China’s leading poker brand, China Poker Games (CPG) is back at the Howard Johnson Resort in Sanya, Hainan Island for the 11th season of the CPG Championship. The annual festival kicked off on August 16 and will run until August 25. Once again, turnout has been tremendous.
The Opening Event pulled in a massive 919 entries over two flights. This was followed by the Main Event which drew a jaw-dropping 4,080 entries. With buy in at roughly $1.3K, it generated a prize pool of ~$5.4 Million to easily surpass last year’s numbers and set a new record for the Championship and for the region.
What makes this figure even more impressive is the format. The annual CPG Championship is a repechage which means players are only allowed one buy in per entry day. Here is a daily review of the Championship attendance.
Main Event review
Day 1A: 1,044 players / 292 players advanced
Day 1B: 1,722 players / 549 players advanced
Day 1C: 1,314 players / 451 players advanced
At Day 1B, CPG set a new record for single day unique players of 1,627, registration went on to close at 1,722 players. This was the largest turnout of the three entry days.
A fun tidbit. At Day 1C, the 1,314 attendance is pronounced similar to “for my life” in Chinese, and when registration closed, there were 520 left at the time which sounded similar to “I love you”. This combination excited players as it spelled out “I love you to the end of my life” which coincidentally will be Chinese Lover’s Day on the following day.
Total: 4,080 entries
Buy in: $1,300
Prize pool: ~$5,400,000
Day 2: 1,292 players
The immense 4,080 turnout was cut down to 1,292 players entering Day 2 and further down to 226 entering Day 3. Player Chen Ping will bring in the chip lead. In a couple of days, the champion will be determined. You can watch the live action via the CPG App. The eventual winner will be awarded the one of a kind 11th anniversary trophy and the golden dragon trophy.
To enhance player enjoyment, and promote local tourism, CPG ensured plenty of activities such as the traditional dinner party and show, events for parents and children, and the CPG Games from August 19 to 21 featuring three-on-three basketball match, four-man football competition, and table tennis match.
On August 19, 2023, CPG and invited poker organizations – Korea Series of Poker (KSOP), Australia Poker Tour (APT), Vietnam Poker Games (VPG), All Japan Poker Championship (AJPC), and poker influencers from Singapore and Korea discussed the possibility of a poker union to elevate the game in the Asia-Pacific region. Players can expect upcoming announcements regarding this trial union of poker heads.
On August 21, 2023, CPG main sponsor 小糊涂仙 – a brand of white wine – held an exclusive invitational event. To register, players had to purchase a box of 4 bottles of wine. The players then entered into a lottery where 40 Huawei electronic products were raffled off worth up to CNY 100,000.
CPG Championship – Event Winners
With a week of games already completed, pictured below are the list of winners.
Links:
[Interview] China Poker Games revealed
Epic Turnout at China Poker Games 10th year Anniversary
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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