Poker Dream and Top Joy Poker Tour Tie-Up in Full Swing Above the Clouds of Kuala Lumpur

Poker Dream 9 Malaysia, in partnership with Chinese gaming brand Top Joy Poker Tour (TJPT), is in full swing and currently takes place at the Resorts World Genting in the mountain resort outside of Kuala Lumpur.

Poker Dream, one of the newest emerging live poker tours debuted at the very same venue in July 2022 and this is the ninth stop, of which five have now taken place in Malaysia. The latest edition kicked off on March 28 and the series will run all the way until April 8, 2024. With buy-ins ranging from RM 450 ($95) to RM 30,000 ($6,329), there is an event for everyone on the diverse schedule.

Poker Dream 9 Malaysia Early Winners

Several winners have already been crowned during the first half of the Poker Dream 9 Malaysia series, which has attracted not only players from all over the country but also other regulars on the Asia-Pacific live poker circuit. Team India, for example, was spotted with Poker Dream Main Event reigning champion Zarvan Tumboli, WSOP bracelet winner Abhinav Iyer, and WPT DeepStacks champion Dhaval Mudgal while recent Vietnam crusher Anthony Cierco from France, Vietnam’s Nguyen Quang Huy, Australia’s Anton Lu, Filipino David Erquiaga are also chasing further glory for the growing trophy cabinet at home.

It all kicked off with Event #1 Malaysia Open, which featured a bargain buy-in of RM 1,000 and a guarantee of RM 1,000,000. That number was crushed with RM 1,642,212 up for grabs and a total of 191 players survived their starting days to secure a cash prize. Six of the final nine players were from Malaysia with Singapore duo Jass Chew and Xiao Yi Loo as well as Hong Kong’s Yi Shing Yiu bowing out in eighth to sixth place, ensuring that the trophy would stay on home turf. Tea Fook Yap and Cliff Lim agreed to a heads-up deal with the former earning RM 224,000 while Lim snatched the trophy along with RM 237,412.

Team Malaysia was also out in full force in Event #2 RM 15,000 Short Deck, which produced a prize pool of RM 588,984. The top six spots were paid and all but one of the finalists was from the home country. Ming Hong Teoh min-cashed for RM 41,000 while Thai / Aussie Phachara Wongwichit collected RM 68,000 for fourth place. The top three are all well-known locals including Alex Yee, Ying Lin Chua and Wai Kiat Lee, the latter of which regularly competes in the Triton Super High Roller Series. It was Lee who topped it all for RM 200,500.

When adding two cards for each participant in Event #3 Pot Limit Omaha, only one Malaysian player cashed as the RM 374,808 prize pool was split among the top five. The heads-up duel featured Jun Hao Wu from Singapore versus Terry Gonzaga from the Philippines and it was Gonzaga who lifted the trophy for the winner shot, earning a payday of RM 137,808.

An even split in heads-up ended Event #4 NLH Turbo, which featured a buy-in of RM 1,000. Jedidah Tan from Singapore and Andrew Helfman of the United States earned the biggest slice of the RM 72,590 prize pool, taking home RM 17,045 each. On the same day, Poker Dream co-founder Winfred Yu narrowly missed out on a trophy in Event #5 Short Deck after he lost heads-up to Xu Qiang to earn a consolation prize of RM 13,400. Xu claimed the top spot for RM 19,280, which was more than one third of the RM 52,380 prize pool.

Several Mystery Bounty tournaments followed in quick succession on the schedule. The first one to finish, Event #7 Mystery Bounty Turbo came with a buy-in of RM 1,000 and resulted in a three-way deal. With RM 114,800 in the pot, Malaysian players Wai Seng Liew (RM16,100), Daniel Wong (RM18,700) and Vincent Hong (RM17,800) earned the biggest prizes out of the cash portion.

The RM 10,000 High Roller Edition generated a cash prize pool of RM 586,746 while RM 297,000 were awarded as bounty prizes. A total of 13 players cashed in the event with international players such as Aladin Reskallah, Khoa Anh Ngo, Danny Tang and Mike Takayama in the money. Three of the final four players in contention were from China with Qiang Xu defeating Yake Wu in heads-up for a top prize of RM 155,500.

