MPC27: Qiuming Qin rides the Red Dragon to win HK$3.14 million

You know you've got a head for numbers when you 1. work in finance, 2. can navigate and manoeuvre your way through an enormous record-breaking tournament field, and 3. negotiate your way to a healthy heads up deal.

Yep, Qiuming Qin certainly has a head for numbers. And now, after a near-ten-hour final table, he has HK$3.14 million, including a package to the ACOP Main Event worth HK$100K, and the prestigious Red Dragon trophy.

Qin found himself heads up against a fitness model and recreational player from Hong Kong. Prior to tonight, Terrence Wu's biggest tournament victory had come from a home game with colleagues. But now that he has won HK$2.4 million for his second place finish, Wu has a poker bankroll in as good a shape as he is.

The two changed the heads-up chip lead more times than I've seen a player go all in with lucky pocket eights this week. Back and forth, they traded blows, but in the end it was Qin who edged away.

In the final hand, Quiming Qin opened the button to 650,000, Terrence Wu three-bet to 1.7 million, and Qin called to see a [ah][3s][9s] flop. Wu continued his aggression by leading for 2.2 million, and Qin went into the tank. He moved his chair back, took a big swig from his Red Bull, and then announced "all in."

"Gahhhh" groaned Wu, who only had around 5 million behind. "What do you have man? I have the ace of spades, that's the problem!" he added, referring to the fact that he blocked Qin's ace-high flush semi-bluffs.

"OK man, let's go!" Wu then said, putting in a call and turning over the [as][7c] for top pair.

Qin stood up smiling and slowly turned over and placed down his [ac][3c] for two pair. Wu would need a seven, and the [jd] turn meant a jack would chop it for him too. But the [4d] river gave Qin the win and the title of Red Dragon champ!

"I'm very excited to win the largest-ever Red Dragon Main Event; it's one thing I can now cross off my bucket list - winning a big tournament and a title," Qin told us.

This event looked likely to break records right back on Day 1A, and break records it did. This is the biggest ever freeze-out tournament held in the Asia-Pacific region, with 1,308 people taking their shot with the HK$15,000 buy-in.

It attracted plenty of big names too, including PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin, Team Online's Randy Lew, Australian crusher Adrian Attenborough, Red Dragon defending champ Alan Lau, Winfred Yu, Martin Finger, and more.

After they all merged for Day 2, we saw the bubble burst when Jingjun Xia was all in with the [qh][qd] against the [kd][js], and a disgusting [kh][kc][ks] flop left him drawing dead on the flop. Ouch.

Such a sick hand deserved an equally sick photo, and we got one courtesy of photographer Long Guan:

Once 162 were all in the money, the bust outs came thick and fast and Day 2 ended with just 81. Thomas Ward was chip leader, and the New Zealander had a deep Day 3 run. Unfortunately things started to go against him late in the day, he finished in 12th place, just short of the finale.

Speaking of the finale, the men who came closest but failed to return today were Ankush Prasad and Yuanhang Zhong. They were both eliminated on the final table bubble in the last hand of Day 3, when Tong Tan's [as][qh] bested Prasad's [ad][2d] and Zhong's [qc][qd].

Here's how the final eight stacked up:

The final table didn't exactly kick off with equal excitement. It took two hours before we lost our first player, Mike Huang. He shoved with the [kc][9d] and that failed to hit against the [8h][8c] of Qiuming Qin.

While Qin took the chip lead, Mian Wei's stack was sliding Xilei Li's way. Wei jammed with the [ad][2d] and was called by Li's [4s][4c] which held up, taking it down to six. It was at this point that Terrence Wu's ascent up the chip counts began. He got super lucky to win a big all in with pocket jacks against Qin's pocket kings to take the chip lead.

We remained with six for a long time. Like, a really long time; more than two hours passed including a dinner break. But then, like buses, two eliminations came at once...

With blinds at 100K/200K, Calvin Tan jammed for around 3 million under the gun. To his left, Kian Weng Choong just called, with a slightly bigger stack. It then folded around to the big blind of chip leader Terrence Wu and he shoved all in too! Choong called, and the cards were flipped:

Tan: [ah][jc]
Choong: [as][qs]
Wu: [ks][kd]

Cheers for an ace and jack began, while Wu was cheering for a king. None of those cards appeared on the [8c][9c][9h][2h][ts] runout though, meaning we lost two players in one hand. Tan had less to start the hand so he's our sixth place finisher, while Choong was gone in fifth. Wu now held a massive chip lead with almost half the chips in play.

Xilei Li had a picture of the God of Good Fortune in front of him the entire tournament, as well as a red dragon statue and lucky apple. Despite all that, he'd bust in fourth when he called the all in small blind shove from Quiming Qin with the [ad][4c] in the big blind, but found himself dominated by [as][kc]. The board ran out [ts][6s][jh][6c][ah] and Li picked up all his lucky charms and went to collect his HK$894,000.

Deal talks kicked off for a third time three-handed (after failed discussions six-handed and four-handed), but once again no agreement was found. Three-handed play didn't go on long thereafter; When Tong Tan flopped a pair with the [4d][2d] on a [kc][kd][2h] board he shipped in his short stack, only to find Quiming Qin had the goods with the [kh][7s]. Tan was almost drawing dead, and busted to collect HK$1,235,000.

Heads up, the chip counts were 15,325,000 for Qin and 10,845,000 for Wu. It's here that the two decided to cut a deal that would guarantee Qin HK$2.6 million, Wu HK$2.4 million, and leave aside HK$441,000, the ACOP package and the trophy for the winner. And you know where it went from there; back and forth, but ultimately with all of them sat in front of Qin.

"I'm not sure how to spend all the money yet, but I'm going to bring it back to Nanjing, China, where I have had so many friends supporting me," Qi said. "I play a lot of poker in Nanjing and that's where most of my poker friends are from so I'll use some of the prize money to celebrate with my family and close friends and poker friends. Because they know how tough it is to win a big tournament and become a champion and I want to cherish this feeling.

"I value the trophy as much as the money."

Thanks for reading all of our Red Dragon coverage. MPC27 coverage continues with the High Roller.

Macau Poker Cup 27 Red Dragon
First place prize money includes HK$100K ACOP package

View all prizes here.