After battling through four days of action at the Grand Lisboa Hotel and Casino, Ireland’s Dermot Blain emerged as the champion of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau event on Saturday night.
The first stop of the third season of the APPT, Macau was truly a celebration of poker throughout the hotel and the casino. Many of the professionals who make up Team PokerStars, including former World Champions Joe Hachem and Chris Moneymaker along with Raymond Rahme and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, were a part of the 429 player field who put up the $5,160 buy-in to build a prize pool of over $2 million. Also making an appearance at the APPT Macau was the last man to win the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event in back-to-back years, Johnny “The Orient Express” Chan. All of the former Main Event champions were unable to cash in the tournament, but top pro David Chiu lasted until the next to last day of action, finishing in 16th place for slightly over $16,000.
Three days of play led to the final table and, once the United States’ Dane Lomas was eliminated in 10th place on Friday evening, the final table was set. It was an international cast that made up the nine player table, with China’s Daoxing Chen the chip leader at roughly 1.7 million in chips. Other countries such as the United States, Canada, Sweden, Kazakhstan, and South Korea were represented at the final table. In addition to the multinational makeup of the final table, there were several combatants who came to the felt having played for less than two years, a comment on the explosion of the game in Asia.
The two Swedes at the final table, Stefan Hjorthall and Pontus Kers, provided the first fireworks of the evening. After Hjorthall moved all-in for his tournament life, Kers moved all-in over the top from his position on the button. When neither blind decided to take Kers up on his bet, the two PokerStars qualifiers turned up their hands: Hjorthall’s pocket nines held the lead against Kers’ A-Q. That lead was short-lived, however, as an ace hit the flop and, once no nine came to the rescue on the turn or river, Hjorthall took the ninth place position.
Blain began to make his move in the tournament when he eliminated Arizona’s Brandon Demes in eighth place for a $41,619 payday. Blain then continued the onslaught when his Big Slick outdrew Dbinder Singh’s pocket queens, eliminating the Canadian in seventh place. Blain took the lead at the final table for good when he captured a big pot off of Darkhan Botabayev after approximately four hours of play.
After Kers was eliminated in fifth place, the tournament came to a grinding halt. It reached a point that tournament director Danny McDonagh threatened to clock players without a request from the table to speed up play. Mindful of the warning, the four players then commenced to finish the tournament within the next hour and a half.
Chen took care of Botabayev before departing himself in third place at the hands of Blain. With the Chen elimination, it was simply a matter of time before Blain, with nearly an 8:1 lead over South Korea’s Michael Kim, captured the championship. After four hands of heads-up action, Kim moved all-in with a 10-9 and was dismayed to see Blain call and table K-10. A ten came on the flop, but no nine was to be found and Blain was crowned the champion of the APPT Macau. The final table payouts were as such:
1. Dermot Blain (Ireland) – $541,072
2. Michael Kim (South Korea) – $384,982
3. Daoxing Chen (China) – $239,315
4. Darkhan Botabayev (Kazakhstan) – $166,489
5. Pontus Kers (Sweden) – $114,459
6. Jichen Su (China) – $74,917
7. Dbinder Singh (Canada) – $52,030
8. Brandon Demes (United States) – $41,619
9. Stefan Shortfall (Sweden) – $31,221
What was to be the next stop on the APPT schedule, the APPT Seoul, has been postponed due to casino renovations at the Seven Luck Casino. The next stop will now be APPT Auckland for the Skycity Festival of Poker from October 14th through the 18th.
