Local cash game grinder Ashish Gupta has overcome a field of 523 to emerge victorious within the APPT10 Melbourne Main Event. Gupta navigated his way through four days of play and a seven-handed final table to earn the title, lift the trophy and collect $124,191 after two deals took place.

Players struck a deal at four-handed with the 3 shorter stacks all relinquishing $5,000 in their ICM chop to overwhelming chip leader on the time, Jay Prasad, and leaving $20,000 for the eventual champion. When Gupta and Raymond Ou made it to heads up play they decided to cut that $20,000 up, with Ou (who had the chip lead) securing an additional $13,000, and Gupta claiming an extra $7,000.

Gupta had greater than a 2:1 chip deficit when heads up play began but that did not stop him from coming back to say victory. After some time Gupta pulled off a river bluff-jam with a busted straight draw to usurp the lead and within the second hand after the next break he took all of Ou's chips in a single shot.

Since the 2 were deep that they had agreed to a compulsory button straddle to 250,000, and after Gupta called from the massive blind the flop landed 9♥2♠Q♣. The action went check-check and the 6♣ fell at the turn. Gupta then led at it for 300,000 before Ou played back at him for 1.1 million.

Gupta decided to transport all in with enough to hide Ou and the latter called off for his tournament life. Gupta's Q♥2♦ for 2 pair was prior to Ou's K♠Q♦ top pair with a king kicker and he held throughout the Q♠ river to take down the championship.

Before the heads up match the day started with seven players still in contention.

Of those it was Ben Mclean who was the primary to depart us. He met his demise about 90 minutes into proceedings. McLean was the table short stack and he moved his last 455,000 all in from under the gun with A♠9♠. He bumped into the J♥J♦ of Prasad and when McLean couldn't find any assistance on the K♥7♠T♦5♥2♥ run out his tournament run came to an end.

Less than an hour later Tu Lan was the following to hit the rail. After Trung Tran moved all in for only 10 big blinds with A♠4♦ Lan committed his own stack with less holding K♣J♣. The 7♥A♣8♥ flop was a terrible start for Lan and while he had some slight hope after pairing the K♥ turn, the 9♦ couldn't save him.

6th place - Tu Lan

Fifth place went to Shawn Lee who was hit by a chilly deck and ran J♠J♦ into the K♠K♦ of Ou. The K♥3♥6♦ flop was a death knell for Lee and he couldn't catch running jacks to outlive when the 8♣ turn and 5♥ river completed the board.

In a shock exit it was Prasad who was actually the following player eliminated. He lost a string of hands in quick succession and at last got the last of it in preflop with K♣J♥ against Gupta's A♦3♠. Despite flopping a gut shot to Broadway Prasad couldn't get there because the cards came down T♠A♥4♣4♠5♣. Despite the fourth place finish Prasad still earned himself the lion's share of the prize money, locking up $175,000 throughout the four-handed deal.

Our third place finisher was Trung Tran who, after sucking out to stick alive a few times, couldn't hold on to any extent further. He lost all but a few antes to Gupta once you have all in with J♠3♦ on a 6♥3♥J♥ board against Gupta's 5♥5♣. The 2♥ turn improved Gupta to a flush and Tran was unable to spike one in all four outs at the 7♣ river. Two hands later Tran ran king queen into Ou's pocket kings to finally hit the rail.

And that elimination brought us to the heads up battle where Gupta overcame Ou for the APPT Main Event title and the trophy. Congratulations to Ashish Gupta!

APPT10 Melbourne Final Table Payouts

1st) Ashish Gupta - $124,191**2nd) Raymond Ou - $136,535**3rd) Trung Tran - $107,313*4th) Jay Prasad - $175,000*5th) Shawn Lee - $47,1756th) Tu Lan - $37,5257th) Ben McLean - $30,550

All prizes in AUDDenotes a four-handed dealDenotes an extra heads up deal

That's involved in our coverage here from APPT Melbourne. Way to Crown Casino for hosting one of these successful and exciting tournament series. The following stop at the tour is in barely a couple of weeks' time when the Asia Championship of Poker returns to Macau. We are hoping you'll be able to join us then!

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Asia Pacific Poker Tour]