Event #9: RM 1,000 DeepStack Turbo brought another trophy for the home crowd as Wai Seng Lam defeated “Willy” from Indonesia in heads-up to claim RM 36,000 for his efforts, Joshua Figuerres from the Philippines finished in third place (RM 16,706).

One of the most notable Side Events on the schedule is the RM 20,000 High Roller, which attracted a field of 108 entries. They created a prize pool of RM 1,927,584 ($406,661) and a total of 15 players cashed with aforementioned Yake Wu first to bust in the money. It came as no surprise that some well-known Asian High Rollers ended up on the final table such as Jun Hao Wu, Chin Wei “Webster” Lim, Nang Quang Nguyen and Wei Hsiang Yeu, but they all headed to the payout desk before the heads-up duel was set.

Choon Tong Siow finished as the runner-up for RM 340,584 ($71,853) but Jason Mo from the US, a blast from the past in the international poker scene, came out on top. The last recorded live score from Mo was back in 2017 at the Aussie Millions and he had earned more than $2 million cashes. Mo collected the trophy and a top prize of RM 496,000 ($104,648) for the efforts.

Singapore earned a title in Event #13 RM1,500 Pot Limit Omaha, in which seven of the 13 players in the money were from Malaysia. Christine Hia finished on the podium in third place for RM 16,100 while Wei Li See became the runner-up for RM 24,500. But it was Yong Fatt Lee who claimed the trophy and RM 35,310 for the efforts.

Six of the final nine players in Event #14 Win the Button Turbo represented Malaysia and Ming Kiat Chock defeated Daniel Wong in heads-up. They earned the biggest slice of the RM 120,414 prize pool with RM 29,014 for the former and RM 19,700 for Wong.

The Ladies Event featured RM 300 Rebuys & Add-ons with a total of 120 runners. That resulted in a prize pool of RM 26,368 with a Chinese heads-up for the title. Yiwen Yuan was defeated by Wang Yu and received a consolation prize of RM 4,568 while Yu earned the trophy and RM 6,700.

Last but not least, another duo of RM1,000 Mystery Bounty Events has already concluded in back-to-back days on April 2 and 3, 2024. The first one saw Jose Colada finish as the runner-up for RM 15,700 in cash while Jun Shen Lam from Singapore emerged as the winner, taking home RM 23,296. A total of 31 players then cashed in the second edition and the Singapore flag was waved again. Eugene Zhou earned RM 30,030 while runner-up Hyunkoog Koo from South Korea had to settle for RM 20,000.

Main Event Underway

While all the other Side Events have already been in full swing, the first two flights of the Main Event are also completed. The Poker Dream 9 Malaysia Main Event features a guaranteed prize pool of RM10,500,000 with three different buy-in levels. In terms of US Dollars, that’s at least $2,215,189 up for grabs, the biggest guarantee in the history of Poker Dream and live poker in Asia.

Day 1a drew a total of 34 runners and three of them made it through including Robert Sherwood (40,000), Guanyuan Zhang (108,000) and Zijie Lu (362,000).

The second starting day attracted 103 entries of which 11 players advanced. Julian Warhurst carried over the smallest stack of 37,000 while fellow Aussie William Jia finished Day 1b in fourth place (198,000). Two new overall chip leaders emerged in Jihao Chen (442,000) and Siarhei Chudapal (547,000).

Half of the alphabet will have vanished when all Main Event starting days have completed in the days to come, and all of them also have milestone satellites available to win a seat for a fraction of the respective buy-ins.

Poker Dream 8 Malaysia’s biggest winners

Up next: Poker Dream 10 Vietnam

Once the series in Malaysia is completed, players in Asia don’t have to wait long for the next Poker Dream stop. In fact, it will be fewer than one full month as Poker Dream 10 Vietnam is scheduled to take place from April 29 until May 5, 2024, at the luxurious Hoiana Resort & Gold. Back in October 2022, the second-ever stop of the live poker brand took place at the same venue.

*Article by Christian Zetzsche