At the recent conclusion of the Asian Poker Tour’s fifth stop of the year, the APT Experience Manila 2016, one player who really rocked the felt during the latter stages of the festival was Japanese poker pro Iori Yogo. Yogo cashed in four events which included a first place finish on the last day. These accomplishments catapulted Yogo past the leader, UK’s Samad Razavi, to take the top dog spot in the ongoing APT Player of the Year 2016 leaderboard.
Iori Yogo (Photo APT)
Prior to the start of the festival, Yogo was trailing behind Razavi give or take 500 points. With Razavi unable to attend, this was Yogo’s chance to rake in the points and overtake the leader. A brief history on these two players, Razavi has impressively won the APT POY title for the past four consecutive years while Yogo came close last year with a runner-up finish. With both of these players having a great start to their APT year, they picked up right where they left off, and are neck-to-neck again in the APT POY race.
At the APT Experience Manila 2016, Yogo had a slow start, unable to cash in any of the events. Maybe this was just his way of warming up because during the last four days he picked up momentum and started running deep. His first cash was at the WeLoveSport Deep Stack Turbo event where he placed second, and then followed it up with a fourth place finish at the Monster Stack event. On the last day, he claimed another runner-up finish, this time at the High Rollers event, and then jumped right into the 6 Handed Turbo event where he reigned to claim his first win at the festival.
To date, Yogo has four APT 2016 titles under his belt with a total of 13 cashes. He now leads Razavi by nearly 100 points. With more APT events coming up, the race for the APT POY 2016 title is without a doubt getting that much hotter.
| APT Player of the Year 2016 Standings
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| RANK | NAME | COUNTRY | TITLES | ITM | POY |
| 1 | IORI YOGO | Japan | 4 | 13 | 1,892.20 |
| 2 | Samad Razavi | England | 3 | 23 | 1,795.90 |
| 3 | Yah Loon Lim | Singapore | 3 | 13 | 1,574.60 |
| 4 | Sj Kim | Korea | 5 | 11 | 1,209.80 |
| 5 | Nick Blackburn | U.S | 3 | 15 | 1,169.10 |
| 6 | Tetsuya Tsuchikawa | Japan | 0 | 13 | 1,055.60 |
| 7 | Michael Kim Falcon | Denmark | 2 | 8 | 1,046.00 |
| 8 | Kimura Lee Jong Yeol | Korea | 1 | 11 | 1,019.20 |
| 9 | Jeon Seung Soo | Korea | 1 | 7 | 898.50 |
| 10 | Lester Edoc | Philippines | 0 | 8 | 814.70 |
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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