Kenny Nielsen, a 36-year-old physical therapist from Sorø, Denmark has been playing poker for eight years. Primarily playing poker as a hobby, Nielsen prefers cash games over tournaments. Nielson is one of two Danish players at the final table (the other is Jeppe Drivsholm).
His largest tournament cash to date came back in 2005 when he finished 27th in a $10,000 buy-in WPT event, scoring a $41,705 payday. When asked yesterday, “What do you want the world to know about you?” Nielsen replied: “That I have won the APPT in Macau tomorrow!” Nielsen will unbag 791,000 in chips at the start of Sunday’s final table.
San Jose, Costa Rica native Brian Green is making the most of his first experience playing an APPT event. The 48-year-old businessman has been playing poker for 12 years and has amassed a career live earnings total of just over $650,000 USD.
In April of 2001, Green took down the $1,000 Limit Hold'em event at the Second Annual Jack Binion World Poker Open in Tunica. He won over $53,000 and beat a final table that included Dan Alspach and Ralph Perry. That seemed to ignite a series of solid cashes over the next several years. The next month, Green final tabled a $5,000 Limit Hold'em event at the WSOP where he placed third for just shy of $80,000. A year later in the same month, Green was back at another WSOP final table in the same event. He took second to Jennifer Harman this time for $106,200. Not a bad back-to-back run.
Winning a $1,000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event at the Bellagio Five Diamond Poker Classic netted him $53,544 in 2002 and then in 2006, he finished seventh in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for $144,500. Overall, Green has cashed in five WSOP events and three EPT events.
Green is a self-proclaimed gym rat with a passion for cycling, and an even bigger passion for his three kids. Green enters Sunday’s final table with a very-healthy 970,000 in chips.
Twenty-year-old Cole Swannack from Auckland, New Zealand is the youngest player at the 2010 APPT Macau Main Event final table. Swannack listed “Student” as his occupation, though he also said he’s been playing poker professionally for the past year and a half.
Primarily a cash-game player, Swannack’s best tournament finish to date was a runner-up showing at the 2010 New Zealand Poker Championships in Christchurch, where he collected a respectable USD $23,235 for his efforts.
Swannack considers basketball and video games his primary hobbies outside of poker. Swannack’s student-status may be in jeopardy if he’s able to convert his field-leading starting stack of 1,262,000 into a victory here in Macau.
A businessman by trade, Chong Cheong's foray into the poker world was anything but ordinary. Cheong had been a high volume Baccarat player at Grand Lisboa, in Macau for the week on holiday from Hong Kong. His luck quickly went sour and after he lost all but $10,000 of his gambling bankroll, he decided he’d had enough and called it quits. All attempts at booking travel back to Hong Kong were thwarted, however, by a lingering typhoon, preventing him from leaving the casino. While waiting for the bad weather to die down, Cheong stumbled upon a live Texas Hold’em cash game, pulled up a seat and has been hooked since.
The 55-year-old favors tournaments over cash games and has won a handful of local events held at the PokerStars Macau Poker Room. His biggest cash to date came in December of 2008 when he won the Macau Poker Cup Red Dragon Event, earning just over HKD $210,000 (approximately $30,000 USD). Cheong enters the final table with 904,000 in chips.
Albert Kim is a professional poker player from Staten Island, New York. Kim turned pro three years ago and he considers himself primarily a cash-game player. The 28-year-old finished 19th at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, earning $257,334 in prize money – his best career result to date. Kim also cashed in a special event held in Manila as part of the APPT Season 4 schedule back in March (46th - $4,200).
When he’s not terrorizing cash games, Kim says he enjoys drinking, traveling and reading. Kim will unbag 436,000 in chips to start Sunday’s final table.
Keith Hawkins is arguably the most decorated player at the Main Event final table. Known as “The Camel” on PokerStars, Hawkins has racked up over a half a million dollars worth of online MTT cashes, and is more than $350,000 in the black playing sit’n’go’s. His live results are equally impressive.
