HomeIt was an action packed nine days of poker festivities at the Asian Poker Tour Cebu 2016 in partnership with the All In Poker Club located at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Lahug, Cebu. There were around 300 individual poker players representing 24 countries around the globe, with over 1,500 entries, amassing a total prize pool of around P20M throughout the entire festival.
The Opening Event set a good pace for the week as it surpassed the P1M guarantee with a good turnout of players. This event was won by Filipino player, Chris Mateo, whose efforts finally paid off after having placed third at the same event during the APT Kickoff last month.
There were quite a number of players with multiple cashes at the festival. One of them was Korea’s John Kim who won the Open Face Chinese Pineapple Shootout. Kim also made it into the Final 8 of the Main Event and finished in 6th place. Another regular face at the APT, Denmark’s Michael Kim Falcon, posted some high marks as well. He placed second at the Head Hunter event, third at the No Limit Hold ‘em 1 Day event, and a 3rd place finish at the Main Event.
The Main Event champion was UK’s Alex Ward who took home the biggest cash prize of the entire festival, P1,783,000. Some interesting facts to mention, for the first time in APT history, there were two women in the Final 8, both of them newcomers to the APT scene. Korean crowd favorite, Ji Young Kim, finished second, and Singapore’s Sheila Chung, finished 7th. Chung also cashed at the Opening Event, finishing second to Mateo. The Main Event saw Filipino player JC Sayo back at the Final 8. His first appearance was at the APT Finale in December where he placed 6th. He improved on this with a respectable 4th place finish. Peru’s Yohn Paredes won his seat to the Main Event via satellite, and went deep with a 5th place finish. And lastly, the Main Event Bubble Protection saw over half of the field on both day one flights avail of the protection. Japan pro Kosei Ichinose was the unfortunate player who bubbled but since he availed of the protection, he received a free seat to the next APT Main Event.
Last night saw a few side events crown their victors, all of them receiving their first-ever APT trophy. The two-day Monster Stack saw 18 players out of the 78 total entries returning for the final day. In the end, it was Vietnam’s Toan Ngoc Nguyen who finished on top, earning himself P514,700 in cold hard cash.
At the High Rollers event, there were a total of 10 players creating a prize pool of P970,000. The heads up round saw massive stacked USA’s Timothy Vukson defeat Japan’s Tetsuya Tsuchikawa to claim the trophy and the first place cash prize of P630,000. With two places paid, Tsuchikawa earned P340,000 for his runner-up finish.
The Greed NLH posted 41 entries and a prize pool of P477,200. A deal was made at heads up which gave the winner, Hong Kong’s Tan Chong Hwee, P178,600, while Japan’s Toshiyuki Onda was in second but with a higher payout of P226,600.
Today saw the last three trophies of the festival find its masters, and like yesterday’s results, all the winners were receiving their first ever APT crowning moment. At the 6 Handed Turbo event, there were 63 entries and a prize pool of P611,100. The top 9 players received a payout with Korean player Changhun Lee bagging first place and earning P169,300. Since this was one of the last events of the festival, there were quite a number of notable players and APT regulars in the lineup who cashed. Korea’s Soo Jo Kim came in 3rd, Japan’s Tetsuya Tsuchikawa was 5th, and UK’s Samad Razavi finished 9th.
At the NLH Freezeout event, Filipino Jaime Rones overcame a field of 44 players to claim a big chunk of the P853,600 prize pool. He pocketed P341,500 and the event trophy. Notables who cashed in this event were Singapore’s Lim Yah Loon and Filipino pro Lester Edoc.
The last event that wrapped up was the Deep Stack Hyper Turbo event. There were a total of 78 entries for a prize pool of P378,300. The lucky player who claimed the sole remaining trophy of the festival was USA’s Henry Acain who already had amassed a big stack during the final ten players. He shipped in more when he railed Korea’s Yun Young Cho with his A♦ J♦ besting Cho’s ace-king. From there, he breezed through the final table and then got past Japan pro Kosei Ichinose at heads up to claim the first place purse of P102,800.
In closing, we would like to congratulate all the winners of the APT Cebu 2016 and extend a big thank you to everyone who came out to support this event. We look forward to seeing you next month at APT Daegu in Daegu, South Korea, and in April, at the APT Philippines in Resorts World Manila.
Don’t forget to catch some of the action of the APT Cebu 2016 on APT Live‘s Twitch account. You can also watch video highlights of the APT Cebu 2016 in our YouTube page.