New Faces Chung Yuan Yu and Zheng Xiaosheng win PKC Macau trophies

The ongoing Poker King Cup Macau has already dished out a few trophies prior to the featured Main Event. A couple of those titles were claimed by new faces on the awarding stage, Taiwan’s Chung Yuan Yu for the High Rollers event and China’s Zheng Xiaosheng for the HK$1M guaranteed Warm Up event. Here’s a recap of those latest events.

Chung Yuan Yu champions the High Rollers

The PKC Macau festival jumped right out with a big tournament as their torch bearer. The HK$80,000 buy-in High Rollers event led the way with a total of 37 entries for a prize pool of HK$2,755,700 (US$354,000). As expected, there were many notable players hustling it out at the felt however in the end, it was tournament neophyte Chung Yuan Yu who slipped through the cracks to seize the title and the HK$1,020,000 first prize.

Before Yu stole the limelight away from the pros, it was Phanlert Sukonthachartnant, the highest ranked tournament pro from Thailand, who was the player to keep an eye on. Sukonthachartnant bagged the largest stack at the end of the first day after eliminating two players in his path, Boyao Li and Nick Wong.

The final day proceeded no different with Sukothachartnant cruising along at the top while many other pros experienced a tougher road and fell by the wayside. One of the first ones to fall were Xixiang Luo followed later by Danny Tang, then Quan Zhou who couldn’t match his victory performance at the PokerStars High Roller HK$206K buy-in event last month.

For eventual winner Yu, he began his quiet ascent by eliminating Taiwan’s #1 player James Chen, and later China’s Weizhou Zha. With the fall of Winfred Yu, Peter Chan, and Fabian Quoss, the final table was set.

Final Table recap

The final table was comprised of ten players with Yu protected by a healthy stack in fourth position. In the lead was Sukonthachartnant who quickly railed Yuan Li to distance himself further from the pack. When Wang Zuo and Team Tilt King Poker’s Pete Chen both bit the bullet in a dramatic three-way showdown against Yu Liang – Liang’s pocket kings improved to a full house to crack Chen’s pocket aces and burn Zuo’s pocket jacks that turned straight – Liang steamrolled to the chip lead and increased further after delivering Luo Xi as the bubble.

But as quick as it came, it was gone. Yu stole the chip lead from Liang with pocket queens riding high to eliminate Tang Tian Yuan. Sukonthachartnant removed Yu from his high horse after sending Qiang Lin packing, then after several rotations at the top, Liang finished off Macau’s Huidong Gu to hold a dominating lead against Sukonthachartnant and Yu entering the three handed round.

Despite his lead, Liang got pounced on by Yu who chipped away at his big stack until he eventually fell out of the running. The final heads up duel was very lopsided with Yu cradling a 4:1 chip advantage against Sukonthachartnant. From there, it didn’t take long for Yu to shut the door on the Thai pro and capture his first major tournament victory.

Payouts
1st – Chung Yuan Yu – Taiwan – HK$ 1,020,000 (US$ 131,144)
2nd – Phanlert Sukonthachartnant – Thailand – HK$ 661,000
3rd – Yu Liang – China – HK$ 413,000
4th –  Huidong Gu – Macau – HK$ 289,000
5th – Qiang Lin – China – HK$ 207,000
6th – Tang Tiang Yuan – China – HK$ 165,000

Zheng Xiaosheng wins the Warm Up event

Alike Chung Yuan Yu at the High Rollers event, eventual winner Zheng Xiaosheng was also an underdog compared to the number of heavy hitters that showed up at the HK$1,000,000 Guaranteed Warm Up event. The two starting flights dragged in 216 total entries for a prize pool that eclipsed the guarantee to HK$1,292,800.

Entering Day 2, there were 62 players still in contention with poker pro Danny Tang from Team Tilt King Poker as the main man in charge. He was joined by other notables such as Chen An Lin, Soojo Kim, Wei Guoliang, Weiyi Zhang, Xu Liang, and Inaki Santos to mention a few.

However, all those pros were outperformed by Xiaosheng who went on to defeat Day 1A chip leader Kwok Luen Kwan at the final heads up round to claim the HK$355,000 first prize. With no prior record, this becomes Xiaosheng’s first major tournament victory.

Final 8 payouts

1st – Zheng Xiaosheng – China – HK$ 355,000
2nd – Kwok Luen Kwan – Hong Kong – HK$ 249,100
3rd – Meng Guangrui – China – HK$ 160,200
4th – Yang Song – China – HK$ 118,600
5th – Yuhei Sanada – Japan – HK$ 89,000
6th – Chiu Lenn Chun – China – HK$ 71,200
7th – Lin Chen An – China – HK$ 59,100
8th – Sun Xijie – China – HK$ 47,400

The PKC Macau has been ongoing at the Venetian Macao since May 18th and will run until May 26th. The HK$5,000,000 guaranteed Main Event has already begun. Somuchpoker will follow the action and have a recap for you as soon as it wraps up.

Article by Triccia David