Allan Pike has taken down the Spring Classic at London’s Hippodrome Casino from 7-9 March 2014.

Pike, who picked up the £10,959 top prize, trophy and a seat to the Hippodrome’s Summer Classic, went into his heads-up duel with Jeraint Hazan a 1:3 dog but took a huge bite out of Hazan’s stack early on and never looked back.

Pike started with 1.2 million chips, while Hazan had 3.4 million, but all that turned around quickly when Pike called an all-in over his raise and turned over JH-9H to be marginally behind Hazan’s QD-10S.

The flop of 8H-2H-9D put Pike ahead with Hazan calling for a “black queen”. But the 2S on the turn offered no help and the 8S on the river confirmed a big chip swing in Pike’s favour.

Then, after a seesaw battle in which Hazan briefly regained the chip advantage, Pike took the title after opening with QS-JD and calling Hazan’s shove with QH-9D.

The board of KS-6C-2C-4D-5S brought no help for neither so it was Pike who was left celebrating, while Hazan took solace in his £8,154 for second place.

At the four-handed stage Pike and Hazan had conjured up a deal with Laurynas Sivilevicius and Ismail Kalkan, which left Sivilevicius with £5,837 when he bowed out in fourth place going all-in pre-flop for less than 10 big blinds with A7 against Hazan’s A10. The Q-J-10 flop left him streets behind and he couldn’t catch running cards to save his tournament life.

Third place went to Kalkan, who collected £5,420 after moving all-in with KC-3C and being snap-called by Hazan’s AH-5S. The board played out as dry as dust leaving Hazan with a big lead into heads-up play.

Hippodrome Spring Classic:
1st Allan Pike £10,959
2nd Jeraint Hazan £8,154
3rd Ismail Kalkan £5,420
4th Laurynas Sivilevicius £5,837
5th Wing Yeung £2,225
6th Joe Grech £1,775
7th George Alexander £1,550
8th Julian Lefevre £1,325
9th Egidijus Genotis £1,200