Castle Hill RSL Club was the scene for the next instalment of the APL pro open for 2009. Only three weeks had passed since the last event , and on what was quite possibly the hottest day of the year in NSW, there was still a massive crowd who turned up for another instalment and a great day of poker.

400 players in all attended the day and the 1st heat consisted of 200 players playing down to the top 80 to make the final.
After exactly 2 hours of play we had our 80 players. There where some really bad beats during this heat but we hoped the best players had made the cut.

Heat 2 now commenced at 2:30 pm with 200 again playing down to the top 80. This heat was so much slower than the 1st with players tightening up there play to make the final cut. Just on 4:20pm we had our final 80 players. Now in around 20 minutes we would potentially have the best of the day (the top 160) players in this event.

The blinds now moved back to 500/1000 for 20 minutes and the next 4 blinds all being 20 minutes gave the players a little bit of time to play some great poker, Lots of chips on the tables with the new increase of start stack this time to $5000.

Players were not messing around and most short stacks were trying to make a move, but it was not always paying off.

At 8:30pm we had our top 16 players. They unfortunately left the tourney in the following order, each taking home $225 for there efforts

16th Stuart McDonald
15th Nathan Taylor
14th Nick Bouyioukos
13th Loddy Momongan
12th Kevin Hennessy
11th Brett Briggs
10th Michael Mills
9th Melissa Bowd

Now with 8 players seated and the pool now doubled for 7th-8th $450 it was a short stack David Sorial from Sydney south to make a move, forced all in for 20k (not even looking at his cards) Alex Wayne calls and also Garry Forbes (all players in the hand from the Sydney south region) flop comes out 7,6,10 all spades, Alex pushes ALL IN over the top and Garry folds. Both players turn over and Alex has A,7 .. David turns 9,8 Spades he hits a straight flush on the flop and triples up his stack.

The very next had, David Sorial now BB moves ALL IN again,Leno Iccaca having more chips calls the ALL IN and all others fold the had, David shows A,4 (off) Leno shows K,5 (off) the flop comes
2,4,10, turn card 4 river 4 the crowd stand and applaude as David Sorial doubles up again this time with quad 4s.
The following players the left the game

8th Lakun Agawal
7th Jacqueline Flint
6th Leno Iccaca

With now just 5 players remaining 4 of them going to the APL Grand Slam and one to join Team APL in Vegas, out of the five players three where from the Sydney South.

5th Alex Wayne (Sydney South)
4th David Sorial (Sydney South)
3rd Garry Forbes (Sydney South)

Not to be this time but a great performance, Now heads up Natt Armstrong V Gordon Allan, after much back and forth with the blinds, Gordon makes a move ALL IN, small blind Natt thinks long and hard, CALL he replies and throws down A,8 Gordon not sure of his fate turns over K,J the flop

7,A,Q turn a 5 river a 9 the Ace pairs and Natt doubles and leaves Gordon with only 125k left.

Very next hand now Gordon forced ALL IN Natt has to call 6,3 V 6,5 cards come out 3,2,2,5,J and thats it folks Natt Armstrong the newest member of Team APL.

Well done to all see you for the next instalment at Cabravale Diggers 8th March