The inaugural World Poker Tour DeepStacks on the Gold Coast ended up being a big deal for a few reasons. Not only did it mark the return of big WPT events to Oz, it also ended up breaking attendance records in the WPT's Asia-Pacific arena.
The field ended up being 1,113 entries deep after the three day ones. The previous WPT record in Asia Pacific history was 898 players at the 2014 WPT National China.
The first prize eventually went to William Davies, a UK-born nationalised-Aussie with $730k in previous lifetime tournament cashes. His first-place finish here netted him AU$252,729 in monopoly money, equivalent to about an extra $200k U.S. for his Hendon Mob page.
The prize pool of AU$1,502,550 (~$1,162,207) was also the largest ever for the venue. The previous record was set before the pandemic when The Star Gold Coast hosted the WPT Australia in 2019. At that event, the prize pool was AU$1,480,500 (~$1,145,152). This makes the WPTDeepStack Gold Coast some of the happier gambling news out of Australia lately.
The WPTDeepstacks Twitter team announced Davies's win.
"Will Davies has staged an epic final table comeback to win the inaugural #WPTDSGoldCoast Main Event at @TheStar_GC," they wrote. "Topping 1,113 players and claiming the first prize of $252,729!
Final table
At the start of the final table the WPTDeepStacks Twitter team tweeted, "After four days of poker action and a record-breaking 1,113 entries, #WPTDSGoldCoast Main Event final table is kicking off at @TheStar_GC. With the winner to receive AUD$252,751. The remaining players are all guaranteed a minimum payday of AUD$25,288."
When the final table broke, Davies did not seem to be particularly in the running. He was at the bottom end of the mid-stacks with about 3 million in chips.
He was still better off than Josh Yeomans, who had just 370,000 in front of him. But the real names to watch in the final nine were Mike Maddocks (first with 7,895,000 in chips) and Alex Lynsky (second with 6,750,000). Unfortunately for Maddocks, he was seated directly to Lynsky's left. It looked like the final table would be a battle of the big-stacks — Kong v. Godzilla.
Things didn't improve for Davies. Yeomans doubled up, keeping the 9th-to-8th pay bump alive. Then Maddocks took a third of Davies's stack away leaving him with 2.1 million in chips.
With the 50k/100k blind level coming up, things were beginning to look dicey. Two blind levels later, Davies was in last place with 7 players left.
Davies changed gears at this point. Some decent cards came his way, and the table began to turn around for him. He was still in last place with only three players left, but the chip stacks were close, with just a couple of million between 3rd and 1st.
Then he doubled up just before play went down to heads up. He found himself in the lead with almost a 2:1 chip advantage.
Final hand
With blinds at 150k/300k and a 300k big blind ante, Maddocks found himself short-stacked and moved in with A♦️-7♦️. Davies snapped him off with 7❤️-7♠.
The flop came Q♦️-T♠-3♦️, just to keep the tension up. Any diamond or any ace would give Maddocks the lead.
Instead, the turn and river were the 4♣ and 9♣ respectively, ending the hand in Davies favor.
Maddocks won AU$177,166 (~$137,066) for his second place finish.
Full final table results
| Position | Player Name | Prize |
| 1st | Will Davies | AU$ 252,729 (~$195,522) |
| 2nd | Mike Maddocks | AU$ 177,166 (~$137,066) |
| 3rd | Alex Lynskey | AU$ 114,960 (~$88,938) |
| 4th | Sheldon Mayer | AU$ 85,210 (~$65,922) |
| 5th | Joseph Sandaev | AU$64,429 (~$49,849) |
| 6th | Omer Silajdzija | AU$ 52,063 (~$40,270) |
| 7th | Nuno Da Silva | AU$ 43,018 (~$32507) |
| 8th | Ratul Sayak | AU$ 34,108 (~$26,387) |
| 9th | Josh Yeomans | AU$ 25,288 (~$19,563) |
Featured image source: Flickr by WPT
