Chen entered the final table with an average stack but quickly climbed the leaderboard. He scored an early knockout, eliminating Duy Thuc Nguyen in 9th place within just five hands. Despite Nguyen being ahead on the flop, Chen’s combination flush draw and open-ended straight draw completed on the river, ending Nguyen’s run.
Jia Xiao was next to exit in 8th place, losing an all-in confrontation against Chenxu Zhang’s big slick. Shortly after, Jingxuan Zhu fell in 7th place after consecutive losses to Changliang Sun, with his final hand ending in a dominated preflop all-in.
Sun maintained his aggression and chip lead during the mid stages of the final table, while Chen continued to close the gap by winning several key pots.
The next to go was Red Dragon player Zhang, who finished in 6th place when her pocket aces were cracked by Patrick Liang’s trip kings on the flop.
Daniel Lei suffered one of the day’s most brutal exits in 5th place. After being all in preflop in a flip for his tournament life, Lei hit a pair on the flop, leaving Sun with only one out. The turn delivered that miracle card, eliminating Lei in heartbreaking fashion.
Liang was next to bow out in 4th place. He lost most of his chips after Chen cracked his pocket queens, leaving him with just a single 25,000 chip. On the following hand, Sun finished the job and knocked Liang out. Earlier, Liang had also made a hero call gone wrong against Akihide Shimizu, calling with bottom pair into Shimizu’s full house.
With three players remaining, Chen continued to hold the lead and extended it further after eliminating Shimizu in 3rd place. Shimizu had managed a double-up earlier against Sun, but his run ended after moving all in with queen-ten against Chen’s king-four . The board ran out clean, giving Chen the winning hand.