USOP Grand Finale Smashes Guarantee With 1,582 Madness Kick Off Entries; Yuan Xu Leads In Day 2

The second day of the U Series of Poker – USOP Grand Finale at the Pullman Grand Hotel in Hai Phong, Vietnam, brought with it a sense of excitement as the series kicked into a higher gear.

Taking charge of the floor was the first key event of the festival, the highly popular Madness Kick Off, which ran its final two flights out of four scheduled. By the end of registration, the VND 10 Billion guarantee was utterly demolished with a roaring 1,582 total entries generating VND 14,722,092,000 (~US$ 580,000). This set a new prize pool record for this event, surpassing its past numbers by nearly VND 5 Billion! Here are the day’s highlights.

Madness Kick Off Flight C and Flight D

The day opened with Flight C of the Madness Kickoff taking off. Within the first three levels, the room was filling up with 200 entries that tripled to a roaring 606 entries  (418 unique) by the end of registration. This turnout was bigger than the attendance of the first two flights (Day1A and Day 1B) combined, marking USOP history as being the largest flight in an opening event in terms of the entry numbers.

Yuan Xu Bags Overall Lead

The attendance from the first three flights already gave assurances that the prize pool would surpass the guarantee and the last Day 1D flight would just add more “gravy.” China’s Yuan Xu topped the 76 Day 1C survivors with the highest chip count of 647,000 and slid into the top spot in the Day 2 qualifiers list.

Andres Vasquez Tops Last Flight

The final chance to enter was at Flight D which brought with it 487 entries (329 unique).  Andres Vasquez of Colombia led the 61 survivors with the largest chip stack of 507,000. This was Vasquez’s first USOP visit. Vietnam’s Duy Thuc Nguyen finished with a second-ranked 400,000 chips with countryman Van Du Long holding the third spot with 397,000.

The conclusion of all flights meant the completion of the cast for the Madness Kickoff Day 2 Final. A total of 1,582 entries were recorded with 198 returning for Day 2, each one already guaranteed a minimum payout of VND 18,500,000 (~USD 730). When it resumes, the goal for players is to clinch the title where a shiny USOP Trophy awaits along with a winner’s purse of VND 2.15 BILLION (~USD 85,000).

Follow the Day 2 action via the SMP Live Updates.

Madness Kick Off Review

• Date: November 29 to December 1, 2024
• Buy in: VND 11,000,000 (~US$ 435)
• Guarantee: VND 10,000,000,000 (~US$ 394,250)
• Entries: 1,582 (1105 unique)
• Prize pool: VND 14,722,092,000 (~US$ 580,000)
• ITM: 198 players

Check out these useful links for more on this event:

Madness Kickoff – Payouts
Live Updates & News

USOP Grand Finale – Schedule
USOP Grand Finale

– Photos

High Roller Results

Apart from the Madness Kickoff breaking records, another day’s highlight was the High Roller: Weekend Single Day, which attracted players with a VND 1,500,000,000 (~USD 60,000) guaranteed prize pool. 126 entries filled the tables and boosted the prize pool nearly four times to VND 5,922,000,000 (~USD 233,000).

Sean Ooi Wins High Roller Weekend Single Day

The top 19 players were given access to the payout circle with the top prize awarded to Malaysian Sean Ooi, who outlasted the entire field to win the High Roller: Weekend Single Day trophy and a lion’s share worth VND 1,450,000,000 (~USD 57,000).  Ooi navigated through a tough final table and outplayed Vietnam’s Xuan Truong Bui in a heads-up battle to earn the title. Bui earned himself a runner-up payout of VND 997,500,000 (~USD 40,000).

Final Table Payouts

Side Event Results

An offering of fun side events also brought added excitement to the USOP Hai Phong Grand Finale series. The Grand Ballroom of the Pullman Grand Hotel was abuzz from all corners where various events were simultaneously taking place.

The Weekend Event brought 43 players buying in for VND 7,000,000 (~USD 280) to create a decent prize pool of VND 254,600,000 (~USD 10,000). The top 6 players would earn their share from that pool with the biggest share of VND 96,700,000 (~USD 3,800) landing to champion Chee Wei Pun.

The MIni High Roller (VND 500 Million Guaranteed) saw 49 players pushing the prize pool to VND 921,000,000 (~USD 36,000) with the top 7 earning a share from that. Winning that event to take home the prize of VND 320,000,000 (~USD 12,500) was Vietnam’s Hoang Anh Nguyen who defeated New Zealand’s Natalia Rozova heads-up to top the event. Rozova made VND 200,000,000 (~USD 7,800) for the second place finish.

The Pot Limit Omaha – Turbo brought a different poker variant event to the mix, attracting 30 players to play for a share in the VND 152,200,000 (~USD 600) prize pool. Only 4 places were paid with the championship payout landing to Guangrui Meng of China, bagging home VND 70,000,000 (~USD 2,700) in winnings.

The Win The Button – Hyper Turbo also added some fun to the series, bringing together 43 players to compete for a share from the VND 145,512,000 (~USD 5,700) prize pool. Only the top 5 would be allowed to climb the payout ladder with Chenglin Shi of China making it to the highest spot as the champion to claim VND 59,500,000 (~USD 2,300).