Macau, China, December 2016- From 48 players down to the Final 8!
The Asian Poker Tour Finale Macau 2016 wrapped up another exciting day at the Crystal Palace in Casino Lisboa with the Final 8 of the Main Event reached just minutes into the midnight hour. Hailing at the top with a dominating stack was China’s Lu Yunye with 4,390,000 in chips.
Main Event Final 8 Chip Leader, Lu Yunye
Day 3 began with India’s Praveen Dwarkanath leading the 48 player field. Yunye was running second in chips, and China’s Chen Xiu in third position. With only 36 places paid, bust outs came early which included the fall of notables Korea’s Lim Yo Hwan and Singapore’s Terminator T. For the Terminator, he came out swinging his bat hard as he’s done on the previous days. While he successfully eliminated a few players, his aggression took a bad turn with China’s Yifan Zheng grounding him out of the tournament without any pay. Click here for the hand history.
Not long after, China’s Xi Xiang Luo eliminated Japan’s Jun Saito as the bubble. Luckily for Saito, he availed of the Main Event Bubble Protection and didn’t exit the tournament completely empty handed.
The Money Round
When action resumed, short stacks hit the rail fast. The field quickly compressed down to two tables with Xiu falling in 19th place. Xiu’s stack took a heavy beating when China’s Qiao Qaio improved to a runner runner quads over his flopped set. Click here for that shocking hand.
Day 1B chip leader, Korea’s Saehoon Lee, was also eliminated but not before losing a big pot to Dwarkanath that had players wondering what Lee could have had. Click here for the story.
As more players fell, Korea’s SJ Kim shipped in all of Yin Min’s stack then was awarded a massive stack against Dwarkanath. The hand was definitely one that Dwarkanath could lose sleep on as it sent his stack way below average for the first time all day. Click here for the story
Just before the field broke down to the unofficial final table of ten players, the end of the day chip leader Yunye suffered a big drop to his stack after his A♣ K♣ lost to Zheng’s K♦ 10♠. Like Dwarkanath, Yunye experienced his first short stack moment however, he quickly recovered, doubling up through Macau’s Sam Keong Lon Cheong with pocket kings over pocket fours. Dwarkanath put the finishing touches on Cheong and the unofficial final table was reached with ten players remaining.
Entering the final ten with the largest stack was Kim sporting over 2m in chips. Japan’s Junya Nagano trailed close behind, followed by Zheng. Germany’s Fabian Geisel was the first one out, railed by Yunye in 10th place with pocket kings. This bumped up Yunye to the chip leader position. It took another two rounds before the next player hit the rail and it was a brutal one with Yunye delivering the painful blow. During the hand, Nagano and Yunye were all in on a flop of 9♥ 8♣ A♠. Nagano had A♣ Q♦ top pair while Yunye had better with 9♦9♣ set. The turn of 3♥ and river 3♣ gave Yunye a victorious full house to eliminate Nagano and complete the Final 8. Yunye had Nagano covered by only 35k.
Final 8 players:
Lu Yunye 4,390,000
SJ Kim 2,720,000
Xi Xiang Luo 1,905,000
Yifan Zheng 1,775,000
Yuan Hang Zhong 880,000
Praveen Dwarkanath 660,000
Steffen Endres 660,000
Xie Wei Jian 640,000
Congratulations to the Final 8 players! Main Event action resumes at 130pm on Wednesday, December 14th with the HKD647,300 first place purse up for grabs.
Read up on all the Main Event action, Chip Counts, and Payouts in the Live Updates page
For media inquiries, you may contact:
Monique D. Suñega
Email: [email protected]
