Henry Wang of Taiwan, Taipei is no stranger to success in Macau, having won a $1,500 (HKD) deepstack Macau Poker Cup event in 2011 and making a couple more final tables in Macau this year as well. The 47-year-old businessman has been playing poker seriously for four years.
Andrew Hinrichsen of Melbourne, Australia brings the longest resume of results to the ACOP Main Event final table, highlighted by a WSOP Europe bracelet win in Cannes last month in the €1,000 NLHE event in which he topped a field of 771 for a €148,030 score. That victory added to a three-year run of cashes in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia, helping bring the 24-year-old's overall tourney career earnings up over $770,000.
Tom Alner of Bristol, England has several cashes since 2010 on various European and Asian tours, including a ninth-place finish at the 2012 Partouche Poker Tour Grand Final in Cannes two months ago as well as final-table finishes at smaller Macau events. This past summer the 26-year-old nearly earned himself a WSOP bracelet, finishing fourth in a $1,500 no-limit hold'em event for which he earned $207,019, and he did successfully claim more than $370,000 for a big WCOOP title back in September.
Alan Sass of Las Vegas, Nevada has 15 WSOP cashes, a few WPT results, and made a huge $700,000-plus score (USD) for finishing ninth in that Macau High Stakes Challenge Super High Roller last August that sported a $2 million (HKD) buy-in. The 29-year-old is recently married and a new father, and credits his poker friends' advice for having helped him reach this stage in his poker career.
Xing Zhou of Heilongjiang, China is making his second deep Main Event run in just a few months here in Macau, having finished 10th in the $18,400 (HKD) Macau Poker Cup Championship Main Event back in September. The 29-year-old businessman has been playing for four years and enjoys singing and travel.
This is it, the final day of the 2012 PokerStars.netAPPT Macau: Asia Championship of Poker Main Event. There are just nine players remaining vying for the title, the glory and the massive HKD$4,240,000 first-place prize, and it's Australia's Michael Kanaan with the pole position.
Kanaan bagged up 1.393 million in chips last night, and will take a very sizable chip lead into Day 5. His next closest competitor is Tom Alner with 826,500, making the gap well over 500,000 in chips.
Speaking of chips, the player who will really be looking to secure some early is France's Jacques Zaicik. He's the shortest stack in the field, and has been for most of the later stages of this tournament. Zaicik has 191,000 in chips entering the final table, but with an early double up, he could find himself right back in the mix. One thing is for sure, the tournament structure is extremely player friendly. When was the last time you saw a final table with T500 chips still in play? That's because the first level will be 6,000/12,000/1,500.
Other notables still left are Tom Alner, World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Andrew Hinrichsen and Alan Sass. Let's take a look at how they all stack up:
Seat
Name
Country
Chip Count
1
Jacques Zaicik
France
191,000
2
Michael Kanaan
Australia
1,393,000
3
Tsugunari Toma
Japan
788,500
4
Ying Kit Chan
Hong Kong
348,000
5
Henry Hung Tu Wang
Chinese Taipei
429,000
6
Andrew Hinrichsen
Australia
798,500
7
Tom Alner
UK
826,500
8
Alan Sass
USA
252,000
9
Xing Zhou
China
493,000
Play is scheduled to resume at 2:00 p.m. local time in Macau, so be sure to sit tight and get ready for a long day of scintillating poker action. PokerNews will have the updates flowing your way shortly.