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Level 26
: 15,000/30,000, 5,000 ante
Cards are in the air for the final day of the APPT9 ACOP Main Event. Good luck all!
2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 Asia Championship of Poker
Main Event
Day: 5
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 Asia Championship of Poker
Buy-in
95,000 HKD
Prize Pool
24,206,000 HKD
Entries
260
Level
30
Blinds
40,000 / 80,000
Ante
10,000
Level: 26
Blinds: 15,000/30,000
Ante: 5,000
The final day of the Asia Championship of Poker Main Event starts today at 2 p.m. local time. Chip leader Connor Drinan (1,755,000) leads the final seven.
Drinan has been an intimidating, and sometimes whimsical, presence at the table throughout the tournament. From side bets on what other players are holding to slamming a few all in bets onto the table, Drinan looks poised to add the ACOP Main Event title to his resume. Pokernews's Nicki Pickering interviewed Drinan on Day 3, you can check out the interview below.
Zhou Zhou might have something to say about it, he ended the day on 1,210,000. Zhou rebounded from a hand where he had Thomas Ward (1,335,000) all in and at risk. Zhou had pocket aces and Ward, pocket kings. A king came on the window and put Zhou among the shorter stacks. However, his late surge put him over 1-million chips and in a strong position to challenge Drinan.
Hsien Yuan Yang (370,000) is the short stack, but might be a dark horse to win. After spending the first part of Day 4 extremely short stacked he managed to double, then triple up on his way to at least a top 7 finish. He enters play today as the short stack, which has become a position he seems quite comfortable in.
Here is the table draw and chip counts for the remaining seven players. The PokerStars blog put together player profiles for each of the remaining players, and you can see those below. Before the end of the day, one of these players will be the new ACOP Main Event Champion.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Thomas Ward | New Zeland | 1,335,000 |
| 2 | Nan Tu | China | 1,370,000 |
| 3 | Connor Drinan | USA | 1,755,000 |
| 4 | Hsien Yuan Yang | Chinese Taipei | 370,000 |
| 5 | Zhou Zhou | China | 1,210,000 |
| 6 | Qi Luo | China | 980,000 |
| 7 | Xixiang Luo | China | 780,000 |
New Zealander Thomas Ward considers his occupation a professional Counter Strike and poker play, the latter of which he has played for six years. He says his biggest poker influence is Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang, and looks forward to a time when he can say he's a fellow teammate.
On top of finishing runner-up in the 2014 APPT Auckland Main Event, Thomas Ward has also seen some success in APPT and APT events throughout Macau. His tournament was nearly over when a cooler saw him all in with pocket kings against an opponent's pocket aces but Ward was able to spike a king to stay alive and score a big double up.
Nan Tu is a 28-year old freelancer from Beijing in China with eight years experience in the game of poker. His tournament record shows a modest US$60,000 in career winnings but perhaps Tu's talents have been honed in cash games. He started playing small stakes in his home town but can now be found playing up to HK$300/600 cash games at the Wynn here in Macau.
Tu enjoys to party and says he is "easy going" which has come in handy being seated next to the fun-loving Connor Drinan for most of the last day!
Unfortunately Connor Drinan was a little too intoxicated to help us with his player profile, but luckily his manager and long-time poker media fan Jason Mo was at the ready. Mo informed us that away from the poker table Drinan works as a male model and stripper to help manage downswings.
The biggest highlight in Drinan's life thus far was placing second behind Mike McDonald in the Most Handsome contest and one of his favourite pastimes is being the little spoon to Pratyush Buddiga when they cuddle. Mo credits Drinan's success at the poker table this week solely to his excessive red wine consumption.
Taiwan's Hsien Yuan Yang is a 51 year-old businessman who has only been playing poker for a year. He tells us he learnt the game online and regularly plays tournaments on PokerStars.
Outside of poker Yang is a big golf fan and his biggest moment in the tournament this week was when he scored a triple up to stay alive with pocket sevens. Yang doesn't appear to have any live cashes to his name yet but he finds himself in an envious position with this final table appearance.
Chinese American Zhou Zhou is a 28-year old poker pro, who resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. He's been playing poker for seven years now after evolving his poker game from playing Real Time Strategy games. He usually can be found playing No Limit Holdem Heads Up games, ranging from $5-10 right up to $50-100.
Zhou has shown plenty of determination and a "never give up" attitude in this tournament, grinding his short stack for several hours to now be sitting with a seven-figure stack at this final table.
China's Qi Luo is a restaurant worker who found poker four years ago. He got his start playing tournaments online and he's currently in fine form after placing 10th in the Red Dragon for $17,677 only two months ago.
Luo says he's felt comfortable at the tables this week and has a good feeling for the game. He had a steady climb throughout Day 4 and enters the final table fifth in chips.
The fourth representative of China here on this final table is 41-year old Xixiang Luo. In his three years playing poker, Luo has collected almost US$50,000 in live tournaments winnings, exclusively in Macau and China.
Luo has loved the structure of this event but says that he got very lucky with a one-outer 6♦ during the tournament. He'll need a bit more of that luck today as he enters the final table as the second shortest stack.