A round-up of some serious scores at both the Asian Championship of Poker in Macau and the PokerStars Festival in Sochi including more German success and a new record for a member of PokerStars Team Pro.
Watching a German poker player say ‘cheese’ at the end of a Super High Roller event is as common as finding jars of screws and nails in a ‘real man’s’ garage. So, it should come as no surprise to learn that Dietrich Fast took down the HK$800,000 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em Super High Roller at the 2017 Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP).
The big buy-in event held at the PokerStars LIVE City of Dreams, Macau, attracted 79 entrants (57 unique, 22 re-entries) and created a total prize pool of HK$60,690,960 ($7.8m).
Fast arrived at the final table third in chips behind the Global Poker Index (GPI) World #1, Bryn Kenney, and the chip leader Timothy Adams, but managed to grind out a significant chip lead when heads-up against the High Roller kingpin Steve O’Dwyer.
O’Dwyer has one of the best closing records in the industry so Fast did well to underline his supremacy by booking the win, his largest to date, and second seven-figure score since winning a milly taking down the Season XIV World Poker Tour (WPT) LA Poker Classic.
Fast came into the event in fine form after finishing fifth in the recent Triton Super High Roller Main Event for close to $600,000 a few days ago.
ITM Results
1. Dietrich Fast – $2,138,915
2. Steve O’Dwyer – $1,520,565
3. Timothy Adams – $995,635
4. Daniel Dvoress – $766,114
5. Felix Bleiker – $606,688
6. Bryn Kenney – $474,432
7. Jason Koon – $373,317
8. Huang Shan – $291,682
9. Paul Newey – $221,709
10. JC Alvarado – $194,412
11. Christian Christner – $194,412
Celina Lin Bags a Trio of Titles
PokerStars Team Pro, and Global Poker League (GPL) Hong Kong Stars Team Manager, Celina Lin, has won her third ACOP title after winning the HK$9,000 buy-in Ladies Asia Championship.
It’s the first time anyone has won three ACOP titles.
In 2013, Lin defeated a field of 107 entrants to win an HK$9,000 buy-in ACOP event for $27,842. In 2016, she went one better when topping a field of 202 entrants to take the first prize of $61,294 in an HK$11,000 buy-in DeepStack event.
Team PokerStars Pro @CelinaLin wins the #2017ACOP Ladies Asia Championship for an unprecedented third ACOP Spadie! pic.twitter.com/Ramf3o26VR
— PokerStarsLIVE Macau (@PokerStarsMacau) October 22, 2017
Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy Wins PokerStars Festival Sochi Main Event; Kiryl Radzivonau Wins The High Roller
Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy loves competing in the Sochi Casino, Russia.
The Russian pro finished 18th for $5,679 when the PokerStars Championships arrived in Sochi back in May, followed that up with a third-place finish in the $5,300 buy-in partypoker MILLIONS Sochi for $400,000 in September, and a few days ago he won the PokerStars Festival Sochi Main Event for $134,163.
It’s the first time the PokerStars Festival has appeared in Sochi. It will return in the spring. The arrival of the lower tiered PokerStars live offering allowed us to compare their apples with those of partypoker, and it seems that in this part of the world at least, the players like to bite down into the partypoker ones.
When Dmitry Chop won the $1,100 buy-in partypoker Millions Sochi he had to crawl over 1,170 entrants, whereas Merzhvinskiy only had to jump over the backs of 699, nearly half of the interest generated by the partypoker offering.
Merzhvinskiy defeated the Russian star Alexander Denisov in heads-up action to win his fourth title in only eight ITM cashes.
Final Table Results
1. Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy – $134,163
2. Alexander Denisov – $81,892
3. Nikita Myshkin – $58,370
4. Alexander Shylakhov – $45,302
5. Valentin Zolotilov – $34,848
6. Andrey Kotelnikov – $27,181
7. Mikhail Zamayatin – $19,198
8. Kirill Denisenko – $13,416
Finally, Kiryl Radzivonau won the $2,300 buy-in PokerStars Sochi High Roller after beating Oleg Lipkin in heads-up action. The Belarusian overcame a field of 97 entrants to win the $52,172 first prize. The aforementioned Dmitry Chop finished sixth.
