Tristan Bain’s strike-rate in major poker tournaments is pretty respectable. His modest return of five tournament cashes includes victories in a WPPT Main Event on the Gold Coast last year for almost $85,000 and now features a cash for $281,685 after he took out the Star Poker Summer Series Main Event at The Star.
It took a 15-hour day and a final table that lasted the best part of eight hours but Bain managed to grind it out to be crowned the inaugural champion of the event that was co-sanctioned by the Asian Poker Tour and National Poker League for the first time.
With the clock just about to tick past 5am, Bain struck a fatal battle in the heads-up battle against Brent Nichols, who shoved with Q-10 and found himself up against the A-3 of Bain. The flop came 5-4-A to have him inching to victory and when no running cards came for Nichols he was left with just 900,000 while Bain held 17 million with the blinds at 200,000/400,000! The last of the chips went in with Nichols holding 5-9 and Tristan Bain 4-8. The board ran out 3-3-7-7-8.
The final table kicked-off late on Sunday evening with the line-up comprising Jim Collopy (4,100,000), Brent Nichols (3,200,000), Tristan Bain (2,700,000), Glenn McConnell (2,400,000), Amir Minagar (2,300,000), Trevor Saunders (2,000,000), Daryl Hussey (1,800,000), Luca Borreggine (700,000) and Tony Sama (700,000).
By far the most aggressive player at the final table, Bain took no prisoners with ruthless raising and re-raising helping him go all the way – although it took one phenomenal piece of good fortune along the way to ensure his ultimate triumph. With eight players remaining, Bain raised from the hijack and was three-bet from the button by the only player with a bigger stack than his, Jim Collopy. Undeterred, Bain shoved with Collopy snap-calling holding pocket kings.
Bain was in trouble holding J-6, but a Jack on the flop and another on the turn saw him eliminate his main danger man and establish a huge chip lead on the rest of the field. Ironically, Bain found himself repeatedly attacked by the short stacks over the next few hours but after a seesawing heads-up battle with Nichols he eventually emerged victorious.
No doubt Bain was relieved as much as anything to finally get the job done. At the start of the day the field still comprised 43 players remaining and it took a marathon effort to navigate his way through the minefield. Nevertheless, he now holds a special place in history, having outlasted a record Sydney main event field of 648 starters to be the very first champion of APT Sydney.
Congratulations to Tristan on a stunning achievement, as well as to the three co-organisers –Star Poker, the Asian Poker Tour and the National Poker League – for running such a hugely successful tournament.
2013 Star Poker Summer Series $2000 No Limit Hold’em Main Event (648 players, 63 players paid) results
1 Tristan Bain $281,685
2 Brent Nichols $176,127
3 Daryl Hussey $95,645
4 Luca Borreggine $72,900
5 Tony Sama $59,486
6 Amir Minagar $47,823
7 Glenn McConnell $36,160
8 Jim Collopy $25,660
9 Trevor Saunders $18,080
10 Ronnie Shabtay $13,997
11 Andrew Li $13,997
12 Tony Kambouroglou $13,997
13 Edward Isaac $11,664
14 Ivan Ong $11,664
15 Ricky Lim $11,664
16 Ron Faul $9915
17 John Thomson $9915
18 Nicky Lungar $9915
19 Henry Tran $8748
20 Errolyn Strang $7582
21 Zeljko Pejasinovic $7582
22 Andrew Scarf $7582
23 Paul Tartak $7582
24 Jonathan Karamalikis $7582
25 Sasha Davidovic $6415
26 Alexander Antonios $6415
27 Jianguo Ruan $6,415
28 Sheldon Mayer $6415
29 Michael Malki $6415
30 Russell Smith $6415
31 Sam Vakili $6415
32 Hao Li $6,415
33 Ling Liu $5832
34 Kahle Burns $5832
35 Sam Capra $5832
36 Graeme Putt $5832
37 Phillip Dong $5832
38 Minh Nguyen $5832
39 Toan Nguyen $5832
40 Michael Webb $5249
41 Nicholas Lee $5249
42 Habib Bassam $5249
43 Tony Kondevski $5249
44 Alan Wilson $5249
45 David Dong Ming Yan $5249
46 Royce Lui $5249
47 Kyra Hutchison $4665
48 Joseph Russo $4665
49 Kamyar Ekrami $4665
50 David Allan $4665
51 Brendan Dunstan $4665
52 Sean Todd $4665
53 Andrew Lock $4665
54 Thomas Yam $4082
55 Martin Kozlov $4082
56 Mel Judah $4082
57 Teresa-Ann Natoli $4082
58 Adam Picker $4082
59 Laurence Hall $4082
60 Colin McCamley $4082
61 Stewart Scott $3500
62 Peter Simpson $3500
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