Paul Hockin Wins 2012 ANZPT Melbourne

New Zealand’s Paul Hockin has won the 2012 Australia New Zealand Poker Tour (ANZPT) Melbourne, after defeating a field of 345 players over three days to lift the title, and collect the $101,275 first place prize (after a deal was struck). The mostly online pro now has $143,244 in live tournament earnings to go with his $1,026,994 won online under the screen name “kingpaulie.”
After leading the field on Day 1b, at the end of Day 2 Paul Hockin then made it through to the nine-man final table in 4th place on an 801k stack, behind chip leader Ashley Warner (1.565m) from Australia.
Paul Hockin (Q-Q) scored his first knock-out after 3-betting then snap-calling Anthony Aston’s A-J shove who subsequently exited in 8th for $18,975. Next, Ashley Warner (K-K) completed a double elimination over short-stacks Karan Punjabi (8-8) and Igal Augarten (Ad-Qd), who exited in 7th ($24,150) and 6th ($31,050) respectively.
Pushing his big stack advantage further, Ashley Warner (A-10) called  Michael Lo Giudice’s (Kh-5d) pre-flop shove only to then make a straight flush on the Jh-9h-7h-8h-Jc board and send Giudice packing in 4th for $47,610.
With just three players remaining, Hockin was the short-stack on just 10BB and so settled for the smallest slice of a deal worth $88k, with Ashley Warner receiving $123,000, Michael Guzzardi $112,000 and a further $13,275 earmarked for the eventual champion. However, after a series of all-ins, Paul Hockin was once more in contention and it wouldn’t be for another 3 and a half hours that Warner (A-Q) dispatched Guzzardi (6-6) to the rail in 3rd to usher in the heads-up phase of the competition.
At this stage, Ashley Warner held a 3 to 1 chip advantage over Hockin, but two double-ups later and Hockin was out in front when the defining hand was played. Warner moved all-in pre-flop (Jd-5d) against Hockin’s Qd-9d and after the board rolled out 8-7-3-7-4,  Paul “KingPaulie” Hockin was crowned the 2012 ANZPT Melbourne Main Event champion.
The final table payouts were:
1: Paul Hockin — $101,275
2: Ashley Warner — $130,000
3: Michael Guzzardi — $112,000
4: Michael Lo Giudice — $47,610
5: Ismail Ismail — $37,950
6: Igal Augarten — $31,050
7: Karan Punjabi — $24,150
8: Anthony Aston — $18,975
9: Peter Matusik — $13,800