For the past week, the Asian Poker Tour held its next edition of the Asian Poker Series 2015 at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino Lahug in the beautiful city of Cebu, Philippines. With a slew of events running daily at the All In Poker Club, the most sought after trophy was the Main Event which saw 160 entries pony up the PHP50,000 buy-in bringing the total prize pool to PHP7,139,000 ($154,171). After five days of Main Event action, it was Norway’s Henrik Tollefsen who shipped in all the chips to claim the first place purse of PHP1,717,000 ($37,090) and his second APT Main Event championship title.
For those who don’t remember, back in 2013, Tollefsen defeated a very tough final table at the APT Macau Main Event and since then has been seen playing in many poker events all over Macau and the Philippines.
Fresh from having won the Asia Pacific Poker Tour 2015 High Roller event in Manila, Tollefsen traveled to Cebu in high gear and in no time, he found himself sitting way above at the end of day 2 of the Main Event with the rest of the qualifiers lagging far behind. By the end of day 3, he sealed his seat to the final table with a sizable stack, running only second-in-command to Korea’s SJ Kim.
A second APT Main Event championship title for Tollefsen
At the final table, Tollefsen started his scalping spree when the table dwindled down to five players. He began with the elimination of Filipino player Edwin Marzan with his five-six suited landing a straight, then followed it up with a pair of ladies dominating American player John Graham’s king-queen that found no savior on the board.
At three-handed, he eventually seized the chip lead, then stopped short Japan’s highest grossing player in Asia, Iori Yogo, from winning his first APT Main Event title with a dominating two pair against Yogo’s missed straight. With that elimination, he only had one obstacle left, Swedish player Roger Spets. Spets managed his chips well throughout the day, and was the reason that Kim bowed out in sixth place.
Spets however was at a disadvantage against Tollefsen who held a 2.5:1 chip lead upon entering the heads up round. In his final move to double up, Spets got it all in with queen-ten suited only to find himself up against Tollefsen’s king-ten off suit. With the board running blanks, Tollefsen scooped up the chips and claimed the victory.
With a total of 18 players making the money, the APT Asian Poker Series Cebu Main Event also saw some deep runs by APPT 2015 Main Event runner-up Douglas Olsson who just made the cut in 18th place, Canadian player Thomas Lee who was day 1b chip leader bowing out in 12th place, Japan’s Azusa Maeda settling for 10th place, and Ian Brion from the Philippines going as deep as 7th place. Congratulations to Henrik Tollefsen for claiming his second APT Main Event title and to all the other winners.
The APT Asian Poker Series Cebu has one more day of side events on the schedule. For all the results, stories, and other information, visit the Asian Poker Tour website.
APT Asian Poker Series Cebu Main Event Results (in PhP)
1st: Henrik Tollefsen (Norway) – 1,717,000
2nd: Roger Spets (Sweden) – 1,173,900
3rd: Iori Yogo (Japan) – 739,000
4th: John Graham (USA) – 539,000
5th: Edwin Marzan (Philippines) – 446,000
6th: SJ Kim (Korea) – 368,000
7th: Ian Brion (Philippines) – 303,000
8th: Kim Dongkyu (Korea) – 253,000