APT Macau Championships 2018: Sparrow Park Yu Cheung wins the Championships Event, Hung Sheng Lin APT Player of the Series

The Asian Poker Tour closed out their first event in Macau this year with the APT Macau Championships 2018 running for 12 days from April 25 – May 6 at Macau Billionaire Poker.

The final day of festivities saw the crowning of two highly decorated pros, Hong Kong’s Sparrow Park Yu Cheung for winning the APT Championships Event, and Chinese Taipei’s Hung Sheng Lin for topping the APT Player of the Series race. We’ve got a review of those stories for you below.

Sparrow Cheung claims the Championships Event title

The Championships Event was the second featured tournament of the series with the Main Event the first to complete. 108 players forked out the HKD 22,000 buy-in for a worthwhile prize pool of HKD 2,095,200.

Gauging by the APT live updates, a large majority of the field were established pros. By the time it reached the Final 8, it was no surprise to see the table loaded with high caliber players. Among them were Yuri Ishida, Andy Ying Kit Chan, Masato Yokosawa, and Victor Chong. Two newcomers were back at the Final 8 as well, Sai Ho Philip Chiu and Wang Meng. Impressively, both players were at the Main Event Final 8.

Claiming the title was Hong Kong pro Sparrow Cheung. According to the reports, Cheung entered the Final 8 with a very large stack, part of which was won on a three-way cooler in Day 3 with A-A, besting J88poker Team Pro Tian Hao’s K-K and Daniel Tang’s Q-Q. With Tang backed by more chips than Cheung, Tang survived but Hao was eliminated in 16th place. Cheung also railed the last J88poker Team Pro in the field, Jin Tian. Her A-K fell to Cheung’s K-K to deny her a spot in the Final 8.

Final 8

At the Final 8, the only two entering big stacks, Cheung and Yokosawa, dominated the early rounds. As the table compressed, Chong joined in, surpassing the leaders on occasion.

After the fall of Yokosawa in 4th place, Michael Tran couldn’t keep up with the heavy action and met his end at the hands of Cheung. Added acknowledgement, Tran began the Final 8 as the runt and laddered all the way to 3rd place until his K-J ran into Cheung’s A-A.

At heads up, with Cheung ahead in chips against Chong by a very small margin, the players struck an ICM deal and Cheung was instantly crowned the APT Championships Event winner.

For those who may not know of Cheung, he is recognized worldwide as the player with the highest number of cashes in 2017. One of his payouts last year was a 10th place finish at the same event that he just championed.

This was Cheung’s first major APT victory. and despite it being only his fourth cash for the year, it was a significant one.

Final 8 payouts

1st Sparrow Park Yu Cheung – HKD 428,000 (deal made)
2nd Victor Chong – Malaysia – HKD 421,000 (deal made)
3rd Michael Tran – Australia – HKD 235,700
4th Masato Yokosawa – Japan – HKD 170,100
5th Sai Ho Philip Chiu – Hong Kong – HKD 127,600
6th Andy Ying Kit Chan – Hong Kong HKD 99,700
7th Yuri Ishida – Japan – 81,300
8th Wang Meng – China – HKD 68,700

Hung Sheng Lin wins the APT Player of the Series

One of the APT’s most sought after titles is the APT Player of the Series. This is awarded to the top three players by points at the end of the series.

Bulldozing the competition with 5 deep runs was Chinese Taipei’s Hung Sheng Lin.

Listed below are his achievements:

1st at the Main Event
4th at the Head Hunter
7th at the Super Deep Stack Turbo
14th at the NLH Welcome Event
14th at the APT Japan Corp Main Event Warm Up

He accrued 1049.08 points. He won the APT Player of the Series Cup, exclusive APT POS ring, and US$800.

This was Lin’s second visit to the Macau APT POS stage having won it last December. He became the first player to win this title twice at the same location.

Earning 2nd place was Norway’s Kai Paulsen with 886.78 points. He cashed the most number of times with 6 visits to the cage. And in third was Sparrow Park Yu Cheung with his 3 cashes. He accrued 610.40 points. Both Paulsen and Cheung were awarded a trophy and $100.

Article by Tricia David