Phanlert Sukonthachartnant Bulldozes Final Table to Win ACOP High Roller for $652,080
While Day 1a of the 2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 ACOP Main Event was playing out on one side of the PokerStars LIVE Macau poker room, the HK$250,000 High Roller Event – a tournament that attracted 63 entrants and created a HK$14,817,600 prize pool – was finishing up on the other.
The event attracted some big names including John Juanda, Shawn Buchanan, Erik Seidel, Kitty Kuo, Jonathan Karamalikis and Sam Trickett, but all of them would miss out on the money. The same can be said of American Carlos Chadha, who busted as the bubble boy in eighth place after shoving his short stack with ace-ten only to run into the pocket queens of Wang Zuo. The board bricked out, and Chadha's elimination guaranteed the remaining players a minimum HK$889,000 (~US$118,000) payday.
Thailand's Phanlert Sukonthachartnant, who finished ninth in the same event the year before, began the final table as chip leader, and he put it to good use by steamrolling the final table to reach heads-up play against Stanley Choi in less than two hours of play.
Despite being over 75 big blinds deep, it took less than an hour for Sukonthachartnant to dispatch Choi. According to the PokerStars Blog, the final hand came when action exploded on a 7♠10♣9♥ flop. Choi bet 400,000, Sukonthachartnant raised to 850,000, and Choi three-bet to 1.3 million.
Sukonthachartnant called, and after a blank on the turn the two got it in with Sukonthachartnant holding pocket queens against Choi's QxJx open-ended straight draw. The 6♣ river was no help to Choi, and he had to settle for runner-up and a USD$401,469 consolation prize.
$250,000 High Roller Event Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phanlert Sukonthachartnant | Thailand | HK$4,890,600 |
| 2 | Stanley Choi | Hong Kong | HK$3,112,000 |
| 3 | Wang Zuo | China | HK$2,074,000 |
| 4 | Anton Astapau | Belarus | HK$1,630,000 |
| 5 | Aleksandar Denisov | Russia | HK$1,185,000 |
| 6 | Stevan Chew | Australia | HK$1,037,000 |
| 7 | Fedor Holz | Germany | HK$889,000 |
Next up is Day 1b of the Main Event, which will see cards in the air at 3 p.m. local time for another seven levels of play. You can follow the action from that event by clicking here. In the meantime, check out Sukonthachartnant's winner interview:
Poker Review from PN Thailand (บทวิจารณ์โป๊กเกอร์ออนไลน์)
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PR & Media Manager for PokerNews, Podcast host & 2013 WSOP Bracelet Winner.
