Australia: Top pros make their mark
We should probably begin with the impressive summer of James Obst when talking about Australia, as he continues to make a name for himself as one of the best players in Australia, and beyond. Obst enjoyed an extremely deep run in the WSOP main Event, finishing in 13th place. This run in itself, is impressive, but it was in fact one of 8 WSOP cashes made by Obst this summer. He managed a 10th, a 7th and a 2nd place among them.
Martin Kozlov went one better than Obst in many ways, capturing his first bracelet in the $10K 6 Max NLH event. Kozlov won USD$665,709 for this result, boosting his career cashes to almost USD$1.6 million. He also picked up a 5th place during the series, which was one of 7 cashes.
Alexander Lynskey also had an impressive WSOP this summer, as he picked up 7 cashes, and some further additions to his total career cashes of USD$1,091,173. His best result this summer was an 8th place in the $5K NLH 6 Handed event, which earned him USD$54,966.
Asia: One Bracelet for China
One of the most interesting results of the WSOP from an Asian perspective, was the second bracelet won by China. As a country where poker is not embraced by any means, most would not expect much success from China on poker’s biggest stage. Not only do they now have a bracelet winner though, they have two. Yue Du took gold in the $5K NLH event, and saw off some strong competition to win just over USD$800,000.
Naoya Kihara may not have added another bracelet this summer, but he was certainly busy accumulating cashes, and as a result of his efforts, finished as the highest ranking Asian player on the WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard. He remains an inspiration to up and coming Japanese poker players.
Terry Fan is one of the most widely recognisable stars of Taiwanese poker, and was certainly busy this summer, notching 7 cashes throughout the course of the series. He took 6th place in the $1K Turbo NLH event for USD$38,452 and was one of the higher ranking players from Asia at the series.
Park Yu “Sparrow” Cheung also had an excellent series. He picked up 9 cashes with as best result a 6th place in the $1,000 Online event,.
Article by Craig B / Cover Photo courstesy of PokerStars
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
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