HomeFinal five winners of the series; Vin Huynh wins the Pro Poker High Rollers
The last trophies of the APT Kickoff Vietnam 2018 at Pro Poker Club left the awards table and into the hands of well-deserved champions. Here are the festival’s final five winners:
Pro Poker Club High Rollers: Vinh Huynh
The three-day Pro Poker Club High Rollers event featuring a VND 2 Billion guarantee saw 114 entries wager in the big bucks. At VND 32 million each, this drove the prize pool upwards of VND 3,327,400,000 with 19 players earning a profit. Claiming the kingly share and the trophy was Vin Huynh who defeated Denis Pham at the heads up round. Huynh earned VND 701,970,000 (ICM deal made) and his first-ever APT trophy.
Picking up the action at the final 8 table, Michael Kim Falcon was sporting the biggest stack. With blinds rolled back, action was slow that it took nearly two hours to trim the field down to the final 3 players. By then, Falcon had amassed an even larger stack with three of those eliminations under his belt. However, Falcon’s bid for the title would fall short in 3rd place. He lost two costly pots to Pham with the larger of the two on a called bluff then was cleaned out by Huynh who also exposed Falcon’s bluff shove.
The heads up round between Pham and Huynh began with Pham behind in chips. He made quick work of switching it up and from there, he began to grind down Huynh. Huynh answered with a timely double up holding K♥ Q♥ over Q♣ 10♥ on a board running A♠ 10♠ 7♠ 8♥ K♣. And just like that, with his higher pair, Huynh was back on top.
Needing to make up the lost chips, Pham went back to the grind and just before the witching hour, the final hand arrived. Pham was all in for his tournament life with A♥ 10♣ and faced Huynh’s 8♠ 8♣. The board bricked 9♥ 4♠ 5♠ 4♣ Q♦ and with his pocket pair, Huynh triumphed the event.
Monster Stack champion: Norbert Koh
Despite the limited number of tables in the room, the Monster Stack event was able to seat 117 entries and at VND 7,700,000, each, this generated a nice sweet pot totaling VND 794,430,000. Coming out on top was Singaporean Norbert Koh who defeated Indonesia’s Mustafa Mayaki at the final heads up round. Koh shipped in the VND 170,018,000 first place cash and the fifth APT trophy of his career.
Super Deep Stack Turbo 2 champion: John Tech
Late afternoon players were delighted to see that the Super Deep Stack Turbo 2 event went on as planned. The event pulled in 95 eager players to the floor for a prize pool of VND 368,600,000. During the wee hours of the night, Philippines’s John Tech overcame a swinging heads up match against Scotland’s Chris Morrison to win the VND 93,150,000 first prize.
6 Handed Turbo w/Antes champion: Michael Shell
The 6 Handed Turbo event saw USA’s Michael Shell flip the script to bag a trophy. He overcame a 10:1 chip deficit against Vietnam’s Tran Viet Hoang and outlasted a 77-entry field to claim the title and the lion share VND 80,480,000 of the VND 298,760,000 prize pool.
The final hand saw Shell with 9-5 offsuit, Tran with 2-4 diamond suited, and both players all in on a board of A-6-5-9 with two diamonds showing. Tran missed the flush on the river and Shell won the event with his two pair. Shell also ran deep in two other events, 8th at the NLH 1 and 4th at the Super Deep Stack Turbo 1.
Deep Stack Hyper Turbo champion: Anh Nguyen
The last event of the series was the Deep Stack Hyper Turbo with 76 players signing on. At VND 3,300,000 buy-in each, the prize pool amounted to VND 221,160,000 with 13 players earning a piece. The top five players all hailed from host country Vietnam and ruling over them all was Anh Nguyen taking down the event to win the title and the VND 59,590,000 first place cash.