Earlier today, U Series of Poker unveiled its newest hardware, the Elite Champions Trophy and just moments ago, the first one was captured by UK’s Ryan Plant at the USOP Hai Phong Superstar Challenge. Along with the trophy Plant won VN₫ 2,180,000,000 (~US$ 88,600), the biggest live tournament score for his poker career. In a brief chat with the newly minted Plant, he shared,
“This is my biggest score in live poker. I won the Mini High Roller last USOP Danang but the trophy is better this time. We made a joke with our friend that that’s what we want to play for, it’s like the nicest trophy.”
With everyone at the table highly decorated, Plant felt his toughest competition were his friend Max Buschmann and Abhinav Iyer.
“Abhi is pretty good. We had similar stacks, then with my Ace-Kings versus pocket Kings, I got a lucky ace on the turn.”
At three-handed, with Plant and Iyer near even in chips, they engaged in a preflop war that ended with Plant calling Iyer’s five-bet shove. Plant had 
, Iyer with 
, the board ran 
. After the count,Iyer still had 1 bb left.
On the next hand, Nguyen Van Binh was all in for his last 6 bb with 
, Iyer joined in with 
, Plant called with 
. The board was 
for a double knockout victory.
The Superstar Challenge was a two-day affair running from September 13 to 14, 2024 at the Dream Dragon Resort. Day 2 saw the return of the final 9 players out of the 68-entry field. Here are the numbers and how they placed.
Buy in: VN₫ 120,000,000 (~US$ 4,800)
Guarantee: VN₫ 3,000,000,000 (~US$ 121,930)
Entries: 68 (47 unique)
Prize pool: VN₫ 7,159,040,000 (~US$ 290,960)
ITM: 10 places
| Place | Player | Flag | Payout in VN₫ |
| 1 | Ryan Plant | UK | 2,180,000,000 |
| 2 | Nguyen Van Binh | Vietnam | 1,454,000,000 |
| 3 | Abhinav Iyer | India | 965,000,000 |
| 4 | Max Buschmann | Germany | 670,000,000 |
| 5 | Yuanxi Chen | Singapore | 480,000,000 |
| 6 | Do Xuan Huan | Vietnam | 360,000,000 |
| 7 | Tao Wei Chang | Taiwan | 295,000,000 |
| 8 | Huu Dung Nguyen | Vietnam | 265,000,000 |
| 9 | Xudong Yang | China | 250,000,000 |
| 10 | Minh A Nguyen | Vietnam | 240,000,000 |
Watch the race to victory via the livestream.
Links:
USOP Hai Phong – News
USOP Hai Phong – Daily Updates
USOP Hai Phong – Schedule / Player Guide
USOP Hai Phong – Photos
USOP Hai Phong – Festival Results
Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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