Rich Offless Wins APAT Walsall

Rich Offless Wins APAT Walsall

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

The Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT) held the first event of its second season, the English Amateur Poker Championship in Walsall's Grosvenor Casino, on 3rd-4th November. The event had 200 entrants who qualified by high finishes in the fir

The Amateur Poker Association & Tour (APAT) held the first event of its second season, the English Amateur Poker Championship in Walsall's Grosvenor Casino, on 3rd-4th November. The event had 200 entrants who qualified by high finishes in the first round of APAT Regional Events, online satellites and direct payment. The players were again offered a £75 freeze-out with 10,000 starting chips, a slow clock, £3,500 to the winner plus significant added value from new tour sponsors BlueSquare.com via the form of entry into the GUKPT 2008 London event.
Play started off slowly, as you’d expect with such a deep structure but Day One turned out to be a success for overnight chip leaders Mike Hopkinson (321,000) and Dan Bradbury (200,500). Following them closely was eventual winner Richard Offless, who sat on 162,500.
Play down to the final table on the second day did not take long with a series of short-stacked players forced to be active, and the final tabled lined up with Darren Shallis having a monster chip lead on 904,500 with Rich Offless in second on 271,500. A key hand came up when, down to five, Shallis overplayed top pair against Offless’ pocket Aces, and the bulk of the chips went to the man from Mold. From there he disposed of the remaining four players, and took home the title of English Amateur Poker Champion, £3,500 and a seat into the GUKPT event in 2008.
APAT's second series resumes in December with the UK Amateur Poker Championship at Manchester's G Casino. See www.apat.com for more details.



Tags: Poker News, Rich, Offless, Wins, APAT, Walsall