Sosia Jiang Wins the Sydney Championships High Roller (A$266,000)

August 14, 2018

Jason Glatzer

New Zealand's Sosia Jiang outlasted a strong field of 28 entrants to ship the Sydney Championships Event #11: A$20,000 High Roller for A$266,000 ($197,536).

Jiang entered the final table in the chip lead despite facing the tough field.

"It was such a strong field," Jiang shared after the tournament. "These were unquestionably some of Australia's best poker players. There were so many talented players."

Jonathan Karamalikis, Corey Kempson, Andy Lee, and Michael Addamo were among the players to appear at the final table but fail to cash in the event.

Lee's elimination at the final table might have been the most painful as he officially bubbled in fourth place. He first doubled up Matthew Wakeman when his pocket sixes couldn't outrace his opponent's ace-nine suited. He then hit the showers after jamming king-deuce into Jiang's ace-deuce and not getting there.

After the bubble broke, Wakeman won back-to-back hands against Michel Bouskila to eliminate his opponent in second place for A$106,400 ($79,014). In the second hand, Bouskila three-bet jammed pocket deuces and was called by Wakeman with king-jack suited. A king spiked the flop and Bouskila headed to the cashier after he was unable to catch up on the turn or river.

Jiang entered heads-up play with a small advantage over Wakeman. She was able to extend her chip lead to a 13-1 advantage when the final hand took place.

Wakeman got it all-in with the nut straight holding nine-eight on a seven-six-five flop featuring two clubs. Jiang called with jack-eight with one club for a backdoor flush draw and an open-ended straight draw.

"Your hand actually has a lot of good runouts," Wakeman said when he saw Jiang's cards.

Fate was not on Wakeman's side as clubs spiked the turn and river to give Jiang a flush. Wakeman didn't walk away empty-handed after his bad beat as after he shook his opponent's hand he went off to collect the sizable runner-up prize of A$159,600 ($118,522).

Jiang shared after the tournament that she felt she would need a cooler to best Wakeman in heads-up play.

"I was quite nervous going heads up against a player as good as Matthew Wakeman," Jiang said to the Star Poker Live Reporting Team. "Especially as we were very even in chips at the time. I actually joked that I would need to cooler him in order to beat him."