Over the past decade, Hawkins has earned more than $1 million playing live events around the world. His biggest result came back in 2006 when he finished 4th in the Master Classics of Poker Main Event, earning a €122,125 payday (approx. $150,000 USD).
Hawkins is a big fan of the Queens Park Rangers Football Club, a Championship League team based in London. The 42-year-old resident of Middleton Tyas, England brings 30 years of poker-playing experience to the final table, which he’ll have to lean on if he wants to dig his way out the basement at Sunday’s final table. Hawkins will begin the day with just 174,000 in chips - the low man on the totem pole – but if anyone is capable of overcoming such a deficit, Hawkins has as good a chance as any.
Danish amateur Jeppe Drivsholm is no stranger to poker in the Asia-Pacific. Having spent the last three years traveling the world, Drivsholm calls Macau his temporary home. Primarily a cash game player, Drivsholm’s most recent live tournament result came back in 2008 at the 2008 APPT Manila Main Event, where he finished 19th. The Manila result came just two months after Drivsholm recorded the biggest tournament cash of his poker-playing career – a 5th-place finish at the 2008 APPT Macau Main Event (HKD $632,150, approx. $80,000 USD).
The 25-year-old says he’s been playing poker for six years. Drivsholm enters the final table with the second largest stack at 1,223,000, just 40,000 behind chip leader Cole Swannack.
Kai Paulsen is one of the more experienced poker players at the Main Event final table. A six-year veteran of the game, Paulsen has amassed a career tournament earnings total just north of $370,000 USD. The 26-year-old professional poker player from Trondheim, Norway finished 5th at the 2008 Irish Open, earning €175,000 – his largest single cash to date. He's also cashed in four World Series of Poker events and one World Poker Tour event. Two months ago in March, Paulsen final table the HK$10,000 No-Limit Hold'em Macau Poker Cup event, finishing in 8th place.
Paulsen is an avid sports enthusiast, partial to football, snowboarding and skiing. When asked to sum up what he’d like the world to know about him, Paulsen replied, “(I) love Macau and love gambling.” Paulsen enters the final table with 528,000 in chips.
Victorino Torres is a 33-year-old attorney from the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth in political union with the United States. Torres has been playing poker for about three years and favors cash games over tournaments. Torres’ tournament resume is limited, though he did cash in a side event at the 2008 APPT Manila poker festival.
When not practicing law or spending time with his family, Torres enjoys spending his free time on the farm. He’ll have his work cut out for him at the final table, starting with just 396,000 in chips – the second smallest stack at the table.
The final table for the 2010 APPT Macau Main Event was set last night at about 8:00 p.m. local time with the elimination of Wee Yee Tan in 10th place. Cole Swannack finished out the day as the chip leader, but he's only 39,000 chips ahead of Jeppe Drivsholm. Both players have over 1.2 million chips while no one else is surpassing the one-million-chip mark.
The final table does very well in representing the global poker world as it includes one player from Hong Kong, the United States, the Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom along with two from Denmark. Here's how the they stack up.
Seat 1: Victorino Torres (Northern Mariana Islands) - 396,000
Seat 2: Kai Paulsen (Norway) - 528,000
Seat 3: Jeppe Drivsholm (Denmark) - 1,223,000
Seat 4: Keith Hawkins (United Kingdom) - 174,000
Seat 5: Albert Kim (United States) - 436,000
Seat 6: Chong Cheong (Hong Kong) - 904,000
Seat 7: Cole Swannack (New Zealand) - 1,262,000
Seat 8: Brian Green (Costa Rica) - 970,000
Seat 9: Kenny Nielsen (Denmark) - 791,000
The average stack is approximately 742,666 and the blinds will be starting at Level 21 which is 8,000-16,000 blinds with a 2,000 ante. That's roughly 46 big blinds in the average stack.
All of the remaining players are guaranteed at least HKD $254,608 and the winner will take home a few million more than that at HKD $3,246,200. Play kicks off at 12:15 p.m. local time today. PokerNews will have all the coverage from the final table to let you know which player (and country) walks away with the title.
