It only took a quick five hour final table race at the WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event with France’s Marc Inizan clinching the title for his first ever live tournament victory. Inizan entered as frontrunner and never looked back. He eliminated three players along the way then crushed Kai Jan “Steven” Chou at heads up to claim the NT$ 4,326,600 (~$138,850) first prize and a ticket worth $10,400 to the WPT World Championship Main Event. As added value, the WPT will provide airfare and accommodations. Read up on the final table race via the WPT Live Upates.
In a brief interview with the newly crowned champ, he shared with Somuchpoker his emotions and overall experience.
“”It’s a great feeling! I’ve had a few results in the past but I’ve never actually won a tournament so it’s a great feeling to finally win one. This is an achievement for me it is very special.”
Inizan’s thoughts on the competition,
“I’ve played in Macau before but here I had no expectations really so I was quite surprised, I did not think it was going to be as good as it was. The players are pretty good in Asia. I actually spent three bullets. At Day 1A and Day 1B, I was so unlucky. I was all in ten times and only won one. It was very frustrating. So this one made up for it.”
At three-handed, Kai Jan Chou was second in chips then three-bet shoved and nearly busted but got lucky on the river.
“We were still very deep and there was a short stack so he didn’t have to do that, and I have to call because I have a good hand. He got lucky so I was not happy but oh well.”
The champ plans to travel around Taiwan before heading off to Vegas in a few weeks to try and turn his winning ticket to an even bigger payout and title.
Main Event review
The WPT Prime Main Event was the largest and richest ever seen in Taiwan. It ran from November 17 to 21 at the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association in Taipei City. The first three starting days brought in a massive crowd of 877 entries for a prize pool of NT$ 25,520,700 (~$825,150). Each starting day played down to ITM with Day 1C seeing three players bust during the bubble round. Marc Inizan bagged up the overall second largest stack which he improved on at Day 2, closing the stage as frontrunner to the Final Table.
The final table race ran incredibly fast completing in just five hours. Inizan’s first elimination was Yao Wei Huang who struggled to chip up with Inizan repeatedly picking on his big blind from the small blind. Huang finally took a stand with pocket Fives and was ahead of Inizan’s 
but the board paired both of Inizan’s cards to fall in 6th place.
Closing in on half of the chips in play, Inizan crossed it by successfully grinding then surged further ahead by cleaning out Yuan Hsu Lee in 4th place. At three-handed, Inizan had a massive 116 BB over Chou’s 40 BB and Chih Feng Li‘s 20 BB. In a shocking move, Chou three-bet shoved the leader with 
and spiked the three on the river to avoid elimination against Inizan’s 
.
Despite the loss in chips, Inizan stayed ahead in the count then eliminated Li to enter heads up with a 107 BB to 68 BB lead. Inizan proceeded to dominate Chou, winning consecutive pots to shave him down to 25 BB. Chou took a stand with 
and fell in 2nd place to Inizan’s 
.
Buy in: NT$ 33,000 (~~$1,070)
Guarantee: NT$ 10,000,000 (~$323,320)
Entries: 877
Prize pool: NT$ 25,520,700 (~$825,150)
ITM: 110 places
Final table payouts
| Rank | Player | Flag | NT$ | USD |
| 1st | Marc Inizan | France | 4,326,600 | $138,851 |
| 2nd | Kai Jan Chou | Taiwan | 2,883,500 | $92,539 |
| 3rd | Chih Feng Li | Taiwan | 2,126,400 | $68,241 |
| 4th | Yuan Hsu Lee | Taiwan | 1,585,300 | $50,876 |
| 5th | Yu Fan Chang | Taiwan | 1,195,000 | $38,350 |
| 6th | Yao Wei Huang | Taiwan | 910,900 | $29,233 |
| 7th | Jeyoung Park | South Korea | 702,200 | $22,535 |
| 8th | Sumire Hori | Japan | 547,500 | $17,571 |
| 9th | Chang Le Lin | Taiwan | 431,900 | $13,861 |
WPT Prime Taiwan Main Event – FULL RESULTS
Links:
WPT Prime Taiwan – MAIN EVENT Day 1A
WPT Prime Taiwan – MAIN EVENT Day 1B
WPT Prime Taiwan – MAIN EVENT Day 1C
WPT Prime Taiwan – Main Event Day 2
WPT Prime Taiwan – PLAYER GUIDE
WPT Prime Taiwan – FULL RESULTS
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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