APT Championship Rewrites the Record Book for Live Poker in Asia
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The Asian Poker Tour (APT) Championship came in with big ambitions to push live poker in Asia forward. By the end of the 17-day festival, it had done exactly that. With a 20-event Championship schedule backed by almost 200 side events, the APT delivered the kind of series that felt like a step up for the region.
It also became the largest Asian poker festival ever held. More than 28,000 entries came through the doors at Red Space in Taipei, and over $34 million was paid out, with players flying in from all over the world to get a piece of it ahead of December’s Big Three.
Plenty of records went down along the way, and the APT walks out of 2025 looking like one of the tours to watch heading into 2026.
Once the dust settled, a handful of events and performances stood out above the rest. Here’s how the biggest stories of the APT Championship unfolded.
$10K Freezeout APT Championship Smashes Expectations
The inaugural APT Championship didn’t ease its way into the schedule. A $10,300 freezeout with a $5 million guarantee is a bold way to introduce a new flagship event, but the risk was rewarded. The field reached 671 entries and pushed the prize pool to $6,220,550, making it the biggest $10K freezeout held outside Las Vegas in the last decade and a clear sign that players were ready for it.
The final table also delivered the kind of drama the APT was hoping for. John Niko Costiniano’s fearless river bluff became one of the most shared moments of the festival and quickly gained traction as a hand of the year contender. He went on to take second place for $732,780 after a breakout run.
Nishant Sharma closed it out for $1,186,880 and the Gold Lion APT Championship trophy, completing a remarkable story after booking his seat through a $1,700 satellite. It now stands as the largest Main Event payout in APT history.
Nine Events Hit Seven Figures as Prize Pool Records Tumble
One of the clearest signs of how big this festival really was came from the prize pools alone. Nine events cleared the $1 million mark. Outside of the Championship freezeout, events such as the The Ultra Stack, Natural8 Cup, Super High Roller, Superstar Championship, Mini Main, High Roller Championship, Mini High Roller and even a later high roller side event all joined the million-plus club. It was the deepest lineup of seven-figure tournaments the tour has ever produced.
The festival managed to break the APT record for the richest non-Main Event prize pool and top prize twice in 24 hours, and three times overall.
The first jump came when Roman Hrabec won the Super High Roller for the largest non-Main Event payout in tour history. That mark lasted a single day, with Calvin Lee overtaking it in the Superstar Championship. Hrabec at least held on to the record for richest non-Main Event tournament for almost a week, until Toby Joyce claimed the High Roller Championship. That event hit TWD 75.7 million (about USD 2.4 million), making it the biggest non-Main Event prize pool the APT has ever run.
Asian Poker Tour (APT) Championship 2025 Winners
What’s Coming in 2026
If you missed out on the APT’s breakout year, the 2026 season leaves very little room for excuses. The tour turns twenty next year and is marking the milestone with a packed schedule that shows exactly how bold its ambitions are.
Five major stops across Jeju, Taipei and Incheon are already locked in and the APT has made it clear it wants to keep pushing the game forward in Asia. To do that, it will need the continued support of the poker community that helped turn this year’s championship into the biggest festival the region has ever seen. If the momentum holds, 2026 has every chance of becoming another defining year for the tour.
APT 2026 Key Dates
- APT Jeju Classic 2026: Jan 30–Feb 8 — Jeju Shinhwa World
- APT Taipei 2026: Apr 22–May 3 — Red Space
- APT Incheon 2026: Aug 7–16 — Paradise City
- APT Jeju 2026: Sep 25–Oct 4 — Jeju Shinhwa World
- APT Championship 2026: Nov 13–29 — Red Space
