ACOP Main Event: Sunny Jung Going for Back to Back Victories

Last year’s ACOP Main Event winner Sunny Jung will return tomorrow as the final table chip leader to try and accomplish an admirable feat – back to back victories. Jung emerged victorious last year despite only starting on Day 2 and now he is in great spot to do it all over again.

Last year, Jung had to outlast the field of 203 players, but 2014 saw a big increase in number of contenders. Total of 291 players took it to the green felt and the APPT President Danny McDonagh was thrilled because of this huge turnout. It created a massive prize pool of HK$27,092,000, which is around $3.5 million. The winner tomorrow will walk away with $850,000 (HK$6,300,000) prize and the first one eliminated will take home $87,000.

The Macau venue certainly did not lack familiar faces as the likes of Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier, Ike Haxton, Liv Boeree, Jonathan Duhamel, Eugene KatchalovRandy ‘nanonoko’ Lew and many others took their seats at the tables. This is of great significance for Macau as we are not used to seeing such a concentration of big name pros in these tournaments. If it was an EPT event that would be a different story, but to see them all in Macau is no doubt a big deal and an important indicator of the bright future ahead.

Some of the big names who made the money but fell short of the final table include Dimitar Danchev (16th), Michael Tureniec (17th), Sorel Mizzi (18th), PokerStars Pro Celina Lin (22nd), Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald (25th) and Jason Mo (30th).

After four grueling days of play, the initial field has dwindled down to just nine hopefuls. These nine still have dreams of making it to the top spot and grabbing the winner’s trophy. Apart from Sunny Jung, the man with biggest dreams, there are eight others who will try their best to stop him from realizing these dreams.

Ami Barer of Canada sits in second place, close in chips to Jung. Russian Konstantin Pogodin and the American Joseph Cheong are three and four in chips. Cheong is one of the more recognizable names at the final table, as the young pro has had veryx successful career, earning more than $10,000,000 on the live tournament circuit, and his most recent cash comes from the ACOP Super High Roller earlier this month, where his 5th place finish was good for $528,000.

Gabriel Le Jossec of UK trails Cheong by just 2k in chips and with him ends the millionaire-chips club. Another well known name sits in sixth place in chips, and he is Vladimir Troyanovskiy of Russia. Zuo Wang from China and Raiden Kan (Hong Kong) come next on the leaderboard, while the Norwegian Tore Lukashaugen is the official short stack.

Interesting thing to note is that we have a truly international final table with players coming from all over the world. This is another clear indication that another big poker market is emerging and growing stronger.

When the play resumes tomorrow every single one of these players will be looking to take the trophy back to their home country. Jung will be under a lot of pressure for sure, but that will only make his triumph sweeter if things go right. Lukashaugen, on the other hand, has some catching up to do, but we’ve witnessed much unlikelier comebacks, so we are in for an exciting day of poker tomorrow!

Pictures: PokerStars Blog