Alex Foxen Wins Again, APPT Macau Super High Roller ($963,900)
Less than a month ago, blossoming top poker pro Alex Foxen took down the L.A. Poker Classic $25,000 buy-in for a payday of $424,625. On Monday night at PokerStars LIVE Macau, Foxen followed that up by dominating yet another star-studded high roller final table, winning the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau Super High Roller for HK $7,560,000 (US$964,000).
After winning his seat into the HK$400,000 (US$51,000) buy-in SHR in a live satellite the day before the start of the event, Foxen immediately went to work building his stack to end Day 1 at the top of the counts. He only extended his lead on Day 2, going into the nine-handed final table Monday with more than 40 percent of the chips in play, according to the PokerStars Blog.
"I love poker, probably more than anyone."
"What makes it special to me is definitely the competition," Foxen said. "I love poker, probably more than anyone. I love the battle with some of the other best players in the world."
His love for poker explains Foxen’s jam-packed tournament travel schedule, his consistently increasing success at the tables and his more than $3.6 million lifetime earnings. Foxen has been especially dialed in of late, posting his three biggest tournament scores in the past four months starting with a second-place finish at the $10,400 WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic in December for $1.134 million.
He has now followed that up with a win in the LAPC $25K High Roller just last month and this APPT SHR victory. Amazingly, Foxen’s top five results all come within the past year. For 2018, Foxen is already closing in on the $1.715 tournament winnings he racked up in his breakout 2017, and the year is not even a fourth of the way over.
APPT Super High Roller Action
| Place | Name | Country | Prize in HK$ | Prize in US$ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Alex Foxen | USA | HK$7,560,000 | $963,900 |
| 2nd | Shan Huang | China | HK$5,429,000 | $692,198 |
| 3rd | Sam Greenwood | Canada | HK$3,529,000 | $449,948 |
| 4th | Rainer Kempe | Germany | HK$2,663,000 | $339,533 |
| 5th | Kahle Burns | Australia | HK$2,068,000 | $263,670 |
| 6th | Patrik Antonius | Finland | HK$1,603,000 | $204,383 |
| 7th | Brian Rast | USA | HK$1,267,000 | $161,543 |
| 8th | Christoph Vogelsang | Germany | HK$981,880 | $125,190 |
| 9th | Isaac Haxton | USA | HK$750,000 | $95,625 |
It took two days to get the field down from the original 68 entries (including 19 re-entries) to the money at nine players. Super High Roller events are notorious for some tough final tables, and this APPT SHR was no exception.
Top poker talent filled the final nine with the likes of Rainer Kempe, Isaac Haxton, Brian Rast, Sam Greenwood, Christoph Vogelsang, Patrik Antonius, Kahle Burns and of course, Foxen. The one non-pro to make the final, businessman Shan Huang, was Foxen’s unlikely heads-up competitor.
With Foxen starting the final table with 40% of the chips, most other players’ stacks were at or near shove-mode. Haxton was the first to get his stack in after shoving with king-deuce suited on the button. He found no help against Rast’s pocket sevens in the big blind and exited in ninth place.
After short stacks Huang, Kempe, Rast and Vogelsang found double-ups, Rast finding two, it was finally Vogelsang out in eighth when his nine-ten suited fell to Foxen’s ace-queen. Rast was next to hit the rail when his king-queen of diamonds couldn’t hold against Kempe’s jack-seven of diamonds. Kempe hit a seven and a jack to make two pair and bust Rast in seventh place.
"I love the battle with some of the other best players in the world." -Alex Foxen
The local Chinese businessman with a passion for high-stakes poker had slipped to short stack status, but found some fortune to bounce back. Huang got his stack in with pocket jacks against Burns’ ace-queen suited and Antonius’ pocket queens.
The flop came J♦6♣10♥, giving Huang the lead in the hand. The K♥ turn flipped the lead over to Burns who made Broadway, but the K♠ river sent the pot to Huang and his full house, scoring him the double knock-out in the process — Antonius out sixth and Burns in fifth place.
Soon after, a short-stacked Kempe doubled through Greenwood but couldn’t do it again. He got it in with queen-jack of diamonds against Greenwood’s ace-five of diamonds and an ace on the turn ended things for Kempe. He had to settle for fourth place.
Despite grinding back and picking his spots well, Greenwood lost a big pot with K♠K♥ after Huang called pre-flop with Q♦7♥ and flopped two pair. With the help of a big check-raise by Huang on the turn, the pot inflated to more than 10 million chips, all of which went to Huang. Greenwood, left with crumbs after losing the hand, was out soon after in third place.
Huang went into heads-up with the chip lead, but Foxen soon grinded him down. In the final hand, Foxen’s ace-six suited was able to overcome Huang’s king-queen and Foxen locked up his second major title in less than one month, adding $963,900 to his total earnings.
As for the talkative and unconventional Huang, his runner-up finish for US$692,198 was good for more than twice as much as his previous biggest score, and also more than doubled his total live earnings to put them at $1.24 million.
Photos courtesy of PokerStars Blog
The Stars Group owns a majority shareholding in iBus Media
