The PokerStars Live card-room at the City of Dreams, Macau, has been the centre of the poker for the past two weeks, but now the focus is gradually shifting away. That's because the 2017 Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) is winding down.
Dozens of tournaments, with buy-ins of all sizes, took place here during that time and more than HK$160 million (~US$20.5 million) was collected and distributed. It was the richest ACOP in history and the series also drew a record-breaking number of entrants. This year's ACOP attracted 5,986 players, compared to last year's total of 4,479. This included some of the world's best players, who flocked to Macau to play events like the HK$800K Super High Roller, the HK$300K Single Day High Roller, the HK$25K Warm-up and, of course, the ACOP Main Event.
Those tournaments accounted for hefty chunks of all the money played for this week, but several other events in the series drew multi-million dollar prize-pools too.
The Mini High Roller, which concluded yesterday, drew 124 players for a total prize pool of HK$9.23 million. Spain's Adrian Mateos ended up winning that tournament along with HK$2.33 million. It was an interesting finale as play was paused heads-up so Mateos could join the High Roller field before late registration closed.
Anson Tsang, Mateos's heads-up opponent, granted Mateos his wish and they returned at midnight to play it out.
Mateos nearly made the final table of that event too, but busted in 11th and went back to battle Tsang for the Mini High Roller title. It was Mateos' second high roller final table this ACOP.
The young Spanish pro also finished 6th in the HK$300K Single Day High Roller for HK$1.19 million. Not a bad showing and they represent his first tournament cashes in Macau.
There were plenty of other big prizes to go around. Gerald Karlic took down the Single Day HK$10K for HK$400,000 and then won another HK$451,500 for finishing third in the HK$2 million guarantee Spadie.
After the high rollers, main event and warm-up, the HK$2 million guarantee had the largest prize pool event of the series. The HK$10K event drew 718 players, obliterating the guarantee with a HK$5.6 million prize pool. China's Ming Fang took down that event and won more than half the original guarantee with HK$1.2 million.
Team PokerStars Pro also added a Spadie to its collection. Celina Lin won the Ladies Asia Championship for a total of HK$91,000. If that gives you a sense of deja vu, it's because Lin won a Ladies Event here in Macau just last month.
Lin won the HK$5,000 Ladies Event in the Macau Poker Cup 27 this September for HK$70,700. If that wasn't enough, Lin is ending the ACOP strong with a final table appearance the Megastack Championship. That tournament is still going on and Lin is hunting her career fourth Spadie.
That will be one of the final Spadies of the year since the 2017 ACOP comes to an end tonight. Aside from crowning a Megastack champion, we'll also have a Closeout Spadie winner and a High Roller victor.
For a full list of results and payouts from this year's ACOP, click here. If you want to follow all the High Roller, then check out our live updates.
Congratulations to all the winners and be sure to join us for next year's ACOP.
