HomeMalaysia’s Choong Kian Weng, without a doubt the most active player at the Final 8 of the APT Main Event, took his stack all the way to the heads up round then crushed Vietnam’s Dang Van Hien to seize the HKD 521,000 first place purse, the APT Championship Trophy, and the exclusive APT Championship Ring.
APT Macau Main Event Champion, Choong Kian Weng
Weng’s road to victory
Choong Kian Weng’s quest for the title began all the way back in Day 1A where he topped the 44 player field to enter Day 2 running second-in-chips to Day 1B chip leader, China’s Yang Song. By the end of Day 2, Song was nowhere to be found while Weng ruled the charts with a stack that dwarfed all others. In Day 3, he helped trim the field by eliminating two players, Wang Ye (11th) and Weiyi Zhang (15th) then secured his seat to the Final 8.
Getting to the finish line wasn’t exactly a breeze for Weng. The Final 8 players all wanted the glory that it took over two hours before the first casualty was delivered. Germany’s Kilian Loeffler, who happened to be the Final 8 entering chip leader, fell with K♥ K♠ running right into Dang Van Hien’s A♦ A♣. Not long after, Dang also eliminated China’s Xu Dong Hui in 7th place to take a commanding chip lead which he brought all the way to the final heads up round.
After a few more fallouts, the three-handed round saw Weng do some damage of his own. He went pound for pound against Indian player Shravan Chhabria and after several heated exchanges, Weng eventually got the best of Chhabria. He sent Chhabria crashing out in 3rd place to enter the heads up round against Dang just slightly dominated in chips.
Heads up round: Weng vs Dang
And now we get to Weng’s defining moment, his prowess at the heads up round. The first pot came and went with Dang adding more chips to his pile however that would be his only pot to have. Weng proceeded to take charge and won an incredible seven hands in a row. The sixth pot was pretty much the game changer where Weng banked over 70% of the chips in play. He called Dang’s huge check-raise on the turn on a board that completed to 3♠ 5♥ 8♣ 8♠ 7♠. Weng held A♦ 3♦ for a winning two pair over Dang’s A♣ J♦ pair. Read here for the Hand History.
The seventh hand was the end of Dang. He was all in with A♦ 6♥ only to discover he was still way behind Weng’s A♠ Q♥. The board spread to Q♣ 2♣ 3♥ 10♠ 9♥.
Congratulations to Choong Kian Weng for his masterful victory at the APT Main Event!
The APT Macau 2017 attracted 118 players to the Macau Billionaire Poker room in Babylon Casino for the Asian Poker Tour’s highlight tournament, the APT Main Event. With an entry fee of HKD 19,800, the prize pool amounted to HKD 2,039,000. The APT donated 5% of the prize pool to the Holy House of Mercy Macau charity organization.
You can view the Payouts and the Live Updates right here. You can also watch the daily highlights of the APT Macau 2017 in our APT YouTube channel.