(Photo: Theasianpokertour.com)
Welcome To Cambodia
The Asian Poker Tour held its inaugural South East Asia event last week, rising to a crescendo on Friday when 50 players paid the US$1,100 entry fee to compete for the title of Main Event Champion.
The event rounded out a week of events at the DNA Star Vegas Casino & Club in Poipet, Cambodia into which 14 separate tourneys were crammed.
(Photo: Theasianpokertour.com)
Day 1s
Days 1A and 1B fed a remaining 27 players into day 2. While some smaller buy-in one day events played out in parallel.
The end of day 1B saw 50 entries total making for a total prize pool of US$48,500. With a min-cash of US$4,370. Ultimately the final table saw a deal struck for US$14,790 up top and US$12,000 each for 2nd and 3rd.
Day 2 saw play narrowed down to the final table of eight. Aik Chuan led the field with 384,800 giving him a dominating lead over the rest of the table. The second largest stack at the end of day two was Liu Yi with 307,000 and below him are Sam Ng (143,600) and Mitsuru Sano (137,100) the only other players with six-figure stacks.
Trailing the field going into the final table was Daniel Tan with just 42,400.
Final Table
| 1 | Hailong Huang | 65,400 |
| 2 | Paphawin Laodee | 75,000 |
| 3 | Liu Yi | 307,000 |
| 4 | Mitsuru Sano | 137,100 |
| 5 | Tetsuya Tsuchikawa | 93,900 |
| 6 | Sam Ng | 143,600 |
| 7 | Daniel Tan | 42,400 |
| 8 | Aik Chuan | 384,800 |
Final Table, Day 3
With just 50 entrants, not everyone at the final table was going home with cash in their pockets. Only the top 5 were getting paid, so it must have burned twice as hot for Sam Ng when he went to the rail first in eighth place after charging headlong into Liu Yi’s pocket aces.
Australian Daniel Tan followed him shortly afterwards after getting his short stack in with A-2 against the A-J of Aik Chuan. Taking advantage of his large chip lead Chuan went on to bully the rest of the table until finally he was put to the test by Tetsuya Tsuchikawa with K-2. Unfortunately for Tsuchikawa, Chuan turned over nines and they held up.
From there on out it was Chuan almost all the way, he was up and down, even sinking to the shortest stack at one point. But he proceeded to knock out the rest of the field with the exception of 3rd place finished Liu Yi who gave his last chips to runner-up Mitsuru Sano after they struck a deal for the final three payouts.
Sano went into heads-up with a 5-2 chip lead but couldn’t make it stick. Chuan took a chunk of his stack when he quaded up his pocket nines. A few hands later, with a board of T-9-4-8 Chuan got all of Sano’s chips into the middle.
The Malaysian Chuan found himself substantially ahead with J-T for top pair and a straight draw against Sano’s 8-6. A queen on the river ended the tournament making Chuan the first every champion of the APT South-East Asia Main Event.
The APT will be back later in June for another series of events held at the Winford Hotel & Casino in Manila.
(Photo: Theasianpokertour.com)
Main Event Cashes
| 1 | Aik Chuan | Malaysia | $14,790 (deal made) |
| 2 | Mitsuru Sano | Japan | $12,000 (deal made) |
| 3 | Liu Yi | China | $12,000 (deal made) |
| 4 | Hailong Huang | China | $5,340 |
| 5 | Paphawin Laodee | Thailand | $4,370 |