Kiwi poker players Jamie Sadlier, Jeffrey Bucher and Jamie Mulligan have each pocketed $42,000 after chopping the Auckland Poker Championship main event.
Kiwi poker players Jamie Sadlier, Jeffrey Bucher and Jamie Mulligan have each pocketed $42,000 after chopping the Auckland Poker Championship main event.
Kiwi poker players Jamie Sadlier, Jeffrey Bucher and Jamie Mulligan have each pocketed $42,000 after chopping the Auckland Poker Championship main event at Sky City tonight.
After 22 hours of play over three days, Sadlier, Bucher and Mulligan found themselves with similar stack sizes at the final table and decided to split the remaining $128,200 in the prize pool, leaving a further $2200 and the trophy for the winner.
Sadlier was eventually crowned champion after knocking out Mulligan, then Bucher.
The trio outlasted a field of 100 players that all bought in for $2200, generating a prizepool of $200,000.
Auckland local Sadlier said it was an easy decision to split the prizepool with such big pay jumps between first, second and third.
"We were all pretty much level stacked and we just felt with the variance, and the payouts, it was the best way to go, said Sadlier. "We didn't want to be gambling for $15,000 or $20,000."
Sadlier and Mulligan were two of the three biggest stacks heading into day two of the tournament, and both put on a master class of accumulating chips without putting themselves in danger.
"The standout hand for me was on the final table where I flopped quads in a three-way pot and got paid off," said Sadlier. "It put me in a positive mindset for how things were going to go today.
"Heading into the final table I had Sarah Saifi on my right, who is a really good player, really aggressive and likes to raise a lot, so it was my plan to try and three-bet her a bit and pick up some easy chips, but she ended up getting into a cooler with Jamie (Mulligan) and getting knocked out."
"So that strategy got put away and I was just trying to sum up the best way to deal with the different stack sizes. There were quite a few short stacks so I had to modify my play a little bit."
Saifi, who came second in the main event of February's Waitangi Deepstack Championship, was the chip leader at the start of play on the final table, but lost a huge pot to Mulligan when her KJ lost to his 88 on a KJ862 board.
"I thought the standard of players was really good and it was awesome to play with Shurane (Vijayaram), the Aussie Millions main event winner, who came fourth," said Sadlier. "He showed that his win over in Melbourne wasn't a fluke. And he was a really nice guy too."
Aussie Millions main event champion Shurane Vijayaram eyes up chipleader Jamie Mulligan.
