HomeIt was Michael’s day at the races today! Well, that’s two Michaels in fact.
The APT Macau Championships 2018 awarded its first victors of the festival at Macau Billionaire Poker in Babylon Casino. The biggest winner was Michael O’Grady at the Super High Rollers special event while Michael Soyza championed the Ante Up for Charity.
Michael O’Grady banks the Super High Rollers
The Super High Rollers special event was up and running with 6 players ponying up the hefty HKD 200,000 entry fee. In just under 7 hours time, Australia’s Michael O’Grady outshined capturing the HKD 1,164,000 winner-take-all pot and his first victory on Asian soil. This is also O’Grady’s single largest career score. Recap below.
Super High Rollers Champion, Michael O’Grady
The Super High Rollers event got underway with a small but strong lineup of highly experienced live tournament players. Among them was Christopher Michael Soyza, ranked 4th in Malaysia and running very hot these days. Also at the felt was Australian pro Samuel Higgs, a decorated WSOP Asia-Pacific bracelet winner. Another was Xin Fan who has been racing up the ranks in China this year, Australia’s Michael O’Grady, and two other Malaysians, Chin Wei Lim and Adimus Putra Bin Muhamad.
Getting the boot very early in the game was Muhamad, quickly falling to Soyza. Despite the nice pad up in chips, it was Soyza who tumbled next. Prior to his elimination, he called Higgs’s all in on a flop of K♠ 10♦ Q♣. Higgs had A♣ K♥ top pair while Soyza had J♣ J♥. The turn and river were blanks for a big double up to the Aussie. A few orbits later, O’Grady shut the door on Soyza on a three-way shove with big-stacked Fan also in the hand. O’Grady’s A♦ K♥ landed a straight on a board of J♦ 10♠ Q♥ 3♣ 7♠ to defeat A-3 and 9-9.
With the table downsized to four players, Higgs took a massive hit to his stack with Lim as the happy receiver of his chips. On a turn board of 5♥ 7♥ J♠ K♥ and a 300k pot already brewed, Higgs raised all in with 4♥ 6♥ and Lim snap-called with A♥ 10♥. Both had a flush with Higgs needing his big draw to materialize. The river 9♥ wasn’t the love he was looking for to send him down to a very short stack. He fell next in another crazy three-way shove that saw Fan win the pot. Fan had Q♠ Q♥, Lim Q♣ Q♦, and Higgs J♥ J♣. The board ran 3♠ 5♠ 9♦ 6♠ J♠ giving Higgs his two-outer but it also awarded Fan with a dominating flush.
The three-handed round saw Lim lay thick the aggression to earn the chip lead after winning three decent sized pots in a row. O’Grady seized that top spot after sending Fan to the rail. Fan was all in with A♠ K♠ but O’Grady’s A♦ J♣ won the draw with the board running J♠ 3♣ 4♣ 8♦ 9♣.
The heads up round between Lim and O’Grady had the latter up by a small margin. With no deal discussed for second place, it was a winner-take-all battle. To give you an idea of how grueling and exciting this duel was, it took 86 heads up hands for the competition to complete.
O’Grady won the first pot of the match to create a significant distance between them but on Hand #14, Lim won a big one with his K♣ 10♦ two pair on a board of 7-K-4-10-A to switch things up. Lim continued to pounce on O’Grady, grinding him down to 25% percent of the chips in play however with blinds quite low, O’Grady climbed back up to par showing K-K on one of those winning pots.
From there, the chip lead swung back and forth with both players charging at each other nearly every hand. The final hand arrived with O’Grady four-bet shoving and Lim with the fast call. O’Grady had A♦ J♠ and Lim with K♦ K♣. The board ran 10♠ 2♠ 3♣ 8♠ K♠ for a winning flush to O’Grady. After the chip count, O’Grady had Lim edged by a tiny margin to win the whole shebang.
Michael Soyza wins the Ante Up for Charity
Immediately after exiting empty-handed at the Super High Rollers event, Michael Soyza jumped into the Ante Up for Charity event and maneuvered his way to the top to win the HKD 11,000 first place purse and the event trophy.
Ante Up for Charity Champion, Michael Soyza
The Ante Up for Charity event drew in a total of 25 entries for a donation of HKD 12,500 to the Holy House of Mercy charitable organization. This organization focuses on offering social welfare services to the elderly, the blind, the homeless, and orphaned children. We would like to thank everyone who participated in this event, your donation will greatly aid in their cause.
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