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The Start of the 2009 APT Macau Main Event

The main event of the 2009 Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival started on August 20th, 2009 drawing a combined 326 participants for over two day 1's. Asian Poker Tour (APT) Chief Executive Officer Chris Parker said that one year ago, they have projected that they would get three hundred participants for the main event so they are very happy with the turnout even with the current financial climate. He added that it vindicated their decision to change The Asian Poker Tour Macau into a twelve day festival.

The HK$34,400 buy-in has helped create a total cash pool of HK$10,919,040 with a HK$3,035,000 top prize. Last year's main event in Macau, won by American poker pro Yevgeniy Timoshenko, attracted 257 poker players. Parker said that outside of the substantial increase in number, the most encouraging evidence for the future of the tour is the number of Asian poker players in Macau.

Parker said that on Day 1a, more than fifty percent of the playing field was from Asia. With online satellite poker events on different online sites, including bwin poker, PKR, Titan Poker, ChiliPoker, Winamax, RedKings Poker and others, the number of online has improved as well.

A list of big name poker pros also made the trip to Macau including Full Tilt Poker's John Juanda, Liz Lieu, 2009 WSOP Main Event final table member James Akenhead, Team UB's Liv Boeree and Asian Poker Tour sponsored poker pack members J.C. Tran, Nam Le, Quinn Do, David Rheem and Steve Sung.

The Poker Pack has had a particular impressive showing in the preliminary events at the StarWorld Hotel and Casino so far. Sung and Rheem had helped Team Korea to a victory in the JBET Battle of the Nations Event, Quinn Do won the "Poker King Movie" Celebrity Charity event and Rheem won the HKGC No Limit Holdem R+A event.

Tran also took down the "The Poker Pack: headhunter event never giving up the prize on his head on the way to a HK$76,000 1st place finish and HK $10,500 in bounties of his own. Day 1b of the Asian Poker Tour Macau continues on August 21st, 2009. Hong Kong trader turned high-stakes poker pro David Stiecke led the field on Day 1a.

09/13/2009, Sunday
Todd Sanders

The Start of the 2009 APT Macau Main Event

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