This article first appeared in the Sep/Oct 2012 issue of World Gaming magazine.
This railbird is happy to be back in Asia after spending a great length of time in Las Vegas for the WSOP. Watching a total field of 6,598 players slowly dwindle to the final table of nine over the course of a seven-day tournament is an amazing sight to behold and an even greater herculean achievement for those Octo-Nine (yeah, not a fan of this new name). We now have to wait until October 29 to see these endurance poker pros duke it out until it’s three-handed, then the final three will return on October 30 to play for the whopping US$8,527,982 first prize and a gold bracelet for the champion.
But this cool $8 million is dwarfed in size by Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari’s Big One for One Drop win of US$18,346,673, making him the highest all-time money earner in tournament poker history.
Antonio Esfandiari
Back in Macau, the Asian Poker Tour kicked off right after one of the craziest T10 typhoons in history, blowing out windows, creating pot holes, sending trees into cars and cars into the Mandarin Hotel… well, not quite, but those who saw the pictures on Facebook of the Lamborghini Aventador crash into the Mandarin Oriental will get the joke. The HK$25,000 APT main event drew 268 entries to the StarWorld hotel and casino and after the dust settled it was Taiwan’s Carlos Chang who became HK$1,913,100 richer. Congratulations also go to our friend and Big Game player, Winfred Yu, for his impressive runner-up finish.
The PokerStars Macau Poker Cup Championship (MPCC) kicks off on September 7 at the Grand Waldo Conference and Exhibition Centre, and don’t forget, the APPT and the inaugural Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) is set for a rolled-up super-carnival of poker from October 26 to November 11.
For a complete list of upcoming tournaments and previous results of particular interest to Asian and Australian poker players and fans, check out Railbird Ronny’s Tourney Tracker on our website wgm8.com.
