HomeIt was pandemonium at the rail of the APT Championships Philippines 2017 with local crowd favorite, Mike Takayama, taking down the Main Event and shipping in the whole shebang! Takayama outlasted the record breaking 442-field to capture the championship trophy, the APT Championship Ring, and of course, the enormous USD 105,530 first place purse. He became the fourth player to win his second APT Main Event title.
Main Event Champion, Mike Takayama
Prior to securing a Final 8 berth, Takayama was down to just five big blinds in Day 3 with 20 players remaining. He impressively turned it all around that by the end of the night he secured a Final 8 berth running second in chips. This just goes to show how incredible this victory is for the Filipino pro.
The showdowns
The Final 8 began with Takayama sitting to the immediate right of the aggressive playing chip leader, Japan’s Asakura Yasuyuki. Yasayuki delivered the first casualty with William Te’s ace-king falling to the leader’s pocket jacks. Next one out was Anton Del Rosario with pocket sixes losing to SJ Kim’s pocket eights. But then things didn’t go so well for Kim after that. He lost a big pot to Kosaku Akashi on a missed straight draw against pocket aces. Kim couldn’t recover and his race for a second APT Main Event title fell short.
At five-handed, Kosaku lost a sizable portion of his stack to Yasuyuki then bowed out with pocket sixes outdrawn by Noel Araniel’s king-ten suited. With half the field gone, the four-handed match saw some crucial shifts starting with Takayama overtaking Yasuyuki whose aggressive plays began to cost him a lot of pots with Keith Seah capitalizing the most. Araniel was next on the chopping block, his pocket eights fell to Takayama’s pocket tens, then Seah sent Yasuyuki packing with ace-nine pairing up on the board to defeat pocket twos.
Takayama’s road to victory
Heads up round between Keith Seah and Mike Takayama
Kicking off the heads up round, Seah had roughly around a 1.5:1 chip advantage over Takayama. The gap widened after Seah claimed multiple pots early but with the blinds low in comparison to their stacks, Takayama found spots to challenge back. He took the lead after shipping in a big pot with his 10♥ 7♥ against Seah’s 6♦ 3♦ on a board of J♠ 4♥ 7♦ 9♥ 7♠ that saw progressive betting.
Takayama claimed another meaty pot with his 7♥ 5♠ over K♣ 4♣ on a board of 4♥ 5♣ 5♥ 6♥ 9♠. With well over 2:1 in chips, Takayama rose to victory with A♣ K♥ defeating 6♥ 6♦ on a board that ran 10♦ 4♣ K♣ 8♦ Q♥.
Congratulations to Mike Takayama!!
Main Event Day 1A – 170 entries
Main Event Day 1B – 272 entries
Day 2 recap
Day 3 recap
You can watch all the Final 8 action archived in the APT Twitch channel and in the APT YouTube channel.
Korea’s Kim Gab Yong wins the HR event for his second trophy
High Rollers Champion, Kim Gab Yong
Korea’s Kim Gab Yong has banked another big payout after defeating Michael Soyza at the heads up round of the High Rollers event. This is Yong’s second victory of the festival having won the Head Hunter event several days ago. There were 56 entries in total, each one coughing up the USD 3,300 buy-in for a juicy prize pool of USD 162,960.
The heads up round started with Yong ahead 3:1 in chips and despite Soyza winning a few double ups, the chips quickly slipped back to Yong’s section. The final hand saw Soyza with 5♣ 8♣ and Yong with Q♣ Q♦ and a board of 8♠ 2♣ 6♦ K♣ 6♥.
Payouts
1st Kim Gab Yong – Korea – USD 50,520 (deal made)
2nd Michael Soyza – Singapore – USD 39,110 (deal made)
3rd Johnjin Kim – Korea – USD 21,180
4th Kei Ichiro Sugimoto – Japan – USD 16,300
5th Lim Min Soon – Singapore – USD 13,040
6th Victor Chong – Malaysia – USD 12,220
7th Shinobu Tanaka – Japan – USD 10,590
You can watch the final heads up action archived in the APT Twitch channel and the APT YouTube channel.