Heads up deal awards Wilson Lim the Championships Event win

The Asian Poker Tour awarded Singaporean pro Wilson Lim the APT Taiwan 2020 Championships Event win after an even money deal with Taiwan’s Hsing Hsiung Tai at heads up. 

Payouts
1st Wilson Lim – Singapore – TW$ 537,950 (~US$ 17,800) – even deal
2nd Hsing Hsiung Tai – Taiwan – TW$ 537,950 (~US$ 17,800) – even deal
3rd Tsai Yu You Ci – Taiwan – TW$ 189,900 (~US$ 6,300

The event streamed and has been uploaded on APT Twitch. Relive the race to the finish. We also have a brief recap below. 

Buy-in: TW$ 49,500 (~US$ 1,600)
Entries: 29
Prize pool: TW$ 1,265,800 (~US$ 41,900)

Final race recap

The Championships Event ran from March 12 to 14 at the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association. As expected, numbers were low with only 29 turning up. At the end of Day 2, the bubble burst on Taiwan’s Carlos Chang and the final 3 packed up returning today. 

Leading was Hsing Hsiung Tai with half the chips in play. First all in showdown was on a turn board 3 K 4 6, Tai with A A, Wilson Lim with 4 4 set. The river K awarded Lim the first double up of the day. This gave Lim the chip lead for the first time since the tournament began.

Not long after, Tsai Yu You Ci was at risk with A J, Tai hoped to eliminate with J 5, however no such luck for Tai to pay up another stack. Tsai earned another double up, this time through Lim with 8 8 winning the race against A 10

Action proceeded to slow dow until the fourth round with Tai and Tsai facing off. Tai was ahead with A K, Tsai A J, the board ran a dramatic 7 10 3 4 9 to double up Tai while Tsai fell to just 4 bbs. 

Tsai managed to double up on his next push with pocket nines holding against Tai’s A-K, however, the rush was put to an end. Tsai check-shoved on a flop 6 A 5 with 3 5 that fell to Lim’s 8 8 when the turn Q and 10 completed the board. This brought about heads up with Lim holding a significant lead. 

After taking a quick break to discuss a deal, the players returned with no deal opting to play it out. Five minutes in, Lim drained more chips from Tai to amass a 3:1 advantage. However, the tables turned when Tai doubled up with A A to Lim’s K 2 on a board Q 2 J 10 7. The all in was at the turn. The loss in chips didn’t seem to faze Lim. By the next scheduled break, he had evened it up.

Returning from the break, Tai put the pressure on winning huge pots to consistently shave down his opponent. Once again, Lim recovered, and once it was at about par, they immediately struck an even chop of the money with Lim awarded his first major APT win.