HomeAfter four days of top-notch poker, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Philippines 2013 Main Event ended Wednesday when the final 8 players of a 205-player field returned to decide the champion of this tournament with a $2,700 buy-in. Khac Trung Tran from Australia emerged as the winner in historic fashion as he bagged the title in just 2 hands of play in the heads-up round and for his effort, went home $124,000 richer in the event held here at the Resorts World Manila (RWM).
APT Philippines 2013 Main Event Champion, Khac Trung Tran
The winning hand for Tran was J♠ Q♥ after his heads-up opponent, Thang Truong, also from Australia, called his shove worth over 2.5 million. Truong was ahead preflop with A♣ 6♦ but all that would change after the flop 3♣ 9♦ J♦ came to the board. Turn Q♦ and river Q♣ confirmed Tran’s coronation as the newest APT champion.
Tran actually had an up and down campaign in this main event but showed enough consistency to advance through the multi-day tournament. Going into Day 2, his stack was just around the average (56,525) but picked it up at the end of that day moving to fourth place (257,500) in the overall chip rankings. He maintained the pace and placed 5th (332,000) going into the final day of play.
During the Final Table, he continued being consistent—and aggressive—winning key hands left and right including the huge one that not only brought him the chip lead but also in dealing the biggest bust out of the night—eliminating Nam Le, Day 3 chip leader and inarguably the most popular player in the final table.
Tran caught Le bluffing with 8♦ K♣ as the Australian called with the Big Slick A♠ K♦ and both players were all-in in a pot worth well over 2.5 million. The board was K♥ J♦ 2♥ 7♠ J♥ paving the way for Tran to become the runaway chip leader with just 3 players left.
Le was the chip leader going into the Final Table. And curiously, Tran also scalped the head of two other erstwhile chip leaders in Andrew Gaw (No. 1 in chips after Day 2 chip leader) and Moses Saquin (No. 1 in chips in Day 1B).
With A♦ A♥, Tran eliminated Gaw, who only had A♣ 9♣, on a dry board of 5♦ 6♦ 4♦ 5♥ 9♥. Against Saquin, Tran called his opponent’s all-in post-flop J♣ J♦ 6♦ with 9♣ 9♠ which was a good read as Saquin only had A♣ 8♣. Turn 9♦ and river 9♥ gave him unnecessary quads that put him among the chip leaders at that point of the tournament.
Recap all the exploits of the champion in APT’s live reporting page.
APT Philippines 2013 Main Event Awarding Ceremony
Completing the big winners in the main event are Truong at 2nd place ($71,600); Sekiya Yosuke at 3rd ($48,700); Le at 4th ($38,400) and Homan Houshiar at 5th ($28,300). To view complete list of 27 players who made it to the money, go to our payouts page.
View the complete list of winners in the APT Philippines 2013 Event Results. The APT returns to RWM later this year in October for the APT Asian Series Manila. Regularly check the APT site for more updates of future APT events for 2013.