The New Caledonia Poker Event Noumea 2017 concluded its 10-day action packed festival at Casinos De Noumea with Japan’s Mitsuhiro Shiga becoming the newest NCPO Main Event champion after defeating New Caledonia’s Daniel Gilles in the heads up. This was a special victory as Shiga not only dominated the felt throughout, but also became a first foreign national to win the NCPO championship title.
The NCPO Noumea 2017 took place from 24th February- 6th March with the XPF 110,000 ($975) buy-in for the Main Event. The event saw a high turnout of locals (184 entries total), but it was Japanese Takumi Samejima who came on top of Day 1A and Shiga for Day 1B. While Shiga continued to dominate till Day 2, Samejima, on the other, was stopped short, cashing out at the 19th place only.
At the final table, it was Shiga who held substantial chip lead over his opponents with nearly half of chips in play. With the elimination of Teva Tavita, the only player who stole chip lead from Shiga and the fall of Gil Hassani, the final duel against Gilles saw Shiga ahead 2:1 in chips. From there, it did not take a long time for Shiga to defeat his heads-up opponent and win the XPF 4,681,000 ($41,527) the first place prize. While he took down the title, Daniel Gilles ended up finishing as runner-up.
Before his runner-up finish in this Main Event, Gilles won the APT Noumea 2016 Main Event. In addition to his Main Event feat, Gilles also ran deep at the Pot Limit Omaha Courchevel event, finishing 5th, and 3rd at the Bounty event. So, he has been quite in good form since the last year.