MACAU, CHINA, February 11, 2017 – Feng Wen Chen defeated Team PokerStars Pro Celina Lin on Saturday night to claim the Baby Dragon title.
The Taiwanese businessman’s win earned him HK$915,000 after outlasting a record-breaking 602-player field. In total, 72 players cashed for a share of the HK$4,204,368 prize pool.
“My wife has come to so many tournaments and supported me for so long, I’m really happy to finally win one for her.” said Chen.
While the 53-year old Chen was celebrating his first poker title — quadrupling his career poker earnings in the process — it was still very much about Lin in the aftermath.
Lin, a two-time Red Dragon winner, was in pursuit of unifying both Macau Poker Cup Dragon titles for the first time in the series’ history.
Falling one spot short of her goal was always going to sting. But having a legion of live fans at the final table and even more social media supporters made the defeat all the more agonizing.
101 players arrived at PokerStars LIVE Macau on Saturday afternoon for Day 2.
A familiar theme played throughout the 14-hour session where a notable Asian player would take the tournament lead, only to hit the rail relatively soon afterwards.
Kitty Kuo stormed to the chip lead with 35 hopefuls remaining. The Taiwanese poker pro would then lose several key pots before leaving disappointingly in 21st place.
Lestor Edoc — No. 7 on the Philippines all-time money list — was the first to crack the one million chip mark but ultimately fell in 10th place.
Minsoon Lim took the tournament lead during six-handed play but the audible Singaporean couldn’t maintain his momentum and exited the Baby Dragon in 4th place.
Celina Lin appeared to be safe from the trend as she began the day with one of the shortest stacks. Despite accumulating chips throughout Saturday, Lin was never the outright leader.
That is, until the start of heads up play where Lin held a modest 3.11m to 2.91m chip advantage over Chen.
The omen eventually became a reality 90-minutes into the duel.
Here’s how PokerStars blogger Ben Wilson described the final hand:
Down to 2 million in chips (10 big blinds) at the start of the hand PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin moved all-in over the top of a Chen 500,000 button raise and was called very quickly.
Celina Lin: 7♦8♦
Feng Wen Chen: A♠K♣
Lin was the at risk player but took the lead when the flop fell J♣T♠7♥.
Chen’s Taiwanese rail were on their feet screaming themselves horse for a queen and the Q♥ hit the turn like a thunderbolt from the poker gods to leave Lin drawing dead and give Chen the title, trophy and HK$915,000 first place.
Next up is the HK$15,000 Red Dragon Main Event (10m GTD). Day 1a begins on Sunday at 2pm local time. Live updates on the PokerStars Blog.
BABY DRAGON FINAL TABLE RESULTS
1. Feng Wen Chen (Taiwan) — HK$915,000
2. Celina Lin (China) — HK$565,000
3. Chun-hung Chen (Taiwan) — HK$350,000
4. Min Soon Lim (Singapore) — HK$267,000
5. Bolong Xiao (China) — HK$185,000
6. Sheng Jie Fan (China) — HK$147,000
7. Minggeng Bo (China) — HK$120,000
8. Artem Lobus (Russia) — HK$101,000
9. Xiang Liu (China) — HK$83,968
For complete Side Event Results please CLICK HERE
