Mike Leah Captures His First WSOP Gold Bracelet and AU$600,000!
For 40-year-old Canadian professional poker player Mike Leah, this event was his for the taking after entering the third and final day with over 50% of the chips in play. Leah has nearly struck gold a few times, but his attempts at mining that piece of WSOP hardware had fallen short until now. Previously, Leah's closest calls were a third-, fifth-, and two seventh-place finishes in WSOP gold bracelet events.
While Leah may have begun Day 3 with a very dominating position over the rest of the field, the competition was tough in Brian Roberts, Sam Khouiss, Jonathan Duhamel, Jesse Sylvia, and [Removed:17].
Roberts fell first in sixth place, and then Khouiss and Duhamel were eliminated on the same hand by Sylvia. Despite scoring the double knockout, Sylvia was next to go in third place to set up the heads-up duel between Leah and Yan. This was the first time Leah had made it to heads-up play in his many WSOP events, and he wasn't about to let this chance slip through the cracks.
Leah applied the pressure early, grinding Yan down to under 700,000 in chips. Yan did find a double to get back to seven figures, but Leah didn't flinch and was right back to the charge shortly thereafter. Leah worked Yan back down to under 700,000 in chips before the final hand saw his 
hold up against Yan's 
.
For the victory, Leah earned his first WSOP gold bracelet and AU$600,000 in prize money. This proved to be the second largest score of his live tournament career following his runner-up finish to Daniel Colman in August for $1,047,638. All told, Leah now has well over $2,000,000 in live winnings this year, in what is his best year ever.
AU$25,000 High Roller Payouts
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (AU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mike Leah | Canada | $600,000 |
| 2 | [Removed:17] | New Zealand | $360,025 |
| 3 | Jesse Sylvia | USA | $216,811 |
| 4 | Jonathan Duhamel | Canada | $145,003 |
| 5 | Sam Khouiss | Australia | $110,078 |
| 6 | Brian Roberts | USA | $85,027 |
| 7 | Sam Higgs | Australia | $65,035 |
| 8 | Andrew Hinrichsen | Australia | $50,021 |
With that, there's only one more event to go from the 2014 WSOP Asia-Pacific. Tomorrow will see the 10th and final bracelet event of the festival awarded as the final six players return in the AU$10,000 Main Event to play to a champion beginning at 3:30 p.m. local time. PokerNews will be back here then, and we look forward to having you right here with us.