APT Finale Macau Championships: Final Highlights

With 2017 coming to a close, many poker outfits have already gone on break for the holidays. One of the last ones to host its season-ender was the Asian Poker Tour. Two nights ago, they wrapped up their twelve-day APT Finale Macau Championships event at the Macau Billionaire Poker that ran from November 29 – December 10. Many first time winners scooped up the last remaining trophies however in the APT Player of the Series race, it was the pros that swept it.

Here are the APT POS winners and the festival’s latter half top stories:

Hung Sheng Lin, Michael Soyza, and Kai Paulsen win APT Player of the Series

At the end of every APT festival of 2017, players look forward to the results of the APT Player of the Series. This incentive program recognizes and rewards the top three players that have performed well based on a points system. The final APT POS winners of the year were Hung Sheng Lin (1st), Michael Soyza (2nd), and Kai Paulsen (3rd). All three players had multiple ITMs in the big events.

For winner Lin, ever since he won the APT Regional Player of the Year 2016, he has been quite active in the circuit. To capture the 1st place APT POS trophy, he placed 9th at the Warm Up, 4th at the Head Hunter, and 8th at the Championships Event.

The 2nd placer Soyza participated in two events at the festival and made it into the final table in both. He ended with a 7th place finish at the Main Event and 3rd at the Championships Event. As for Kai Paulsen, he had similar stats to Soyza. He ran deeper at the Main Event with a 5th place berth but at the Championships Event, he ended in 9th place. Both Soyza and Paulsen won respective trophies for the series.

Alecz Xianhe Chan wins the APT Championships Event

The APT Championships Event was the second major tournament offered at the finale and this one had a HKD 22,000 entry fee which was double the buy-in of the Main Event. As expected, this limited the field however there certainly was no lack of pros present. By the time it reached the final table, most of the ten players were backed by a long list of poker career achievements.

Running down the names and how they fared, we start with Park Yu Sparrow Cheung, the player that racks up an incredible amount of cashes every year. He recently placed 2nd at the Suncity Cup 2017 and made sure to add another ITM before the year was up. He finished in 10th place.

The next two up on the rung were APT POS winners, Kai Paulsen (9th) and Hung Sheng Lin (8th). China’s Terry Tang Tian Yuan took 7th. Tang has definitely made his presence felt this year. He finished 2nd at the PokerStars Championships Macau Main Event in April and has continued to run deep in big events nearly every month.

Considerably the most decorated player at the final table was Australia’s Kahle Burns finishing in 6th place. In earnings alone, Burns is closing in on US$3M. He mainly plays big buy-in events in Macau and Australia. Two months ago, Burns hit jackpot with his first seven digit payout of US$1.3M at the Triton Super High Roller Event where he finished in 3rd place.

Coming in 5th was Justin Pak Kwan Chan. Chan is another well-known player in the Asian circuit. This year has been good for him, earning 6 five-digit scores to go with his numerous ITMs. Taking 4th place was one of APT’s highly decorated players, Tetsuya Tsuchikawa. The Japanese pro has been on fire at the APT this year and what a better way to end the season than with a deep run in this event.

The next two players were Malaysian pros Christopher Michael Soyza (3rd) and Victor Chong (2nd). For Soyza, he has really broken through this year and has been charging up the ranks in super speed. Recently he won the Suncity Cup High Roller event making that his second HR victory this year. He won the Macau Poker Cup High Roller event in September for his largest payout of HKD 2,037,000 (US$260,552).

As for Victor Chong, he was in prime form to win the event topping Day 2 and only falling as low as second rank. However, at heads up, the stacks were fairly even so he opted to just split the money down the middle and flip for the trophy.

Singapore’s Alecz Xianhe Chan, the player at the final table with the least amount of live career earnings, won the Championships Event. This was Chan’s first-ever victory and it was a big one. It more than doubled his total live earnings. He bested a field of 87 entries and won HK$369,950 (~US$47,300).

Payouts

1st Alecz Xianhe Chan – Singapore – HK$369,950 (~US$47,300)
2nd Victor Chong – Malaysia – HK$369,950
3rd Christopher Michael Soyza – HK$202,900
4th Tetsuya Tsuchikawa – Japan – HK$155,600
5th Justin Pak Kwan Chan – Hong Kong – HK$133,700
6th Kahle Burns – Australia – HK$115,400
7th Terry Tang – China – HK$100,300
8th Hung Sheng Lin – Chinese Taipei – HK$88,100
9th Kai Paulsen – Norway – HK$79,700
10th Park Yu Sparrow Cheung – Hong Kong – HK$72,200

Yunsheng Sun profits the most at the High Rollers

The biggest cash winner at the festival didn’t come from the featured events but from the High Rollers with 31 players coughing up the HK$43,000 entry fee. China’s Yunsheng Sun overcame the power-packed roster of players to ship in a cool HK$481,800 in cash and his first APT title. With this victory, Sun can now add another High Roller trophy to his shelf, matching the one he captured at the WPT National China in late October.

Article by Triccia David