A10. The remaining board got here no larger than a 6, and Kozlov was eradicated in second place, taking dwelling $360,224 to place his profession earnings on the doorstep of $3.2 million.
Here is a take a look at the payouts and POY factors awarded on the remaining desk:
Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
1 | Richard Lee | $550,267 | 1,680 |
2 | Martin Kozlov | $360,224 | 1,400 |
3 | Nino Marotta | $266,398 | 1,120 |
4 | Gary Lin | $198,572 | 840 |
5 | Romain Morvan | $149,795 | 700 |
6 | Ken Demlakian | $114,294 | 560 |
7 | Yuto Suzuki | $88,030 | 420 |
8 | Hirokazu Kobayashi | $68,692 | 280 |
9 | Peter Lin | $54,261 | 140 |
The subsequent cease on the WPT schedule will take the tour again to the United States for the WPT bestbet Scramble at bestbet Jacksonville in Florida. The entire event collection runs Oct. 26 – Nov. 14, and you’ll learn a full preview for the occasion proper right here.