Alexandre Chieng Crowned Champion of APPT Macau Main Event

Alexandre Chieng
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  • PG News June 17, 2013
  • 3 Minutes Read

On Sunday, nine players returned to the ‘PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams’ poker room in hopes of being crowned the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau Season 7 champion. The HK $25,000 buy-in main event began four days ago with 388 entrants. The prize pool would weigh in at HK $8,656,280 (US $1.1m), well exceeding the HK $6m guarantee and see the top 48 players make the money.

In one of the tour’s quickest final tables ever, Alex Chieng (cover image) came out victorious in just over four hours of play. The 33-year was awarded HK $2,165,000 (US $279k) and became the first ever player from China to win a main event on the APPT.

“I feel great, it is like a dream come true.” said Chieng. The CEO of a cosmetics company added, “For me, poker is a sport. It is not about money. The tournament is about competition.”

 

APPT Macau Main Event – Final Table Results (in HKD)

PositionPlayerPrize
1Alexandre Chieng$2,165,000
2Kenneth Leong$1,390,000
3Ling Tong$779,000
4Dinesh Alt$606,000
5Nan Hong$476,000
6Shuyang Yu$389,000
7Hao Tian$303,000
8Jennette "Jay" Tan$238,000
9Khac Trung Tran$173,180

“It’s been the biggest two weeks of poker I’ve ever been involved with.” said APPT President Danny McDonagh.

McDonagh, who also acts as the PokerStars Director of Live Poker Operations in Asia-Pacific added, “The GDAM event was the biggest tournament ever associated with PokerStars and with the APPT Macau we were able to offer something for every player. Whether you’re a low stakes, high stakes, or super high stakes player this (PokerStars LIVE Macau) is where you want to be. I’m very excited for the August Macau Poker Cup and ACOP in October.”

The Day 4 Final Table had three eliminations in the first 45 minutes, including Jay Tan (8th position), the last female standing and the action moved at a steady pace throughout the afternoon.

The knockout of 2013 ANZPT Sydney winner Dinesh Alt in 4th place assured that an APPT title would go to either Hong Kong or China for the very first time. Chieng ended Ling Tong’s run in 3rd place to set-up a heads up battle with Hong Kong’s Kenny Leong. Leong held a slight chip lead when the one-on-one duel began and was pulling away early on. But Chieng started applying pressure and in a span of 15 minutes he took the lead. In the final hand, Chieng (4.5m chips) made a raise to 120k from the button and then called Leong’s (3.2m chips) re-raise to 340k. Both players checked the flop of . The turn opened and that’s when the fireworks started.

Chieng raised Leong’s lead bet to 600k only to hear Leong say, “all-in” for a total of 2,685,000. The Shanghai-resident would take his time before finally making the call. Leong turned over to show he wasn’t bluffing but Chieng revealed his for trips. There was no miracle ace on the river giving Chieng his first career title after 12 previous final tables in Official Asia Player of the Year (APOY) events.

“I had great opponents on this table, it’s just unbelievable to beat all these people for whom I have very great respect, especially Kenneth (Leong), who I have played with before.” said Chieng.

The APPT Macau title moves Chieng to No. 7 on the APOY rankings. Gie Reyes (No. 2) and Ryan Yu (No. 3) are both within 300-points of top-ranked Terry Fan after their successful side event results. Fan is expected to be in the field for the last two special events of the year.

Other Indians to cash in some of the side events at the APPT Macau include Vikas Dawra, who won $3,300 for 17th place finish in Event 3:$1,500 Deepstack No Limit Hold’em, Aditya ‘donkab0mber’ Sushant won $10,700 for 11th place finish in Event 5: $5,000 KO Bounty ($500,000 GTD) and Ramandeep Gujral won $7500 for 17th place finish in Event 9: $4,000 No Limit Hold’em.

The next special event at ‘PokerStars LIVE at the City of dreams’ is the Macau Poker Cup (MPC)from August 9-18. The MPC will feature the HK $11,000 buy-in Red Dragon event which comes with a HK $5,000,000 guarantee.

Read the complete coverage of this event on PokerStarsBlog.com

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