Being the avid poker historians we are at WGM, we’ve often pondered the question of what constitutes the greatest ever achievement by an individual when it comes to tournament poker.
Last year we marveled at the efforts of Mark Newhouse who reached the WSOP Main Event final table for the second year in a row. We’ve previously seen Johnny Chan win the WSOP Main Event two years running and very nearly three, albeit against much smaller fields.
While we certainly aren’t placing Yuguang Li at the top of the list, the previously unknown Chinese player’s accomplishment in the 22nd Macau Poker Cup over the weekend was nothing short of remarkable.
On Saturday, Yuguang became the latest Red Dragon champion as he overcame a huge field of 987 players to be crowned MPC Main Event champion. But his weekend was far from complete and within 24 hours the 36-year-old had won the High Roller event too.
Having managed to survive the countless perils of an event the size of the Red Dragon, Yuguang faced a very different challenge in the High Roller which boasted a much smaller but infinitely tough field of 67 high stakes players. Undaunted, he just about doubled his winnings – adding HK$1.65 million to the HK$1.85 million he had won the night before.
Whether this proves to be the start of a long and distinguished career for Yuguang or simply all of his food fortune converging in an instant, time will tell, but there is no doubt his achievements of the past few days have ensured his name is forever etched in the MPC history books. It will take some beating.
