Kyle McCague Wins £26,945 in Lex Live 2 London
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The £230 Main Event is done at the Lex Live 2 event in Aspers Casino in London. Kyle McCague took home the first-place prize of £26,945 after a three-way chop with Cristian-Gicu Stanciu (2nd - £20,095) and Atanas Pavlov (3rd - £20,015).
McCague topped a field of 536 unique players and 889 entries. The last remaining community member standing was Omar 'KingKayz' Al Kaisy (14th - £1,867) while Jasper 'Oemtoeoemtoe' van der Veen finished the tournament in 16th place for £1,600.
McCague works within the poker industry and wanted to come over on Day 1a to play the Main Event, and in the worst-case scenario, just hang out with some of his friends. He played a satellite and immediately won a ticket and jumped into the Main Event to finish the first out of eight starting days in second position. He didn't look back from that point and finished Day 2 as chip leader to go wire-to-wire on Day 3 and take down the whole event after a three-way chop.
"Considering you're on a table with lights and stuff, it was just very chatty and very nice."
McCague met the tournament's namesake Lex Veldhuis once before when he was playing a staff tournament for his previous employer. Nowadays, he doesn't have time to watch Veldhuis stream on Twitch, but he does watch all the highlight videos on YouTube. ''I'm 28, so I remember having rail heaven on Full Tilt Poker, I grew up with poker like that and having to see him from doing that and to what he does now. And his work ethic, inspiring might not be the word, but just seeing him putting hours and hours in what he does is sick.''
The tournament felt different than other tournaments, confirmed McCague. "I only play in these tournaments when I have friends around. And especially yesterday on the featured table was really nice. Considering you're on a table with lights and stuff, it was just very chatty and very nice."
He also spent some time with Damiano 'DAMMO_23' Aloi (38th, £818) on the table. ''We were chatting all day yesterday, and we both had that thought of wanting each other to do well. He was really nice. But the fact that he came from Australia is mental.''
McCague follows in the footsteps of Danny de Vos, who took down the first Lex Live Main Event back in March in Namur, Belgium.
Lex Live 2 London Final Table Results
| Place | Name | Nationality | Prize (GBP) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyle McCague | United Kingdom | £26,945* | $30,219* |
| 2 | Cristian-Gicu Stanciu | Romania | £20,095* | $22,537* |
| 3 | Atanas Pavlov | Bulgaria | £20,115* | $22,559* |
| 4 | Gareth Smith | United Kingdom | £10,419 | $11,685 |
| 5 | Carl Von Dobeln | Sweden | £7,788 | £8,734 |
| 6 | Claudiu Radasciuc | Romania | £6,294 | £7,058 |
| 7 | Stephen O'Keeffe | United Kingdom | £5,210 | £5,843 |
| 8 | Thomas Lewis | United Kingdom | £4,143 | £4,646 |
| 9 | Steve Berto | United Kingdom | £3,112 | £3,490 |
Lex Live 2 London Final Day Action
The day started with sixteen players that survived Day 2, and McCague started as the chip leader.
The first player was eliminated only several minutes after the day started. Unfortunately for the community, it was Van der Veen, going under the Twitch name 'Oemtoeoemtoe.' Van der Veen took home £1,600 for his efforts and was cheerful despite being the first out of the tournament on Day 3.
The second and last community member that started Day 3 was 'KingKayz' Al Kaisy. Al Kaisy won a full package valued at over $1,050 in an online $11 satellite on PokerStars. Al Kaisy managed to parlay his satellite score into a sweet cash after he busted out in fourteenth for £1,867.
It took a little over two hours to get down from sixteen to a final table of nine. Xiaohe Tan was eliminated on the final table bubble after starting the day as one of the shorter stacks. She was short and pushed all in from the cutoff with queen-four suited. Eventual champion McCague called her with jack-deuce offsuit, and a deuce on the flop was too much to recover from for Tan.
Play slowed down as soon as they were down the final six players. The chip lead was changed between multiple players until Claudiu Radasciuc (6th - £6,294), Carl Von Dobeln (5th - £7,788), and Gareth Smith (4th - £10,419) were eliminated.
McCague, Stanciu, and Pavlov all had about even stacks, and they went on a 30-minute break to discuss a deal. The final agreement secured all three players of a little over £20,000 while they were still playing for a little under £7,000.
McCague immediately took a big chip lead and started running over the table. One of the bigger hands that gave McCague a commanding lead was one against Stanciu. McCague opened with ace-nine before Stanciu three-bet with jack-seven. The flop came down ace-high, and Stanciu stabbed on the flop but gave up to a big turn bet by McCague. The hand ended with McCague having over half the chips in play.
McCague didn't look back from that moment, and he eliminated Pavlov moments later. He entered the heads-up with Stanciu with an eight-to-one chip lead, and the heads-up match only lasted one hand. Stanciu got it in with the best hand with ace-jack, but a queen on the flop and turn saw McCague take down the event with his queen-six.
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