Broadbeach, QLD, Australia (September 27, 2023) – Richard Lee has been crowned the 2023 WPT® Australia champion. The 26-year-old American earned his first World Poker Tour® title, a spot on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup, and the grand prize of $854,890 AUD, which includes a seat in the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas.
“I don’t think it will ever sink in,” said Lee. “I think I was really fortunate to have a really good seat. I would say two of the better players were to my right, so I didn’t really face any bullying. For the most part, it was as smooth as it could have gone.”
A total of 600 entrants from two starting flights – 295 in Day 1A and 305 in Day 1B – made up the second-ever Championship event at The Star Gold Coast in eastern Australia. The field generated an official prizepool of $4,500,000 AUD, which paid out the top 76 finishers.
“It was amazing to be back at The Star Gold Coast for another Championship event this season,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. “From the very beginning of the tournament to Richard’s crowning moment, the energy and excitement in the room did not cease.”
Martin Kozlov finished as the runner-up, earning a payout of $559,672 AUD. Busting out prior to Kozlov was Nino Marotta (3rd place – $413,873 AUD), Gary Lin (4th place – $308,499 AUD), Romain Morvan (5th place – $232,720 AUD) and Ken Demlakian (6th place – $177,566 AUD).
Other notable players to cash were WPTDeepStacks champion Hamish Crawshaw (10th place), defending WPT Australia champion David Tang (21st place), Aussie Robert Campbell (34th place), and Belgium’s Michael Gathy (61st place).
Next stop on the Main Tour is the WPT bestbet Scramble in Jacksonville, Florida. The festival dates will run from Oct. 26-Nov.14. WPT Ambassadors Andrew Neeme and Brad Owen will host a $2/$5 Meet-Up Game on Nov. 9, one day ahead of the $5,000 buy-in Championship event, which runs Nov. 10-14.
All photos from WPT Australia can be accessed via our Flickr Page.
For more information regarding this and all World Poker Tour events, visit WPT.com.
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