Daniel Laidlaw wins Karamalikis Cup

Karamalikis Cup heats up the Adelaide Casino Poker Zone

The big guns rolled into Adelaide town today, and as far as guns go, they don’t get any bigger than Jonathan “xMONSTERxDONGx” Karamalikis.

Adelaide born and bred, Karamalikis has built a reputation as one of the best players in the country, and he has produced a poker resume to match with millions of dollars in prize money both live and online.

So it was tremendous today to see Karamalikis support the Adelaide Poker Championships and lend his name to the running of the inaugural $2,750 Karamalikis Cup. The six-handed format and attractive prizepool attracted a high quality field of 25 starters.

Some of the notables in the field included Dale Marsland, Matthew Pearson, Joe Cabret, Graeme Putt, Brendon Rubie, David Steicke, Roman Priplotski, Vesko Zmukic, Peter Aristidou, Jeff Rossiter, Daniel Laidlaw, Stevan Chew and Mitch Carle. And of course there was Karamalikis himself who had a $1,000 bounty placed firmly upon his head.

2010 Poker Zone Player of the Year Simon Beshara was the early leader after his pocket aces eliminated the pocket jacks of Joe Sandaev as the first casualty of the day. Mario Ljubicic was another to soon exit before Stevan Chew, Peter Aristidou, Brendon Rubie, Dale Marsland, Matt Pearson, Mitch Carle, Roman Priplotski and Patrick Whelan all joined him on the rail.

At the dinner break it was Simon Beshara who lead the final twelve players as a runaway chip leader. However upon their return from the break, Adelaide's own Daniel Laidlaw grabbed the advantage as Sandy Retallick, Michael Sellars, Joe Cabret, Ross Lepro, Jeff Rossiter and Graeme Putt were all eliminated.

The final table lineup was set as follows:

Seat 1 – Daniel Laidlaw – 194,200
Seat 2 – Amin Chehade – 74,600
Seat 3 – Trevor Potts – 53,000
Seat 4 – Simon Beshara – 96,800
Seat 5 – Jonathan Karamalikis – 34,700
Seat 6 – David Steicke - 57,800

Jonathan Karamalikis was on the short stack and needed to make something happen. After a raise to 6,000 from Simon Beshara, Karamalikis moved all in for roughly 30,000 with Q9, but Beshara insta-called with pocket queens. The Dong couldn't pluck a miracle as he missed the money in his own event by just two places.

Moments later he was joined by local Trevor Potts who unfortunately became the bubble boy when he made the dreaded mistake of limping in preflop with pocket aces only to see them cracked by the J♣2♣ of Daniel Laidlaw on a three-club flop.

Safely in the money, Amin Chehade was next to go when his pocket sevens were no match for Daniel Laidlaw's queen-jack on a J-J-6 flop. A min-cash worth a handsome $6,770 for Chehade. He was soon followed by High Roller specialist David Steicke who got his last chips in with pocket nines on a flop of T-Q-6. Again the villian was Daniel Laidlaw who connected with his ten-nine and made the call. The 8 on the turn and 3 on the river left Steicke to head to the exit play reached heads up.

Daniel Laidlaw was running hot and that didn't stop when play reached heads up against Simon Beshara. The two collided on a flop of 8♠4♥9♠ with Beshara tabling A♦8♥ for top pair, top kicker as Laidlaw went with 6♠4♠ for bottom pair with a flush draw. Laidlaw didn't have to wait long as the K♠ appeared on the turn to give him an unbeatable flush as the A♠ on the river was salt into Beshara's wound. He'll be consoled with $16,600 in prize money as Poker Asia Pacific blogger Daniel Laidlaw was crowned the inaugural Karamalikis Cup champion!

Payouts:
1st Daniel Laidlaw - $27,680
2nd Simon Beshara - $16,600
3rd David Steicke - $10,450
4th Amin Chehade - $6,770

Don't forget that from tomorrow we will be bringing you exclusive live updates of the Adelaide Poker Championships Main Event right here on Poker Asia Pacific. Tune in from 12:15pm local time.