Reporting by Ben Blaschke
Rhys Gould was well on his way to victory when he built a dominant stack early on before a massive – and quite stunning – hand played out with four players remaining that should have cut the field to two. Gould opened the action on the button only to see Yibo Zhou 3-bet out of the small blind. Amit Shahi then shoved from the big blind with Gould shipping all-in over the top.
Zhou tanked for a good three minutes before eventually folding Kings face-up. Gould showed Aces and Shahi Q-Q as the board blanked to cut the field to three. Incredibly following his massive fold, Zhou then proceeded to win a series of flips to take the lead in heads-up play before Gould regained the ascendency for the title. But he admitted afterwards that he was baffled by Zhou’s big fold.
“It was honestly a ludicrous fold – you never fold Kings there – but the previous day I saw him fold Queens twice in similar spots so I wasn’t that surprised. At the end of the day it was good to pick up the win,” Gould said.
Gould was by far the most aggressive player at a final table that boasted six players on little more than 10 big blind stacks at the start of play (Gould had more than 100) and his victory was well deserved. On the final hand, he 3-bet all-in with Kings – Zhou calling with A-9 before a King on the flop all but sealed the deal.
“There were a lot of 10bb stacks so I couldn’t just aggress relentlessly but as soon as people got to 20 or 30 big blinds I started opening every hand to try and pick up every dead pot. Everyone was fairly tight so it made it quite good for me,” the 24-year-old said.
A total of 126 players took their seats in Event 2 including Brendon Rubie, Daniel Neilson and tournament host Tony Hachem with Gould picking up $18,270 for his win.
APW $550 Sydney Championships Event 2 results
1 Rhys Gould $18,270
2 Yibo Zhou $11,340
3 Effie Bouyioukos $7245
4 Amit Shahi $5040
5 David Logan $4410
6 Nathan Davis $3780
7 Vlastimil Kral $3150
8 Simon Palmer $3520
9 Obrad Milinkovic $1890
• A busy day in the Star City poker room also saw the $300 Ladies Event run and won with the 19 starters quickly working their way down to the final table before Cheryl Paton emerged victorious. Paton bubbled the final table of the Victorian Poker Championships two years ago but went all the way here in Sydney to pick up a trophy and $2660 for her efforts. Suzy Khoueis finished runner-up ($1596) with Ruth Jones third ($1064).
• For all information and results from the 2011 Sydney Poker Championships, click here
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