A milestone has been reached today in the evolution of poker as a truly global sport with the launch of the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour.
Four local players remained when the final table of ten had been reached, after 7 hours of tough competition.
Another Filipino player was out in 8th place, Garry Cantong taking home P 21 400, followed by Ravi Mahtani from the USA P 26 700. Benny “Mr Energy” Gonzales finally ran out of steam in 6th place and the Filipino player collected P 32 100.
Busted out fifth was another American, Victor Catalan, who won P 40 100, and the last local player remaining, Amor Nario, was eliminated in 4th place taking home P 48 100.
Kenneth Leong, a Hong Kong-based Singaporean, dominated for most of the heads-up game but after one slip he saw all his chips move across the felt in just a few hands, to James Honeybone from NewZealand
32 year old Kenneth, who won P 106 900, is delighted to be able to play in major tournaments so close to home. “Poker is exploding all over Asia” he said.” So many Asian players are coming up now, it’s going to be great.”
It was an impressive performance by 23 year old James, a business student from Hamilton, who had been up for more than 30 hours straight when he finally clinched the Cup in the early hours of this morning.
“It’s huge, absolutely huge” he said of the launch of the APPT. “I want to thank everyone for putting on such a fantastic event, the competition has been great.”
Back to Top