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TRENT CLARKE WINS THE 2018 SYDNEY CHAMPIONSHIPS TURBO EVENT - $23,115

Trent Clarke was a relative unknown on the Star Poker scene before tonight. He only has one previous cash to him name, which was a 31st place in a Star Poker Deepstack event back in April. Well those days are long gone, everybody knows Trent Clarke now.

He outlasted a field of 231 runners to that down the Turbo Event here at the 2018 Sydney Championships held in the Star Poker Room. The performance from Clarke was even more impressive due to the fact that he nursed a short stack for a large part of the day's play.

"I had a short-stack, so I knew I had to be aggressive," Trent told the Star Poker Live Reporting Team. So I made sure I shoved a lot in the right places and was able to gain a lot of chips by making others fold".

The strategy worked a treat for Trent who now has a Sydney Championships Trophy to hang on his mantlepiece. Better than that, if he doesn't own a mantlepiece, he now has $23,115 to build one.

The final table was a tough one. Regular Star Poker Tournament Player, Colin Tran, was unlucky to not go further. The final table also held Jarrod Thatcher who has made quite a reputation for himself as a Turbo Specialist after winning several Turbo Events over the past year, including the coveted WSOP Sydney Turbo title back in December.

The big story of the day has to be Mele Poulivaati, Mele amazingly played the final table of the Ladies Event today and then as soon as it finished registered and sat down in the Turbo Event, made it all the way to the final table and was actually heads up for the title. Mele may have thought she could have done better in heads-up play. She brought a 3:1 chip lead into the heads-up battle but then lost three crucial all-ins in a row to finish as our runner-up.

Still an awe inspiring effort which shows it was no fluke. Expect to see the names Trent Clarke and Mele Poulivaati feature very heavily in Star Poker final tables for a long time to come!