We just had a little presentation here on the final day of the Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) with China's Jian Yang officially crowned the Asia Player of the Year for 2013.
There are still a few events wrapping up, so the final standings are still unofficial, but no one can catch Yang who, with 3,922 points, is more than 400 points clear of his nearest rival in Japan's Tetsuya Tsuchikawa.
Yang only picked up three results during the calendar year, but he made them all count.
In January, Yang finished 4th in a side event at the Macau Poker Cup for HK$133,500, and he followed that up in by taking down the September Platinum Series event for another HK$206,600.
However Yang's biggest achievement came just last week when he was victorious in the ACOP Warm-Up Event. The HK$25,000 buy-in event attracted a field of 338 entrants with Yang going all the way to take the "Spadie" and HK$1,700,000 in prize money.
All up, Yang's three final tables, two titles and HK$2,040,100 in prize money was more than worthy of the Asia Player of the Year honours.
Yang joins the likes of Kitty Kuo, Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang, Hung-sheng "Shaq" Lin and Yosuke Sekiya as APOY champion, and interestingly Yang's earnings during the year were more than all of the previous APOY winners.
2012: Yosuke Sekiya (Japan) - 6 FTs, 1 title, HK$1,002,600
2011: Hung-sheng "Shaq" Lin (Chinese Taipei) - 10 FTs, 1 title, HK$1,272,690
2010: Bryan Huang (Singapore) - 6 FTs, 1 title, HK$594,050
2009: Kitty Kuo (Chinese Taipei) - 3 FTs, 1 title, HK$601,045
Yung will receive sponsorship from PokerStars Macau for all championship events in Asia for 2014 including great events such as the Macau Poker Cup and Asia Pacific Poker Tour.
Congratulations to Jian Yung, 2013 Asia Player of the Year!
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Meanwhile PokerStars.tv hostess Sarah Grant has been checking out all the sites of Macau, with The House of Dancing Water at the City of Dreams one of the absolute highlights. Check it out!
Heath "TassieDevil" Chick is a Freelance Contributor for the PokerStars Blog.