Marsland Finishes Perth Poker As Champ

Rose Varrelli | March 7, 2020 | Updated on: June 20th, 2024

The Perth Poker Champs takes place each year at the Crown Perth poker room, offering a wide range of tournament buy-ins. This year’s series wrapped up last weekend with Dale Marsland winning the Main Event for $101,000.

2020 Perth Poker Champs

This year’s series offered 10 tournaments, one more than in 2019. The 2020 Perth Poker Champs started on February 18 with some big satellites.

On February 20, the series kicked off with the $600 Travis Endersby Repechage/Accumulator with two starting flights and then offered a $3,500 High Roller Challenge. There was a $1,150 NLHE 6-Max, then a $350 NLHE and a $550 Old School Freezeout. The $400 NLHE Terminator led into Event 7, which was the $2,300 buy-in Perth Poker Champs Main Event with two starting flights.

Action wrapped up with a $200 PLO with rebuys, a $200 Hyper Turbo NLHE, and then a $600 Bounty Deepstack. The Main Event final table took place on March 1.

Pham Finds Event 1 Win

The two starting flights for this $600 buy-in tournament brought in 154 players and 40 reentries for a total of 194, the exact same number as the previous year. The resulting prize pool was $83,160.

And in the end, Australian national Phuc Pham took the title. It was only his third recorded tournament cash and the only win, according to the Hendon Mob Database. The local Perth player captured his largest payout by quite a large margin.

1^st place: Phuc Pham = $24,000
2^nd place: John Lane = $15,400
3^rd place: Marco Lee = $11,000
4^th place: Mark Smith = $8,500
5^th place: Scott Buchanan = $6,050
6^th place: Martyn Ward = $4,350
7^th place: Ryan Law = $3,100
8^th place: Peter Brasile = $2,310
9^th place: Leo Kamiya = $1,850

Ostby Overcomes High Roller Opposition

The second event of the series was the $3,500 buy-in High Roller Challenge, a new one to the schedule. When its registration closed, it showed 46 players and eight reentries for a solid 54-entry result. The prize pool to be paid out to the top six finishers was set at $151,800.

When the tournament played out, Australian national Bjorn Ostby was in the winner’s circle. Ostby added to his already-impressive lifetime tournament total earnings of US$328,779, while adding another trophy to his collection. He won two tournaments at the Sapphire Series Poker Challenge in Perth in 2017 and won that series’ Main Event in 2018. But his biggest cash to date was from a ninth-place finish in the 2019 Aussie Millions Main Event, for which he was paid $180,000.

The final results for Event 2 of this series were:

1^st place: Bjorn Ostby = $51,000
2^nd place: Travis Endersby = $35,000
3^rd place: Peter Brasile = $23,000
4^th place: Micah Martinovich = $17,200
5^th place: Ben Hon = $12,600
6^th place: Anthony Marenko = $5,000

Marsland Manhandles Main Event

With a $2,300 buy-in, the same as the previous year, the Perth Poker Champs Main Event attracted 172 players and 46 reentries for a total of 218, quite a few more than in 2019. The prize pool was set at $352,600.

Dale Marsland didn’t enter the final table with the chip lead, but he eliminated most of the final table players on his way to victory. He is no stranger to winning, as his record of wins and cashes dates back to 2010. He has titles in series that include the Joe Hachem Deep Stack Series, Victorian Poker Championship, Western Classic Poker Championships, ANZPT (Australia New Zealand Poker Tour), APPT (Asia Pacific Poker Tour), and Sapphire Series Poker Challenge. He even has a win from the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza in Las Vegas. Most recently, Marsland won the Western Classic Poker Championships Main Event last September for US$87,000 and a Crown Perth recurring tournament in November.

The final standings in the tournament that Marsland added to his impressive poker resume were:

1^st place: Dale Marsland = $101,000
2^nd place: Micholas Suter = $65,000
3^rd place: Peter Brasile = $47,000
4^th place: Man Ho Tse = $36,300
5^th place: Ashley Warner = $25,600
6^th place: Shane Cassidy = $17,600
7^th place: Jon Curtis = $13,200
8^th place: Steve Burgess = $9,700
9^th place: Tanja Vujanic = $7,100

What Virus?

While many countries around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, have been nearly paralyzed by the outbreak of the coronavirus, poker tournaments have yet to suffer. The Perth Poker Champs series was the perfect example of one that not only did well but surpassed the numbers from the previous year with a solid turnout.

Note: Credit to So Much Poker for its rundown of the three tournaments detailed above, as the tournament results have not yet been posted to the Hendon Mob Database.