The Mechanic snares the AUD $330,000 APPT title The highly accomplished poker pro Leo “The Mechanic” Boxell has taken down the inaugural 2011 APPT Melbourne Main Event. In a thrilling final table, mixed with heavy hitting young guns and old school poker veterans, Boxell outshined them all to take the championship and a cool AUD $330,000 in winnings.
Having previously won first prize at the 2011 Aussie Millions AUD $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed and cashed big at the 2011 ANZPT III Gold Coast Main Event, Boxell’s consistent run this year is definitely a force without any brakes. Entering the final table second in chips, Boxell quickly displayed his extensive experience of the game. In a raised pot against Michael Frydman and Steve Bouya, the three-way action saw a flop of 
. Boxell bet out 100,000, Frydman folded, and Bouya check-called. At the turn of 
Boxell bet another 100,000 which Bouya again check-called. At the river of 
, Bouya fired out 250,000 and Boxell immediately called, prompting his opponent to quickly muck his hand. As Boxell collected a mountain of chips and moved into the chip lead, he joked “You can’t bluff an idiot!”
With the table narrowing down to six players, Boxell further extended his chip lead when he eliminated Frydman. From under the gun, Frydman open-shoved his short stack with 
only to be crushed by Boxell’s call with 
. The board ran 
giving Boxell the flush. A couple of hours later, the remaining players would continue to trade chips and leads, with lots of aggressive action spicing up the crowd at Crown Casino. With the elimination of Van Marcus in 5th and Will Jones in 4th, Boxell nabbed the chip lead once again after eliminating Bouya in 3rd place, who went all-in with Pocket Nines against Boxell’s Pocket Aces.
In a match-up that truly defined the dynamic of the final table, old school veteran Boxell was heads-up against the young hyper-aggressive Phil Willcocks. Wasting no time, Boxell shoved all-in on the first hand after Willcocks raised the pot. He then continued to dominate in the next few hands bringing his chip lead to almost 2:1. However, it was short-lived as his shove with 
took a heavy beating against Willcocks’ 
.
In a desperate all-in move to gain back some chips, Boxell cracked Willcocks’ 
with 
. The board ran 
giving him the straight. Shortly after, he proceeded to win some pre-flop raising wars against Willcocks, which propelled him back in the lead. In the final hand, Willcocks raised with 
and, in a gamble, Boxell called with 
. As the board ran out 
and was checked until the river, Willcocks went all-in with his pair, but it wasn’t good enough to defeat Boxell’s two-pair.
Congratulations must go to the 69-year-old Boxell who wins his first APPT title and is currently in the lead for the ANZ Player of the Year race. For all the in-depth details of how it all played out visit PokerStarsBlog.com.
February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
The Dirty Ice Cream Cup (DICC) is returning to Metro Card Club on March 15-20, 2012 and what better way to get the lowdown on it than to go to the man behind the tournament, Neil Arce. Every year, Arce holds the DICC to help celebrate his birthday and the tournament has been constantly growing with bigger fields and prize pool guarantees with every running.
Arce has an impre...
Read more»
February 22, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
DafaPoker has just announced the creation of two new mini sites, the Mega Million De Zhou Poker Tournament and the Mega Million, aimed at promoting their upcoming tournament, the Mega Million Main Event on July 7, 2012. Although these sites are in Chinese and targeted towards the Chinese market, the event itself is open to all registered DafaPoker players.
As previously rep...
Read more»
February 21, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
PokerStars Macau issued a press release earlier this month announcing the postponement of the Macau Millions tournament and the ending of its three-year partnership Casino Grand Lisboa in March, 2012. Ever since there has been speculation on where Asia’s biggest and most successful tournament room would relocate.
The norm with these kind of releases is to also announce a n...
Read more»
February 20, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
The PokerStars Macau room at Casino Grand Lisboa kicked off this weekend with a field of 196 players taking to the felt for the opening event of the 2012 Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. After all the excitement, it was Xiao Yang Cui from Australia who claimed victory in the HKD $3000 No Limit Hold’em event, earning himself HKD $127,100 in winnings.
"This is my first time play...
Read more»
February 17, 2012 by Posted By: Triccia David
One of the things we observed at APT Asian Series Cebu at the beginning of the month was that no players from the Philippines managed to make it to the final table. At last year's event, more than half of the final tablists were Filipinos and, with our curiosities piqued, we decided to take a closer look at the stats and found a few surprises.
In 2011, a large percentage of ...
Read more»
February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Another running of the rake-free PokerGuru Tour (PGT) was completed last weekend with Vinay Suchede taking out top honours in the INR 25,000 buy-in Main Event. He conquered a field of 58 players to take home INR 550,000 in first place prize money.
On Saturday, play went down until the money bubble burst courtesy of Vineet Bailur who departed at seven-handed. Many of the not...
Read more»
February 16, 2012 by Posted By: Adam Smith
Crown Melbourne’s VIP gaming salons have recently won the ‘Casino VIP Room of the Year’ title at the International Gaming Awards (IGA) 2012 in London. The ultra-luxurious VIP gaming salons are one of the showpieces of a AUD 1.5 billion redevelopment project at the complex, which is due to be completed later this year.
Poker players the world over should be familiar wit...
Read more»
