Wall to wall action at Day 9 of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Prime Vietnam as players poured in Crown Poker Club in capital city Hanoi. The highlight was the High Roller Warm Up event, attracting 168 entries (110 unique, 58 re-entry) to shatter its VN₫ 2BN guarantee and create a prize pool of VN₫ 8,148,000,000 (~US$ 347,100). To date, this was the largest prize pool of the festival.
With the past couple of days seeing an influx of international players, it was no surprise to see many bump elbows with local pros. Among the attendees were Abhinav Iyer, David Erquiaga, Benjamin Sai, Robert Kiss, and John Perry.
On the thirteen and a half hour mark, the intense action concluded with Russia’s Roman Kolotiuk delivering the bubble to ensure the remaining 21 players a piece of the lucrative pot. Kolotiuk bagged up the sixth largest stack.
Locking up the chip lead was a very familiar face, Vietnam’s Huynh Ngoc Cuong who recently won the Mystery Bounty event. Cuong was one of eleven locals that reached the money round. Others making it through were Ngoc Anh Cao, Huu Dung Nguyen, and Player of the Festival second ranked Dinh Tien Thanh. Check out the chip counts below and the payouts.
The final stage of the race is on Thursday, May 25, 2023 starting at 11:30am. Returning players are guaranteed VN₫ 116,000,000 (~US$ 4,940), and for the eventual champion, a massive VN₫ 1,964,000,000 (~US$ 83,660) awaits.
High Roller Warm Up
Date: May 24-25 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 55,000,000 (~US$ 2,345)
Entries: 168 (110 unique, 58 re-entry)
Prize pool: VN₫ 8,148,000,000 (~US$ 347,100)
ITM: 21 places
End of Day 1 chip counts
| 1 | HuỳNh NgọC CườNg | 1,440,000 |
| 2 | Alo Toi He Day | 1,238,000 |
| 3 | Huu Dung Nguyen | 1,222,000 |
| 4 | Alan Pham | 1,186,000 |
| 5 | Ngoc Anh Cao | 986,000 |
| 6 | Đinh TiếN Thành | 937,000 |
| 7 | Roman Kolotiuk | 880,000 |
| 8 | Đinh Quang Huy | 878,000 |
| 9 | Daniel Francis | 875,000 |
| 10 | Mike Wilklow | 872,000 |
| 11 | Evgenii Katymqel | 849,000 |
| 12 | Cankai Zhang | 831,000 |
| 13 | Jhon Hendri | 748,000 |
| 14 | Peter Kiem | 728,000 |
| 15 | Hieu Lavita | 682,000 |
| 16 | Pham Bao | 510,000 |
| 17 | Sakai Yuki | 482,000 |
| 18 | Evegnii Chernyl | 470,000 |
| 19 | Ngo Khoa Anh | 422,000 |
| 20 | Van Phing Nguyen | 334,000 |
| 21 | Baby Tuchu | 268,000 |
Payouts
| Place | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | 1,964,000,000 |
| 2 | 1,307,000,000 |
| 3 | 938,000,000 |
| 4 | 686,000,000 |
| 5 | 511,000,000 |
| 6 | 388,000,000 |
| 7 | 300,000,000 |
| 8 | 237,000,000 |
| 9 | 190,000,000 |
| 10 | 190,000,000 |
| 11 | 161,500,000 |
| 12 | 161,500,000 |
| 13 | 140,500,000 |
| 14 | 140,500,000 |
| 15 | 126,500,000 |
| 16 | 126,500,000 |
| 17 | 116,000,000 |
| 18 | 116,000,000 |
| 19 | 116,000,000 |
| 20 | 116,000,000 |
| 21 | 116,000,000 |
In addition to the above-mentioned event, a large field was also seen at the two-day Big Bounty with 182 runners (136 unique, 46 re-entry) for a cash pool of VN₫ 855,400,000 (~US$ 36,440). To reach the money round, five double ups were first seen and a cooler that sent Jia Chi Lee‘s stack plunging.
This led to the final hand. Lee was in a three-way shove and was nearly out with 
dominated by 
. Lucky for her, the two-outer materialized on the river to survive elimination while a short stack with 
went bust.
The final 23 players return on Thursday, May 25 at 11am. With every player guaranteed a piece of the pot, the hunt will be for the VN₫ 5M per head scalped and the VN₫ 221,000,000 (~US$ 9,415) top prize.
