The past two days at World Poker Tour (WPT) Prime Vietnam hosted by Crown Poker Club in Hanoi saw a sea of players for the festival’s flagship tournament. In the midst of the action, three side events were hunting down its champion, and Team Vietnam overcame the Taiwanese to win the Tag Team Freezeout. Here are the results and an update on the WPT Player of the Festival race.
The 100M Super High Roller concluded with Australia’s Joshua McCully defeating fellow compatriot Luke Martinelli. The pair agreed on an ICM deal then played for the trophy. McCully came from behind to claim his second Super High Roller title this month. Two weeks prior, he won the APPT Cambodia SHR event.
“It was actually quite tough, everyone was serious, trying to ladder up. On the bubble I was very short, I was a bit frustrated, so I just survived. Most of the final table I was short stack until 4-5 handed I started building my chips back up and tied with the chip leader at three-handed. So ya it absolutely feels good to win my second Super High Roller title this month and I got to beat my man heads up so that’s always the best feeling in the world. It was good fun and a good tournament.”
The WPT Super High Roller attracted 41 players and 20 re-entries for 61 entries total and a prize pool of VN₫ 5,917,000,000 (~US$ 252,050). Eleven players bagged up on Day 1 with the money two spots away. On Day 2, short stacked Eric Tsai was first to go then the bubble burst on Sang Yoon Kim when his 
was outdrawn by Anh Duy Pham’s 
on a board 
.
Relive the final table action via the livestream on Crown Poker Club YouTube channel
Date: May 25-26, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 107,000,000 (~US$ 4,560)
Guarantee: VN₫ 2,500,000,000 (~US$ 106,500)
Entries: 61 (41 entries, 20 re-entry)
Prize pool: VN₫ 5,917,000,000 (~US$ 252,050)
ITM: 9 places
*Heads up ICM deal, played for the trophy
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | Joshua McCully | Australia | 1,515,000,000 |
| 2 | Luke Martinelli | Australia | 1,600,000,000 |
| 3 | Yu Hang Chen | China | 831,000,000 |
| 4 | Anh Duy Pham | Vietnam | 578,000,000 |
| 5 | Yeh Hung Wei | Taiwan | 419,000,000 |
| 6 | Jun Hao Wu | Singapore | 318,000,000 |
| 7 | Dong Kyu Kim | Korea | 253,000,000 |
| 8 | Abhishek Jalan | India | 213,000,000 |
| 9 | Huu Dung Nguyen | Vietnam | 190,000,000 |
Over at the PLO, India’s Alok Birewar came out victorious, denying Hung Thanh Tran a third side event title. In turn, he earned the second WPT trophy of his career. Last March, Birewar clinched the WPT Prime Cambodia Deepstack Freezeout for his first ever WPT win. He became the fourth player from India to capture a trophy at the ongoing series.
Date: May 25-26, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 16,500,000 (~US$ 700)
Entries: 58 (37 unique, 21 re-entry)
Prize pool: VN₫ 843,900,000 (~US$ 35,950)
ITM: 8 places
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | Alok Birewar | India | 304,000,000 |
| 2 | Jack Tey Sheuseng | Singapore | 178,500,000 |
| 3 | Hung Thanh Tran | Vietnam | 112,000,000 |
| 4 | Masafumi Shimizu | Japan | 76,000,000 |
| 5 | Le Tu Thanh | Australia | 59,000,000 |
| 6 | Kevin Lee | New Zealand | 46,500,000 |
| 7 | Vincent Chauve | France | 37,900,000 |
| 8 | Li Fang | China | 30,000,000 |
Picking up from an overnight break, the NLH Freezeout resumed with the final 9 players battling for the coveted trophy. It was a heavily dominated Taiwanese final table with seven on the round.
After Norway’s Nicolai Zubi (4th) and USA’s Michael Wilklow (3rd) were eliminated, a first Taiwan win was guaranteed. Shih Lei Hsu defeated Yu Tsun Lai to claim the victory.
Date: May 26-27, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 7,700,000 (~US$ 330)
Entries: 108
Prize pool: VN₫ 733,320,000 (~US$ 31,240)
ITM: 14 places
*Three way even chop, played for trophy
| Place | Player | Flag |
Payouts in VN₫
|
| 1 | Shih Lei Hsu | Taiwan | 145,600,000 |
| 2 | Yu Tsun Lai | Taiwan | 145,600,000 |
| 3 | Michael Wilklow | USA | 145,600,000 |
| 4 | Nicolai Zubi | Norway | 53,000,000 |
| 5 | Chung Yi Ho | Taiwan | 41,000,000 |
| 6 | Ka Chu Tsui | Taiwan | 34,000,000 |
| 7 | Pei Chen Lee | Taiwan | 28,820,000 |
| 8 | Yu Wei Wang | Taiwan | 25,000,000 |
| 9 | Chuan Hsieh | Taiwan | 22,000,000 |
Tuan Phong Do and Duy Thuc Nguyen win the Tag Teams Freezeout
23 teams signed up for the Tag Teams Freezeout with only four duos guaranteed to money. Team USA made up of the multi final tableist Michael Wilklow bowed out 4th leaving two teams from Taiwan and one from the host country to battle for the title. In the end, it was Vietnam duo – Tuan Phong Do and Duy Thuc Nguyen – putting the stop, denying both Taiwan teams. The final hand 
outkicked 
on a board 
.
Date: May 27, 2023
Buy in: VN₫ 6,600,000 (~US$ 280)
Entries: 23
Prize pool: VN₫ 133,860,000 (~US$ 5,700)
ITM: 4 teams
| Place | Player | Flag |
Payouts in VN₫
|
| 1 | Tuan Phong Do | Vietnam | 60,000,000 |
| 1 | Duy Thuc Nguyen | Vietnam | |
| 2 | Jhong Chang Tian | Taiwan | 33,500,000 |
| 2 | Pin You Chen | Taiwan | |
| 3 | Hung Wei Yeh | Taiwan | 24,000,000 |
| 3 | Wan Yu Lo | Taiwan | |
| 4 | Michael Wilklow | USA | 16,360,000 |
| 4 | Erik Mason | USA |
After 29 completed events, the WPT Player of the Festival race leader is still Vietnam’s Huynh Ngoc Cuong with a 260 point gap between him and second ranked Tran Thanh Hung. Both players qualified for Day 2 of the Main Event. Plenty of points yet to be awarded. This hot title awards the champion a WPT Passport worth US$ 5,000 to any Main Tour of 2023.
| Rank | Name | Points |
| 1st | Huynh Ngoc Cuong | 1200 |
| 2nd | Tran Thanh Hung | 940 |
| 3rd | Armon Van Wijk | 850 |
| 4th | Michael Wilklow | 850 |
| 5th | Dinh Tien Thanh | 840 |
| 6th | Chu The Dan | 835 |
| 7th | Vu Ta Nhat | 750 |
| 8th | Quan Trung Nguyen | 700 |
| 9th | Tuan Anh Tran | 675 |
| 10th | Joshua Mccully | 650 |
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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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