Hal Rotholz Captures Mixed Games Masters as Natural8 Cup Championship Breaks Seven Figures

Record-setting fields continued to shape the APT Championship 2025 as Day 7 unfolded inside Red Space 多元商務空間 Taipei. The festival has been fuelled by APT’s partnerships with Natural8 and the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Club , creating a consistent level of energy that has carried through every day of the series so far.

American mixed-games specialist Hal Rotholz added another strong result to his resume after taking down the Mixed Games Masters 9-Game. The New York native, who has more than USD 1.7 million in live earnings, navigated a 58-entry field to collect TWD 450,960 (~USD 14,350) and secure his fourth APT title.

It marks his first recorded win since the APT Incheon stop earlier this year, where he claimed the KRW 600k Badugi event. With several deep runs already posted this week and two earlier final tables, Rotholz will be looking to carry that momentum through the rest of the series.

#66 Mixed Games Masters - 9-Game (NLH - Razz - 2-7 Triple - PLO - Stud H/L - Limit Hold'em - 2-7 Single - Stud - Omaha H/L) (30,000 TWD)

Total Prize USD

$48,650

Total Prize

NT$1,503,360

Entries

58

ITM

8

#	Payout	Player	SPI
1	NT$450,960 $14,595	HR Hal Rotholz United States of America	718.23
2	NT$326,200 $10,555	HT Hanh Tran Austria	507.87
3	NT$210,500 $6,810	KY Kaito Yamamoto Japan	414.67
4	NT$159,400 $5,160	MF Mark Furniss Australia	359.12
5	NT$123,300 $3,990	YW Yutang Wang Taiwan	321.20
6	NT$96,200 $3,115	KC Kevin Choi Hong Kong	293.22
7	NT$76,700 $2,480	JP Jiang Pu United Kingdom	271.47
8	NT$60,100 $1,945	AT Alex Tchong Australia	253.93

Natural8 Cup Championship Freezout Heats Up on Day 2

One of the festival’s Hallmark events, the Natural8 Cup Championship Freezeout crossed its guarantee early, and steady arrivals across the afternoon lifted the prize pool to TWD 39,372,480, roughly USD 1.27 million. It stands as the second-largest prize pool of the festival so far and another sign of how strong this stop has been from the start.

For the second time this festival, India’s Akshay Nasa bagged the overnight chip lead in an APT Championship event. He also led heading into the final day of the 7-Max Championship earlier in the week, where he eventually finished in 20th place

Natural8 Cup Championship Top 10 Chip Counts

Nasa returned to Day 2 only a touch above the 40,000 starting stack but climbed steadily, moving past six figures by the dinner break and keeping the pressure on throughout the evening. While Nasa drew plenty of praise for his performance, it was short-stacked Seungyeol Kim who grabbed attention, surviving a forced all-in and lasting another orbit with just a single 1,000-chip stack; a classic chip-and-a-chair story.

Several of the early front-runners fell away as the field thinned, including start-of-day chip leader Jason Li, two-time APT champion Lester Edoc fell after his aces were cracked by Kim Fernandez ’s queens, Romania’s Alexandru Papazian , Thai TV host Napat Chokejindachai , South Korea’s Sung Jin Yun while the night ended with Wun Long Liu as the unlucky bubble, unable to catch the flip with overcards.

For the Full Natural8 Cup Championship Freezeout Survivor List: click here

Play has resumed today as the field races down to the final table of nine. Catch all the on-the-ground live updates right here at Somuchpoker and follow the action as it unfolds.