Strong & Savvy Opening For USOP Grand Finale In Hai Phong; Hung Xuan Ha, Travis Endersby Top Madness Flights; John Perry Among Side Winners

The U Series of Poker is back again in Hai Phong, Vietnam to end the year with a better offering of poker events from its last visit. Already underway, the USOP Grand Finale booked the bigger and more luxurious Grand Ballroom of the Pullman Grand Hotel to host over 69 events and 27 satellites running from November 29 to Dec 1, 2024.

Destined to make history by offering a staggering VND 100 Billion (~USD 4 Million) guaranteed in prizes throughout several major poker tournaments in the next 13 days, this is the largest guarantee offered by any brand in the country. For this, a total of 70 poker tables fill the ballroom along with a stage to perch a very eye-catching setup that will be used to livestream final table action via the USOP Facebook page and YouTube channel.

USOP Grand Finale Is Underway

On its opening day, the USOP Grand Finale ran two guaranteed events. The VND 1.28 Billion (~USD 50,500) guarantee was offered at the Single Day High Roller: Warm Up with the 105 entries ponying up the VND 44 Million (~USD 1,735) buy in pumping the guarantee over three times to VND 3,948,000,000 (~USD 155,700). A total of 16 places were paid with John Perry of Australia taking home the championship trophy after defeating Yu Chung Chang of Taiwan in a tough back and forth heads-up battle.

After playing several hands, Perry and Chang struck an ICM deal then played for the trophy.  Perry won it and earned VND 839,282,000 (~USD 33,100) while Chang walked away with the higher payout of VND 909,318,000 (~US$ 35,850).

Final Table Payouts

The

Madness Kickoff

 was also launched as the first multi-day event of the series, offering a guarantee of 

VND 10,000,000,000 (~USD 400,000)

. Two day one flights (Day 1A and Day 1B) were included in the day's schedule.

Staying true to its name, a roaring crowd filled the room. Day 1A saw 212 entries complete the VND 11,000,000 (~USD 430) buy-in  with 27 contenders bagging their chips to move on to the Day 2 Final. Day 1B had more customers with 277 entries and ended up with 35 going to the Day 2 Final on December 1, where all qualifiers are guaranteed at least a minimum payout from the prize pool.

Read up on the action via the

SP Live Updates.

Day 1A chip count leader

Hung Xuan Ha

amassed a total of 567,000 chips.

Duc Minh Nguyen

followed with the second highest stack of 450,000. Rounding up the top three of the flight was

Khanh Ngoc Nguyen

with 369,000 chips.

Meanwhile, Day 1B was led by 

Graeme Travis Endersby

 who bagged 536,000 chips. Not that far behind was 

Hongru Zhang

 with 532,000 followed by third-ranked 

Wongyu Kang

 with 504,000.

Read up on the action via the

SMP Live Updates.

Two more flights will be played on November 30 with more entries expected to push the prize pool beyond the guarantee. The full chip counts from both flights will be made available alongside the chip counts of the other qualifiers from the last two flights before entering Day 2.

Other side events were also on the opening day itinerary, such as the

Double Board - Single Winner

, which had 8 entries ponying up the VND 4.5 Million (~USD 177) buy-in to build a prize pool of 

VND 30,080,000 (~USD 1,180)

. Two places were supposed to be awarded the share of the prize pool, but a three-way split was agreed upon by the top 3 for 

VND 10,027,000 (~USD 395)

 with the trophy and the title up for grabs. The championship was won by 

Xin Xing Tang

 of China taking the USOP trophy. Second place went to 

Hong Nhung Nguyen

 of Vietnam and third place to 

Tianbo Jiang

of China.

The 

7-Handed Hyper Turbo

 also played out with 51 hopefuls paying the VND 4 Million entrance fee (~USD 160)  to build a prize pool of 

VND 172, 584,000 (~USD 6,800)

. Six places were paid with the trophy and the champion's purse of 

VND 70,000,000 (~USD 2,760)

 awarded to 

Haoran Sun 

of China after taking out Taiwan's 

Tao-Wei Chang 

in a heads-up battle. Chang took home a runner-up payout of 40,000,000 (~USD 1,570).

There are still more exciting events to follow with a lot more prizes to be guaranteed. Click on the following links below for more information:

Links:

USOP Grand Finale - Schedule

USOP - Live Updates & News

For those that plan to check out the city, outside of the Pullman Grand Hotel, Hai Phong itself is an idyllic city deep with Vietnamese culture and history. Vietnamese food, of course, is a highlight unto its own and Hai Phong offers a lot of variety not just among the local cuisine, but some of the more imaginative international fusion of culinary offerings. Be sure to check it out while in Hai Phong.