The 2017 ACOP by the numbers

After 17 days of continuous poker festivities running from October 13 -29, the 2017 Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) is now officially in the books. This year’s edition of the ACOP was by far the largest and richest with 48 tournaments for a grand prize pool of HK$166,276,022 (~US$21.3M).

Here is a look at the event by the numbers:

Total entries up all around

Despite a typhoon causing havoc at the early stages of the festival, the event still pooled in the highest number of entries in history. There were 5,986 in total – 3,720 for the ACOP title events and 2,266 for the regular events. While this is significantly more than last year –1,507 additional to be exact – there were also more events on offer.

ACOP title events: 2017 versus 2016

Last year, the ACOP offered a total of 17 ACOP title events generating a prize pool of HK$93,396,405. This year, that number was bumped up to 24 ACOP title events. The total prize pool also jumped to HK$160,775,913. Below are this year’s 7 new title events along with their prize pools and total players:

Event 2: Shootout Championship – 20 entries – HK$192,060 prize pool
Event 7: Single Day 50K – 86 entries – HK$3,920,740 prize pool
Event 11: Single Day 10K- 183 entries – HK$1,597,590 prize pool
Event 14: NLH-PLO Championship – 47 entries – HK$1,677,712 prize pool
Event 17: Single Day High Roller –68 entries – HK$19,192,320 prize pool
Event 20: Mini High Roller – 124 entries – HK$9,235,520 prize pool
Event 24: Closeout Spadie – 108 entries – HK$1,037,124 prize pool

Adding the pots above all together, these seven new events contributed HK$36,853,066 to this year’s ACOP title events overall prize pool. That’s roughly around 23 percent. In terms of players, it added another 636, around 17 percent, out of the 3,720 total number of title events players.

Key events surpass the guarantee

The Main Event tallied a record-setting 308 entries, six more than last year. At 100K per entry, the prize pool exceeded the guarantee of 25M to a total of HK$28,674,800. This now becomes the largest ACOP Main Event field to-date.

The 1M Guaranteed also broke records, turning up 573 entries for a prize pool of HK$2,000,916, along with the 2M GTD Spadie with its 718 entries for a total of HK$5,641,32. Although the 2M exceeded the guarantee, it was unable to beat last year’s draw of 819.

Richest pot

With high buy-in events now a mainstay, the HK$800K Super High Roller event wins the richest pot category by a long shot. The SHR event picked up 79 entries for an enormous prize pool of HK$60,690,960 (~US$7,770,000). Interestingly, last year this event only drew in 45 entries at a lower buy-in of 500K.

Biggest winners

The biggest winners are usually determined by the weight of the event(s) they overcame, the single largest pot claimed, and combined earnings at the series. Here are those players:

– Dietrich Fast won the HK$800K Super High Roller tournament and claimed HK$16,690,000. This was the single largest first place money of the festival.

– Alan “Kinglune” Lau bested a record field of 308 entries at the HK$100K Main Event and won HK$5,500,500. This was the largest live result in his career. He also cashed in three other events.

---

More: Alan Lau grabs ACOP Main Event title and becomes first-ever two-time APOY 

---

– The 2M GTD Spadie was the most popular event of the series with 718 entries. Ming Fang championed the event and earned HK$1.2M for his victory.

– Adones Carmona overcame the largest ACOP 1M Guaranteed field in history and collected HK$435,000 out of the HK$2,000,916 prize pool. He became the first player from his home country, the Philippines, to win an ACOP Spadie. Interestingly, Carmona was the only player from the Philippines that cashed the entire series.

---

More: 2017 ACOP Early highlights: First Spadie for the Philippines

---

Other fun facts

– Alan “Kinglune” Lau made history by becoming the first two-time Asia Player of the Year champion. He had a controversial win in 2015 but an undisputable one this year. He was crowned at the 2017 ACOP after his victory at the Main Event.

– At the Main Event final table, out of the six players, only Lau and Aaron Been were below the seven-digit range in total live earnings. Because both players went on to place in the top two, they crossed over into the millionaire range.

– Team PokerStars Pro Asia, Celina Lin, won her third Ladies Event title this year. Lin recently won the 2017 ACOP Ladies Asia Championship but prior to that she won the Ladies event at both the Macau Poker Cup 27 and the PokerStars Festival Korea Incheon.

– Once again, China captures the most number of trophies making out with a total of 5. However, this is two less than last year. Next in line were USA, Hong Kong, and Australia each with 3 titles apiece.

Article by Triccia David