APT TAIPEI 2023 SCHEDULE | ULTIMATE GUIDE | OFFICIAL RESULTS | IMAGES
TAIPEI, TAIWAN, April 28, 2023 – Welcome to the new era of the Asian Poker Tour sponsored by Natural8 with the highly anticipated APT Taipei 2023 getting underway at the brand new CTP Asia Poker Arena – Asia's largest permanent poker room.
This is the seventh time the APT has visited the Taiwanese capitol, with Taiwan's Zhan Guo defeating a 491-strong Main Event field the last time around back at the APT Taiwan 2022 to claim the lion's share of the TWD $7,005,130 (USD $220,600) prize pool, taking home the TWD $1,440,900 (USD $45,376) top prize.
With the APT Taipei 2023 marking the start of a new chapter in Asian Poker Tour history, expectations are high for a massive turnout with the APT Kickoff drawing 751 entries in total, setting a new record for the opening event of the Series.
Running April 28-May 7, the 10-day 49-event Series boasts over TWD $50 million (~USD $1.6M) in guaranteed prize money, with the majority of this coming in the TWD $50,000 (~USD $1,700) buy-in Main Event with its TWD $30 million (~USD $1M) prize pool guarantee.
The Event #1 Freeroll got the Series action underway at 11:30am local time – offering the first 100 players to register a chance to claim a Main Event seat – before the official opening ceremony got underway at midday with APT CEO Fred Leung and CPT CEO David Tai welcoming the players.
"It’s an honor that CTP chose to have APT open the gorgeous new Asia Poker Arena and we're extremely grateful for that. APT has had a strong start to 2023 where we’ve seen dramatic year-to-year growth for our first two events in Hanoi and Phu Quoc. Combined, we’ve seen an increase of more than 70 percent in participation while the prize money has swollen by over 110 percent," said APT CEO Fred Leung.
"It’s a terrific lead-up to APT Taipei, which officially launches the Asian Poker Tour into a new era. Our APT team has been working relentlessly to deliver what we hope to be all-time records for the tour over the next ten days. Once again, we'd like to thank David and all those involved in CTP for the efforts and hospitality," Leung concluded.
After APT VP of Poker Operations Lloyd Fontillas uttered the four most famous words in poker, the action officially got underway in the TWD $10,000 Event #2 APT Kickoff – which you can read all about below.
CTP and APT management welcome players to the Series
CTP CEO David Tai and APT CEO Fred Leung start the countdown to the APT Taipei launch
APT VP of Live Poker Operations Lloyd Fontillas gets the action underway
Kickoff Kickstarts Series Action – Setting New Opening Event Record With 751 Entries and TWD $6.55M (~USD $213K) Prize Pool; Singapore's Ravn Teo Leads
Singapore's Ravn Teo holds the overall lead coming into Day 2 of Event #2 APT Kickoff
The APT Taipei 2023 has got off to the best of starts, with the TWD $10,000 Event #2 Kickoff drawing a 751-strong field (424 unique) – setting a new record for an APT opening event.
The prize pool stands at a sizable TWD $6,556,300 (~USD $213,180) with the top 106 places paying out.
A min-cash comes in at TWD $16,600 (~USD $540), with the eventual winner walking away with a TWD $1,254,100 (~USD $40,770) top prize.
All prize pool and payout information can be found on the Official Results page.
The opening Flight A saw 395 players in action, with the tournament getting underway just after 12pm local time.
The second starting Flight B kicked off at 5pm and saw a further 356 players enter the tournament arena.
With the top 14 percent of the field from each respective starting flight making Day 2 and the money, a total of 56 players made the cut from Flight A, with a further 50 making it through from Flight B.
It was France's Guillaume Bercq the man to top the Flight A chip counts by a significant margin, bagging up a respectable 813,000 after the seventeen 30-minute levels played out, putting him third in the overall pecking order coming into the second and final day.
Bercq bagged over 300K more than next closest rival Taiwan's Ting Hao Tseng (501,000), who concluded play with the second largest Flight A stack, and will be returning fifth in the overall counts, with Taiwan's Chen Yu Hung (496,000) rounding out the top 3 Flight A stacks, with the top ten as follows:
APT KICKOFF DAY 1A TOP TEN STACKS
- Guillaume Bercq (France) – 813,000
- Ting Hao Tseng (Taiwan) – 501,000
- Chen Yu Hung (Taiwan) – 496,000
- Chang-Che Hsieh (Taiwan) – 477,000
- Patrick Liang (Taiwan) – 457,000
- Cheng Liang Chen (Taiwan) – 445,000
- Jun Hao Wu (Singapore) – 426,000
- Ian Lin (Taiwan) – 407,000
- Chih-Hsien Lin (China) – 392,000
- Luke Trotman (Canada) – 368,000
For Event #2 APT Kickoff Flight A Survivors please CLICK HERE
France's Guillaume Bercq bagged biggest on Flight A of the APT Kickoff
However, the man returning in pole position is Singapore's Ravn Teo, who topped the Flight B chip counts after rivering a flush against an opponent's turned straight on level 17 to win a 500,000 chip pot – edging into a lead he would not relinquish.
The Singaporean was the only player to reach and breach the 900K chip mark and will be returning for the final day with a stack of 930,000.
China's Kun-Han Lee concluded Flight B with the second-largest stack of 893,000, putting him second in the overall chip counts, with Ireland's Gavin Flynn (647,000) rounding out the top three Flight B stacks, with the top ten as follows:
APT KICKOFF DAY 1B TOP TEN STACKS
- Ravn Teo (Singapore) – 930,000
- Kun-Han Lee (China) – 893,000
- Gavin Flynn (Ireland) – 647,000
- Nishant Sharma (India) – 438,000
- Abraham Ceesvin (Singapore) – 424,000
- Hung-Wei Yeh (Taiwan) – 375,000
- Wei Chen Chiang (Taiwan) – 358,000
- Naoki Matsumoto (Japan) – 329,000
- Raju Jaruplavath (India) – 328,000
- Chih-Chien Shen (Taiwan) – 324,000
For Event #2 APT Kickoff Flight B Survivors please CLICK HERE For Event #2 APT Kickoff Day 2 Draw please CLICK HERE
The 106 respective Flight A & B survivors will unite for the first time for the second and final day, which plays out at 12:15pm local time on Saturday, April 29, and the tournament will play down to a champion.
You can follow all the tournament action as it happened via the APT Blog.