The Asian Poker Tour traveled to the pristine shores of New Caledonia for their penultimate festival of the year, the APT Noumea 2016, held at Casinos de Noumea. This is the first time the APT has graced this beautiful French territory, bringing with them ten days of nonstop poker festivities from November 15th-November 24th. Currently, the Main Event is in full swing, and while we await those results, there were some big stories coming out of the side events including a couple of well-known Japanese pros taking full control of the felt.
Opening side events claimed by Tsuchikawa and Yogo
The festival had a blazing start with 171 players filling up the poker floor for the XPF 33,000 buy-in Opening Event. While many local players came out to try and ship in the plump XPF 1,258,300 (US$11,165) first place cash prize, it was Japanese pro Tetsuya Tsuchikawa who ran away with the glory after defeating New Caledonia’s David Deschamp at the heads up round.
The second event of the festival was the Pot Limit Omaha event and though it didn’t attract nearly as many players as the opener, it still had a decent turnout of 40 entries. The APT Player of the Year 2016 race leader, Japanese pro Iori Yogo, outshined them all to take home the XPF 768,000 (US$6,814). With this win, and with the APT POY defending champion UK’s Samad Razavi absent from Noumea, Yogo moves further ahead in points, creating an even bigger gap between him and the Englishman.
Olivia Briene bags one for the locals
After the first two side events were claimed by Japan, the next one was swooped away by New Caledonia’s own Olivia Briene. The Head Hunter 10,000/Bounty event drew in a healthy 90 entries with Briene headstrong to the end to keep her bounty intact.
In addition to the Main Event, there are six more side events on the plate. We will have an update for you on all the poker action and results of the APT Noumea 2016 in the coming days.
Article by Triccia David