From short stack to champion
The A$1,500 WPT Prime Australia Championship drew 1,036 entries at The Star Sydney. Feltham finished first for A$187,793; Liu took A$161,127 after a heads-up deal. WPT Global reports that Feltham was sixth in chips with 17 big blinds when the nine-handed final table began. Those facts make this a comeback story, but not a single-hand miracle: his route included a rivered set with pocket sixes against ace-ten, a king-high call against Liu's nine-high, and a roughly 17-million-chip race in which his jacks held against Sasha Skalrud's ace-queen.
Feltham later had a huge heads-up lead, around 38 million chips to Liu's fewer than four million. Liu doubled repeatedly, caught a bluff with ace-high, and briefly took the lead. Their deal locked in most of the remaining money, leaving A$10,000 and the title for the winner. Her recovery matters when reviewing the final hand: this was not an opponent who had simply been steamrolled.
The final hand: A-2 against A-7
REPORTED HAND / VISUAL REPLAY
A-2 makes the wheel
Community cards
- 01PreflopLiu shoved; Feltham called with the weaker ace.
- 02FlopThe paired board left Liu ahead.
- 03TurnThe 3♠ gave Feltham a wheel draw.
- 04RiverThe 5♠ completed A-2-3-4-5.
WPT Global confirms the approximate shove depth and rivered wheel; PokerNews supplies the hole-card suits and full board. Liu had the better ace when the money went in and was still ahead after the turn. The river changed the result, not the quality of her pre-river hand.
What the decision actually teaches
A weak ace is a natural heads-up candidate to continue against some shoving ranges. It blocks other aces, and heads-up ranges are much wider than full-ring ranges. But “ace-high” by itself is not a reason to call a 20-big-blind jam. The answer depends on the exact effective stack, pot and blind/ante structure, how often Liu jams weaker aces, kings, pairs, and suited hands, and the value each player places on the remaining title prize. The published recap does not provide a complete preflop action log, so we cannot calculate a reliable calling threshold or label Feltham's call GTO-approved.
Once the cards are face up, the board offers a cleaner lesson. The paired 4-4 flop did not rescue A-2 from domination. The 3♠ turn created a specific way to win—the 5♠ river completed the wheel. It is easy to remember the spectacular river and forget that Feltham's broader performance included thin bluff-catching, a major preflop flip, and managing a lead that disappeared and returned.
A practical review prompt
When studying a similar completed hand, write down the effective stack and the pot before the shove. Then compare a tight and a wide heads-up jam range: which worse hands are you beating with A-2, and which better aces dominate you? Keep the preflop decision separate from the river outcome. That habit is more transferable than treating one trophy-winning runout as a template.