Vietnam has become a popular poker destination on the Asian soil. The new poker year has kicked off here with the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Vietnam 2019 currently taking place at the Pro Poker Club in Ho Chi Minh City. The series began on 9th January and will run till 20th January. The series opened with 2 events on its first day with one of them being the Monster Stack, which is in the books.
The VND 11 million (INR 33,757) buy-in Monster Stack attracted a total of 174 entries (141 unique entries + 33 re-entries). These entries created a total VND 1,687,800,000 prize pool with the top 29 finishers making money. The tournament was finally taken down by APT regular, Michael Kim Falcon who took home the VND 383,346,000 top prize for beating a field of 174 entries in this event.
Only 54 had progressed into Day 2. The local pro Tran Kim Dong, who was the chip leader with a stack of 390,000, ultimately finished 13th for VND 27,731,000. The eventual winner Falcon had good journey, especially at the final table. After Quan Nguyen going out in 10th place and SJ Kim in 9th place), Falcon eliminated Lim Yohwan in 8th place. Falcon’s pocket aces beat Yohwan’s queens.
After this hand, Falcon had over half the chips in play. After quick eliminations of Huy Coshet (7th place), Steffen Endres (6th place), Tin Nguyen (5th place) and Antoine Follet (4th place), Falcon then went on to eliminate Tung Nguyen (3rd) and moved into heads-up when his AJ beat Nguyen’s A6.
In heads-up, Falcon played against local player Huu Tuan Nguyen. He started off with a 10:1 chip lead. The dual did not last long and it took three hands for Falcon to win the coveted title!
Team India
Four of our Indian players, namely Aditya Sushant,Vishal Tajpuria, Shravan Chhabria and Meherzad Munsaf also entered the final day. Sushant started the day with a workable 150,000 stack but he unfortunately exited the event empty handed. Vishal Tajpuria ran deepest finishing 15th for VND 23,109,000 (INR 70,100). The Mumbai pro Shravan Chhabria finished 17th for VND 23,109,000 (INR 70,100). Meherzad Munsaf managed to cash out at 29th place for VND 13,373,000 (INR 40,600).
Top 10 Payouts (VND):
- Michael Kim Falcon – VND 383,346,000
- Huu Tuan Nguyen – VND 255,565,000
- Tung Nguyen – VND 177,665,000
- Antoine Follet – VND 128,324,000
- Tin Nguyen – VND 95,966,000
- Steffen Endres – VND 74,066,000
- Huy Coshet – VND 58,815,000
- Lim Yohwan – VND 47,919,000
- Soo Jo Kim – VND 39,933,000
- Quan Nguyen – VND 39,933,000
The APT Vietnam Main Event is also underway with its first flight already in the books. In this event, six Indians have progressed into Day 2. Watch out for our updates from the ongoing Main Event!