Mike Leah entered the third and final day of the WSOP APAC High Roller with more than half of the chip in play (2,576,000). The fact is that only one of his opponents, David Yan, had a stack of more than 1 million chips amongs the 6 finalists. After Brian Roberts, Sam Khouiss, 2012 WSOP Main Event winner Jonathan Duhamel and 2012 WSOP Main Event runner up Jesse Sylvia had hit the rail, the two big stacks played heads-up for the title.
Leah had about 2/3 of the chips in play when the battle began, and he put pressure on Yan almost right away to increase his lead further. Yan eventually managed to double up, but he couldn't cope with the pressure from Leah and lost half about half of his stack in no-time. The battle came to end in Hand #77...
Leah announced that he was all in from the button and Yan, who had about 600k, called with K
4
. Leah turned over K7.
The flop came down 95
10 and gave Yan a backdoor flush draw, but the 3
turn ruined those chances. The A completed the board and David Yan had been eliminated in second place for AU$360,025 while Mike Leah received his first WSOP gold bracelet and AU$600,000. Thanks to his runner-up finish to Daniel Colman in August for $1,047,638, Leah now has about 4 million in live tournament earnings! 2014 has been the best year of his poker caeer... and it ain't over yet!
High Roller payouts:
1 Mike Leah, Canada, $600,000
2 David Yan, New Zealand, $360,025
3 Jesse Sylvia, USA, $216,811
4 Jonathan Duhamel, Canada, $145,003
5 Sam Khouiss, Australia, $110,078
6 Brian Roberts, USA, $85,027
7 Sam Higgs ,Australia, $65,035
8 Andrew Hinrichsen, Australia, $50,021
