Stuart guns them down at the Adelaide Poker Championships Main Event

The third and final day of play in theAdelaide Poker Championships Main Event saw the final nine competitors enter the Adelaide Casino Poker Zone with the goal of becoming champion, and the Poker Asia Pacific Live Reporting team were on deck to watch it all unfold.

APPT Queenstown champion Marcel Schreiner entered with the chip lead while the other bookend was Australian poker legend Leo Boxell who entered with a very short stack. Unfortunately for Boxell, his final table ended on the very first hand of the day when his flush draw missed again his nemesis from yesterday, Stuart Gunn.

A cooler of a hand saw Craig Cockburn double with pocket aces against Michael Vanderhorst’s pocket kings. That left one time chip leader in Vanderhorst in trouble and he was soon to the cashier when his king-ten wasn’t enough against the ace-deuce of Cockburn on a 8♦T♥A♣2♦ board.

Craig Cockburn was the chip leader but that changed around again when Marcel Schreiner got three streets of value with pocket aces on an ace-high board. It was the beginning of the end for Cockburn as he was next eliminated in 7th place when he three-bet shoved with queen-jack but failed to improve against the ace-king of Schreiner.

George Vassilopoulos was soon to follow when he shoved his queen-nine into the pocket aces of Frank Trapodi before Joe Sandaev joined him after running pocket sixes into Shaun Scanlon’s pocket jacks.

We were quickly down to four-handed with Marcel Schreiner way out in front, but he didn’t have it all his own way as the locals started to fight back and even up the score.

Shaun Scanlon took a big hit, but recovered with pocket kings, while Frank Trapodi also found a double up as Schreiner slipped back to the pack. The four-way battle was intense but when the blinds kicked up to a hefty 30,000-60,000 with a 5,000 ante, something had to give.

It was Shaun Scanlon who would be next to go. After first surviving with a chop holding ace-queen against Frank Tripodi’s ace-king, Scanlon would try again with the same hand moments later but ran into the pocket kings of Marcel Schreiner. Despite flopping a queen and turning the nut flush draw, Scanlon missed on the river to be eliminated in 4th place.

Schreiner was back in command at the top of the counts but it was not a position that the German could hang onto. As the blinds were rising rapidly, Schreiner moved all in with Q♣J♠ as Stuart Gunn made the call for his tournament life with a dominating A♣J♥. The board bricked out and we had a new chip leader in Stuart Gunn.

A few moments later and again it was queen-jack that led Schreiner astray, as Frank Tripodi evened things right up with a big double up holding ace-seven when he flopped a full house.

Schreiner stole some blinds to get back into it, however the crippling blow was in a battle of the blinds when Schreiner moved all in with A♦6♦ and Stuart Gunn called with pocket tens. Schreiner flopped a straight draw but that’s as far as he could connect as Gunn had again landed a big double up. Schreiner was down to small change and out moments later in third place to add another impressive result to his resume, and $17,650 to his back pocket.

That left us heads up for the title:

Stuart Gunn – 2,650,000
Frank Tripodi – 1,600,000

As was fitting for the action we’d seen over the past three days, the heads-up battle took just one hand as the tournament ended in dramatic fashion.

Frank Tripodi was all in preflop holding A♣5♣ and Stuart Gunn had him covered holding A♣T♠. Tripodi would need to find something special, and he did as the flop contained a five, but his joy was short-lived as Gunn found a ten on the turn which was enough to take the title.

1st Stuart Gunn - $43,400
2nd Frank Tripodi - $25,750
3rd Marcel Schreiner - $17,650
4th Shaun Scanlon - $13,250
5th Joe Sandaev - $10,300
6th George Vassilopoulos - $8,830
7th Craig Cockburn - $6,620
8th Michael Vanderhorst - $5,150
9th Leo Boxell - $4,050
10th Illias Sagias - $4,050
11th Nigel Brown - $4,050
12th Alvin Cheam - $4,050

Click here for updates from Day 3 action

Congratulations to Stuart Gunn on a superb tournament and we look forward to see more of Stuart on the Australian poker circuit in future.

The team at Poker Asia Pacific would like to thank Dave, Rich, Jarrad and all the team in the Adelaide Casino Poke Zone for their wonderful hospitality over the past three days. It’s always fun coming back to Adelaide and we can’t wait to return next time.

While that wraps up our coverage from Adelaide, stay tuned for all the big events on the Australian calendar with the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series at Melbourne’s Crown Casino from November 10-20, while the newly re-branded Star Poker Room will hosts the first ever Star Poker Summer Series from November 29 – December 11. We hope you can make it to both of those events, but if not, the Poker Asia Pacific team will bring you all the latest news and results.