HomeHO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – Coming in to the Heads-Up duel as an overwhelming underdog, Vietnamese resident Aigar Plivcs of Latvia defeats Great Britain’s Grant Gardner to cop the APT Vietnam Ho Chi Minh 2022 Super High-Rollers (Event #2) for the host nation’s second trophy at the Saigon Poker Club here.
Plivcs also had the shortest stack with four players remaining and was down 251,000 to 949,000 against Gardner when the final clash began. A series of post-flop maneuvers and an amazing hero call with top pair on a board that could have had a one card straight had Plivcs turning the tide and sent Gardner into several pre-flop shoves that had him double up a couple of times.
Gardner, an award-winning bodybuilder in Thailand—his country of residence—ran into disaster on his last shove when his KsJh was quickly called by Plivcs with a dominating AhJd. Plivcs crushed Gardner’s hopes with a board that went AsJs9h with Gardner needing running cards to make a Flush. When the 7c came on the turn, Gardner immediately stood up and congratulated Plivcs for the triumph in an epic tussle that lasted for more than two hours.
Plivcs picked up the title and the biggest prize of the competition with VND1,138,690,000.00 (approximately US$49,000.00) while Gardner settled for the VND 610,800,000.00 (US$26,264.00) runner-up purse—still not bad for a two-day grind.
