Macau, China, December 2016 – After fifteen poker festivals held in various destinations around the world, the Asian Poker Tour wrapped up its busiest year with the APT Finale 2016 coming to a close in Macau. The nine-day event ran from December 7th-15th at the Crystal Palace in Casino Lisboa, attracting a huge turnout of 1200 entrants comprising of 450 unique players from 23 different countries. The overall prize pool was also a hefty one, amounting to a massive HKD8,000,000.

Huge crowd at APT Finale Macau 2016

Over the course of the week, there certainly was no shortage of thrilling moments with many players reigning victorious at the side events. One player who seized the finale by storm was Korea’s Soojo Kim. Kim overcame a field of 273 entries at the APT Main Event, its largest turnout recorded for the year. He also claimed two side events, the No Limit Hold’em 1 and the 6 Handed Turbo w/Antes. Kim earned a combined total of HKD740,400 at the festival.

Several years ago, the APT staged an event called the Manila Millions, which was by far the highest ever seen buy-in for a poker event in the Philippines at that time. With the rise of these events now being witnessed in the live tournament scene, the finale included a Super High Rollers event to the roster. Buy-in was a whopping HKD200,000 with eight players in attendance. Winning the event and earning the single highest event payout was China’s Devan Tang who shipped in HKD720,000. Days prior, Tang finished second at the High Rollers event bringing his total winnings to nearly HKD950,000. That makes him the biggest cash winner of the finale.