Poker player wins $41k at Auckland tournament

Christopher Frank won the Waitangi Deep Stack Main event for $41,210.

Christopher Frank has been crowned the Waitangi Deep Stack series Main Event champion and taken home $41,210 following an epic final day of poker at Auckland's Sky City casino.

105 poker players put up $1,500 to enter the event which generated a prizepool of $136,000 and 66 players remained when play began on day two at 12.30pm yesterday.

Frank ultimately won the war of attrition, and claimed the victory at 8.00am this morning, nearly 20 hours after play began.

Frank held a commanding chip lead when play progressed to the final table but was short stacked when the tournament turned three handed after Carol Rewega hit a hot run of cards and his stack of 400k was dwarfed by both opponents who had over a million each.

The final table.

Franks fought back though, and eliminated Rewega in third place when his AJ out flopped her TT all in pre flop.

Heads up play lasted a little over an hour before Franks claimed the title in spectacular fashion.

Franks made a flush on the turn when his 34 of hearts connected with a board of 6T55 with three hearts and he moved all in. He was called by Kevin Degroot who showed A6 with the ace of hearts.

The seven of hearts dropped on the river, giving Kevin an ace high flush but also making Franks the straight flush to claim the win.

Final payouts:

1. Christopher Franks $41,000
2. Kevin Degroot $27,300
3. Carol Rewega $16,380
4. Jun H $13,650
5. Kevin Clark $10,370
6. Jason Brown $6,830
7. Darryl Hussey $5460
8. Ryan Shiffman $4780
9. Bruce Symondson $4100
10. Darren Lukas $3690
11. Glen Young $2730