Trent Clarke Wins the Sydney Championship Turbo Event (A$23,115)
Trent Clarke was a relative unknown on the Star Poker scene before tonight. He only has one previous cash to his name, which was a 31st place in a Star Poker deepstack event in April. Those days are now long gone as everybody at the Star Poker Room knows Clarke now.
Clarke outlasted a field of 231 runners to that down the 2018 Sydney Championships Event #3: A$440 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo event at the Star Poker Room. The performance from Clarke was even more impressive due to the fact that he nursed a short stack for a large part of the day's play.
"I had a short-stack, so I knew I had to be aggressive," Trent told the Star Poker Live Reporting Team. "So I made sure I shoved a lot in the right places and was able to gain a lot of chips by making others fold."
The strategy worked a treat for Trent who now has a Sydney Championships trophy to hang on his mantlepiece. Better than that, if he doesn't own a mantlepiece, he now has the first-place prize of A$23,115 ($17,141) to build one.
The final table was a tough one. Colin Tran, a regular tournament player at the Star Poker Room, was unlucky to not go further than his sixth-place finish for A$4,402 ($3,264). Also at the final table was Jarrod Thatcher, who has made quite a reputation for himself as a turbo specialist, after winning several Turbo Events over the past year, including the coveted WSOP Sydney Turbo title back in December.
The big story of the day has to be Mele Poulivaati, who appeared on two final tables in the same day. After she bowed out in fifth place for A$1,605 ($1,186) at the final table of the Ladies Event she quickly registered and sat down in the Turbo Event and made it all the way to the final table.
Poulivaati was heads-up for the title but ultimately bowed out in second place for A$14,277 ($10,587). She may have thought she could have done better in heads-up play. Poulivaati brought a 3:1 chip lead into the heads-up battle but lost three crucial all-ins in a row to finish as the runner-up.
Still, an awe-inspiring effort by Poulivaati which shows it was no fluke. Expect to see the names Trent Clarke and Mele Poulivaati feature very heavily in Star Poker final tables for a long time to come!
Sydney Championships Event #2: A$440 No-Limit Hold'em Turbo Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize | Prize in US$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Trent Clarke | Australia | A$23,115 | $17,141 |
| 2 | Mele Poulivaati | Australia | A$14,277 | $10,587 |
| 3 | Ehsan Amiri | Australia | A$10,391 | $7,705 |
| 4 | Jarrod Thatcher | Australia | A$7,684 | $5,698 |
| 5 | Sam Khoueis | Australia | A$5,772 | $4,280 |
| 6 | Collin Tran | Australia | A$4,402 | $3,264 |
| 7 | Brett Trevillian | Australia | A$3,409 | $2,528 |
| 8 | Anastasia Tyulyakova | Australia | A$2,679 | $1,987 |
| 9 | Dante Zelakiewicz | Australia | A$2,137 | $1,585 |
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