The German high stakes player, Fabian Quoss, endured a marathon of a final table to take the top prize in the Asia Pacific Poker Tournament, Asia Championship of Poker High Roller, in the City of Dreams, Macau
Fabian Quoss proved that he has the endurance to go alongside the skill, and the beard, as he topped the field at the end of a strength sapping 17-hours, to win the top prize in the Asia Pacific Poker Tournament (APPT) Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) High Roller in the PokerStars LIVE Macau Poker Room in the City of Dreams.
Quoss takes his total live tournament earnings to $6.4m after banking the $680.129 first prize, when defeating China’s Yu Liang in heads-up action. It was Quoss’s third big score of the year, after winning the $100,000 Super High Roller at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) for $1.6m, and coming fifth in the A$250,000 Challenge at the Aussie Millions for $716k. The $453,419 that Liang secured was the largest of his career by a country mile.
83 entrants created a total prize pool of $2.5m, and a whole host of stars turned out to play, including some regular Macau faces in Sam Trickett and Phil Ivey – both players busting short of the money.
An all-Russian bubble battle saw the final 10-players squeeze into the cash brackets after Mikhail Rudoy’s snowmen were melted by the king-ten of Anatoly Filatov. The latter would go on to finish in seventh place for $151,097, two months to the date after winning the €10,500 High Roller at the World Poker Tour (WPT) in Cyprus.
So what was the problem?
Why was the play so slow?
Poker Asia Pacific scribe Heath “TassieDevil” Chick was pulling no punches on his recap when he laid the blame squarely at the antics of Rono Lo: “The final table was a torrid affair with Rono Lo in particular ensuring that play was dragged until the sun rose the next morning, “ said Chick before continuing, “Play was slow, both in terms of the action and the speed of play, with Lo appearing to find his own theatrics more and more entertaining as the evening progressed.”
Liang eventually ousted Lo in third place, to take a slight chip lead into the heads-up phase, but the vastly more experienced German chipped away before the eventual showdown saw Quoss’s [Ad] [8h] river a flush against the [Ks] [Qc] of Liang to take his second major title of the year.
ACOP High Roller Results
1st. Fabian Quoss – $680,129
2nd. Yu Liang – $453,419
3rd. Rono Lo – $302,271
4th. Aaron Lim – $251,871
5th. Davidi Kitai – $201,548
6th. Ivan Soshnikov – $176,258
7th. Anatoly Filatov – $151,097
8th. Zhapar Sultanov – $125,935
9th. Phanlert Sukonthachartnant – $100,774
The only other player to cash was Isaac Haxton who bubbled the final table earnings $75,613.