Nonstop poker excitement happening in Malaysia as players chase down glory at Poker Dream 8 hosted at Genting Highlands. Since festival kick-off on January 25, 2024, a prevailing trend of shattering records and accumulating substantial prize pools has defined the event. As always, some of the most prominent figures in the Asian poker circuit and Super High Roller global scene have come out in support of the renowned brand.
Among the latest champions was Thailand’s Punnat Punsri at the Super High Roller, defeating Poker Dream creator Winfred Yu at heads up. Punsri pocketed RM 836,000 (~$177,200) for an even better start than his run at WPT Cambodia last week. The SHR event attracted a brand record 161 entries ponying up the RM 25M (~$5,365) buy in, for a prize pool of RM 3,591,910 (~$761,400).
Rare appearance by Japan’s Kosei Ichinose who was briefly spotted in the Asian circuit back at 2022 WPT Prime Taiwan and at 2018 APT Seoul prior to that. Another rarely seen player at the event was Hong Kong’s Edward Yam, known for his 2019 Most Cashes. Triton creator Richard Yong was also seen at the tables.
Main Event underway, guarantee well surpassed
For the past four days, the spotlight has been on the Main Event featuring three different buy ins – RM 1,800 (~$390), RM 2,400 (~$515), RM 3,600 ($773) To date, 8 of the 12 flights have been completed drawing 1,274 entries. The most popular was the highest buy in RM 3,600 (~$773). Players will be glad to know that the RM 2 Million guarantee has been exceeded with the potential to double. The prize pool is currently in the RM 3 Million range.
Defending PD Malaysia champions yet to enter the field are Ben Soon Yung Loo, Devan Tang, and Joshua Tjan. Loo has already been spotted at the Super High Roller.
Other Top Results
Event 1: Malaysia Open – This edition’s Malaysia Open set a new record prize pool of RM 1,300,920 (~$275,765). Out of the 1,758 entries, Malaysia’s Xu Yuan emerged as champion for a heads up payout deal of RM 170,480 (~$36,140).
Event 3: Mystery Big Bounty – The Mystery Big Bounty drew 675 entries for a prize pool of RM 884,250 (~$187,440). Singapore’s Kwek Jun Yi Ezri shipped it for RM 84,550 (bounties not included).
Event 8: Single Day High Roller – The RM 10K Single Day High Roller found 118 takers for a prize pool RM 1,053,032 (~$ 223,220). The international heavy final table concluded with Malaysia’s Ken Foo Hsien Loong defeating France’s Yannick Leonard at heads up to lock up a career high RM 265,000 (~$56,170).
Event 13: High Roller – The two-day High Roller featuring a buy in of RM 15K (~$ 3,220) was another heavy-hitter favorite with 136 on register. This generated a RM 1,820,496 (~$385,900) prize pool. Malaysia’s Foo Tuck Wai banked a career high RM 437,200 (~$92,675) for his victory.
Poker Dream 8 Malaysia opened on January 25, 2024 and will run through February 5, 2024. Event updates and results can be found in the Poker Dream facebook page.
*All photos by Poker Dream
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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