Date: May 24-25, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 11,000,000 (~US$ 470)
Entries: 182 (136 unique, 46 re-entry)
Prize pool: VN₫ 855,400,000 (~US$ 36,440)
Bounty pool: VN₫ 910,000,000 (~US$ 38,765)
ITM: 23 places
End of Day 1 – 23 players
| 1 | Chu Thế Dân | 439,000 |
| 2 | Hưng Lê | 402,000 |
| 3 | Nguyen Duy Anh | 357,000 |
| 4 | TuấN Tùng | 320,000 |
| 5 | Shih Chien Kuei | 315,000 |
| 6 | Man Lok | 263,000 |
| 7 | Phan NgọC Quang | 255,000 |
| 8 | Linh Ran | 247,000 |
| 9 | Beab Su Kim | 233,000 |
| 10 | Jiang Yongbo | 216,000 |
| 11 | Shu Wei Chou | 198,000 |
| 12 | Harvey Woon | 198,000 |
| 13 | Chuan Hsieh | 177,000 |
| 14 | Paul Elliott | 145,000 |
| 15 | Kenji Hamamoto | 144,000 |
| 16 | Laksh Pal Sinh | 137,000 |
| 17 | Shoh Iohinoseki | 134,000 |
| 18 | Jia Chi Lee | 105,000 |
| 19 | Chamaria | 91,000 |
| 20 | Zemedkun Masrsha | 88,000 |
| 21 | Scoh Carmichael | 50,000 |
| 22 | Jae Kyung Sim | 28,000 |
| 23 | Yang Hai Yang | 25,000 |
Payouts
| Place | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | 221,000,000 |
| 2 | 148,500,000 |
| 3 | 87,500,000 |
| 4 | 53,000,000 |
| 5 | 41,000,000 |
| 6 | 34,000,000 |
| 7 | 29,000,000 |
| 8 | 25,400,000 |
| 9 | 22,000,000 |
| 10 | 19,000,000 |
| 11 | 19,000,000 |
| 12 | 19,000,000 |
| 13 | 16,000,000 |
| 14 | 16,000,000 |
| 15 | 16,000,000 |
| 16 | 13,000,000 |
| 17 | 13,000,000 |
| 18 | 13,000,000 |
| 19 | 10,000,000 |
| 20 | 10,000,000 |
| 21 | 10,000,000 |
| 22 | 10,000,000 |
| 23 | 10,000,000 |
Thuy Trung Duong wins Superstack Turbo
The Superstack Turbo was also quite popular with 90 sign ups. Chinese Texas Holdém Poker Association (CTP) founder David Tai from Taiwan was among the attendees. He ran deep into 3rd place while the title went to Thuy Trung Duong for his first ever WPT cash.
Date: May 24, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 5,500,000 (~US$ 235)
Entries: 90 (80 unique, 10 re-entry)
Prize pool: VN₫ 436,500,000 (~US$ 18,595)
ITM: 12 places
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | Thuy Trung Duong | Vietnam | 138,500,000 |
| 2 | Ong Chien Chan | Malaysia | 83,000,000 |
| 3 | Hsing Hsiung Tai | Taiwan | 52,500,000 |
| 4 | Yi Te Wu | Taiwan | 34,000,000 |
| 5 | Kazuki Maeda | Japan | 26,000,000 |
| 6 | Long Gia Le | Vietnam | 20,700,000 |
| 7 | Guillame Lecointre | France | 17,500,000 |
| 8 | Marc Inizan | UK | 15,200,000 |
| 9 | Bien Mai | Vietnam | 13,900,000 |
| 10 | Pei Chen Lee | Taiwan | 12,600,000 |
| 11 | Khuong Van Hoang | Vietnam | 11,700,000 |
| 12 | Ivan Govorov | Russia | 10,900,000 |
WPT Player of the Festival – update
After 23 events, there has been a change of leadership. Australia’s Armon Van WIjk has now moved into the top spot after placing second at the Hyper Turbo event. Dinh Tien Thanh has moved one spot down to second rank.
There’s still plenty of time to rake in points with the Main Event coming up on May 25, starting at 11am. The player with the most points accrued at the end of the festival will win a WPT Passport worth $5,000 to be used at any Season XXI Main Tour. Here are the standings.
| 1st | Armon Van Wijk | 850 |
| 2nd | Dinh Tien Thanh | 775 |
| 3rd | Tran Thanh Hung | 765 |
| 4th | Vu Ta Nhat | 750 |
| 5th | Nguyen Trung Quan | 700 |
| 6th | Huynh Ngoc Cuong | 650 |
| 7th | Avneesh Munjal | 630 |
| 8th | Chu The Dan | 550 |
| 9th | Dhaval Mudgal | 530 |
| 10th | Truong Toan Chan | 500 |
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Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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