Canadian poker pro Henry Tran emerged from this week’s Star Sydney Championships main event in Australia with the first prize of A$ 300,000… the biggest pay day of his live tourney career.
Tran arrived in Australia fresh from Las Vegas, where his action included a $46,000 214th placing in the World Series of Poker $10,000 NLHE contest last month.
Ironically, Tran’s decision to play in the Australian event was a last-minute affair after he earned some cash with a sixth position finish in an earlier game in the Sydney tournament.
Besting a field of 496 in the A$3,000 buy-in Sydney main event, Tran ended up high in the chip counts by the time the final table was reached, second only to table leader Brad Hawkins.
That’s pretty much how it remained as opponents fell and the two leaders maintained dominance until they faced each other in the heads up.
By then Tran was facing an almost insurmountable 10 to 1 chip disadvantage, but through two major double ups he was able to draw level with Hawkins and then overtake him to claim the honours.
Hawkins’ second placing was worth A$ 185,000.