Sergio Aido wins UKIPT Grand Final
Monday, 11 March 2013
It's been quite the few months for Sergio Aido. The Spaniard earned his first flag on the Hendon Mob database as recently as July last year but since then he has managed to boost his tournament earnings to over $365,000 courtesy of winning the WPT National Event in Barcelona in October and going deep at EPT Prague.
The 24-year-old's heater has just got even hotter after he took down the UKIPT Grand Final at the Vic yesterday. Not content with that, he also shared first place in the Saturday's EPT $1k turbo side event.
The Spaniard went into the UKIPT final table sixth out of eight but winning a flip with 10s against Chris Dowling's AK early in the proceedings game him plenty of ammunition to do some serious damage. He put that stack to excellent use, eliminating the Belgian pair of Guy Goosens and Wim Neys in sixth and fifth respectively and then saw off Patrick Simcoe in third to set up a heads up clash with Scotland's Thomas Ward for the title.
The pair agreed a chop prior to the start of two-handed action that guaranteed Aido £124,555 and Ward £116,845 with an extra £20,000 on offer to the winner. Aido's initial chip lead didn't last long though after he paid off Ward's flopped two pair.
When you're hot you're hot and so it proved for the Spaniard who took control then seized the title in the space of just two hands. It's fair to say that if it wasn't before, AJ is now one of Aido's favourite hands.
Firstly, with his tournament life in jeopardy Aido's AJ held against the Scot's KcQc. It was all over the very next hand when Aido's five bet shove, again with AJ, held against Ward's pocket tens.
In addition to the £144,550 for the Grand Final win, the Spaniard also earned a seat in today's UKIPT Champion of Champions event. Given the way he's running at the moment, we'd be hard pressed to bet against him.
The final table positions and payouts were as follows:
1st. Sergio Aido, Spain, £144,555*
2nd. Thomas Ward, United Kingdom, £116,845*
3rd. Patrick Simcoe, United Kingdom, £63,560
4th. Philippe Souki, United Kingdom, £44,870
5th. Wim Neys, Belgium, £33,680
6th. Guy Goossens, Belgium, £22,490
7th. Cesar Garcia, Spain, £15,050
8th. Chris Dowling, Ireland, £12,691
* denotes a deal was done.
Image courtesy of Mickey May.
And with that the UKIPT season 3 action draws to a close. There's not too long to wait for season 4 to start though with Marbella the venue for a combined UKIPT / Estrellas Poker Tour event in June. Qualifiers will of course be running at PokerStars where new players can earn a 100% first deposit bonus of up to $500.