APT Taiwan closes with record breaking Championships Event, two years of partnership with CTP, and Alan Lau for POS

This past weekend saw the Asian Poker Tour wrap up a highly successful inaugural APT Taiwan 2019 in Taipei City. The event took place from February 20 to March 3 at the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association (CTP Club).

The first half witnessed a record-setting prize pool Main Event in Taiwan while the second half set a new tour record at the Championships Event with 288 entries. At the conclusion, an overall prize pool of TWD 65,200,000 (~US$2,113,750) was distributed. Also receiving top honors was Hong Kong pro Alan King Lun Lau for winning the Player of the Series.

With this success, the APT signed a partnership deal with CTP that would see the tour return for the next two years starting with a twelve-day series in October 2019. We’ve got that story for you below along with the final festival highlights.

Record Championships Event with 288 entries

The Championships Event was the second featured tournament of the series with a much higher buy-in than the main of TWD 49,500 (~US $1,605). Once again, the TWD 5 Million guarantee was crushed. At the close of registration, there were 288 entries in total to surpass the previous tour record of 248 set in Vietnam. The prize pool was a big one as well ballooning to TWD 12,571,200 (~US$ 407,500).

As in the case of previous Championships Events, a majority of the seats were filled by pros. Winning it was China’s Chen Dong, capturing his first title of the year. Chen knocked out four players of the Final 8 round which included WSOP winner Alex Lindop (4th), Taiwan’s Pete Yen Han Chen (3rd), and Hong Kong’s Jennette “Jay” Tan at heads up. He pocketed the TWD 2,955,000 (~US$ 95,800) top prize.

Final 8 – Payouts
1st Chen Dong – China – TWD 2,955,000
2nd Jennette Tan – Hong Kong – TWD 1,970,100
3rd Pete Yen Han Chen – Taiwan – 1,369,600
4th Alex Lindop – UK – TWD 989,200
5th Matthieu Lamagnere – France – TWD 739,800
6th En Hao Chan – Taiwan – TWD 570,900
7th Wei Cheng Yin – Taiwan – TWD 453,400
8th Jack Nai Yuan Hu – Taiwan – TWD 369,400

Among those reaching the money but outside of the Final 8 were Phachara Wongwichit (9th), Yunsheng Sun (10th), Marc Rivera (12th), Alan Lau King Lun (16th), Richard Marquez (17th), and Gao Wenling (18th).

Alan Lau King Lun wins Player of the Series

At the end of every series the APT awards three players for the highest number of points accrued. Finding himself at the top of the standings was Hong Kong pro Alan Lau King Lun. Although Lau did not win any of the events, he ran deep in three:

2nd at the Main Event
16th at the Championships Event
2nd at the High Rollers Single Day 1

Placing 2nd was Canada’s Lok Gino with an outstanding 6 cashes, included in that was a victory at the WeLoveSport.com Deep Stack Hyper Turbo event.

Taking 3rd was Korean player Jeonggyu Cho. Cho also had multiple deep runs that included 4th place at the Main Event and 9th at the Monster Stack.

High Rollers results

In addition to the first half High Rollers winners, three more were awarded before the festival’s closing. With the Championships Event still going, the High Rollers 2  attracted 54 to the felt and at TWD 65,000 (~US$ 2.100), the prize pool amounted to TWD 3,142,800 (~US$ 101,837). 9 players got paid. Singapore’s Zhang Changjie overcame the stiff competition with several Asian pros in the Final 8 were: Edward Yam (3rd), Chen An Lin (7th), and Sparrow Park Yu Cheung (8th). Zhang earned TWD 859,500 (US$ 27,835) for his victory.

The final day saw another High Rollers Single Day event. That  was won by China’s Jia Tang besting a field of 54 runners. Buy-in for that was TWD 54,000 (~US$ 1,750) for a pot of TWD 2,619,500 (~US$ 84,877) divided among 9 players. Tang claimed the biggest cut of TWD 795,800 (~US$ 25,790).

There was one more high rollers event however this one was unscheduled. It was by players request. Buy-in was TWD 33,000 (~US$ 1,070), 11 players signed up. Two paid. Eric Ting Yi Tsai defeated Marvin Rettenmaier at heads up to win TWD 224,100 (US$ 7,263). Rettenmaier earned TWD 96,000 (~US$ 3,111) for runner-up.

APT and CTP sign a two year partnership

The successful inaugural visit has spurned another two years of games between APT and CTP with a contract deal until 2021. The partnership will see two APT events per year, every February and October, with the first one already slated for later this year from October 9 to October 20.

Taiwan may be a new player in the Asian market but it has already shown great promise and outstanding progress. The APT was the first international brand to enter in 2019 joining three others that wet their feet last year: AJPC, J88 Poker, and GPL China.

Article by Tricia David