Henrik Tollefsen bested 17 others last week to hold the title of first-ever two-time Asian Poker Tour main event champion.
Tollefsen took home the P1.717 million ($36,751) top prize after defeating Sweden’s Roger Spets in the heads-up round of the final day of the main event held at the Waterfront Hotel and Casino in Cebu, Philippines.
Japanese pro Iori Yogo took the third place. Yogo had the slight chip lead when the play was three-handed, but Tollefsen beat him in some big pots, including the Japanese’s final hand.
“We were fairly even when play was three-handed. Then I started winning probably 80% of the pots for one hour and suddenly from all three of us being pretty even to having more than half the chips. From then I felt I had OK-control,” Tollefsen noted.
Two years ago, Tollefsen bagged the APT Macau 2013 Main Event title. When asked about his two main event titles, Tollefsen said, “I thought someone else have won two already. So yeah, I am very happy about that.”
Final Table Results
2nd Roger Spets (Sweden) – PHP 1,173,900 ($25,126)
3rd Iori Yogo (Japan) – PHP 739,000 ($15,817)
4th John Graham (U.S.) – PHP 539,000 ($11,537)
5th Edwin Marzan (Philippines) – PHP 446,000 ($9,546)
6th SJ Kim (Korea) – PHP 368,000 ($7,878)
7th Ian Brion (Philippines) – PHP 303,000 ($6,485)
8th Kim Dongkyu (Korea) – PHP 253,000 ($5,415)
The next APT event is scheduled to be held at the Resorts World Manila from Sept. 29 to Oct. 7. From the Philippines, the APT will move next to Cambodia (QueenCo Hotel and Casino) Oct. 20 to 28 before making its way to Vietnam (Ho Tram Resort Casino) from Nov. 16 to 25.
The APT Poker Room is also gearing up to launch a new series of two-day poker events—APT Challenger Series—where players will not only compete for the monthly prize pools and winners’ trophies, but also for Challenger Series Player of the Year points.
“In addition to the well-established APT Player of the Year award won through competing in main tour APT events, we are now going to have a separate Challenger Series champion,” said Raymund Gamier, operations manager of APT Poker Room.
The inaugural four-day Challenger event will be held from Sept. 17 to 20, followed by the standard Challenger two-day format on Oct. 30-31 and Nov. 27-28. Aside from trophies, the player of the year will receive a P50,000 credit to be used at any APT event. The second place finisher will take home a trophy and P25,000 credit, while the third placer gets a trophy and P12,500 credit.
