Macau, China, June 21, 2017 – Malaysia’s Choong Kian Weng, without a doubt the most active player at the Final 8 of the APT Main Event, took his stack all the way to the heads up round then crushed Vietnam’s Dang Van Hien to seize the HKD 521,000 first place purse, the APT Championship Trophy, and the exclusive APT Championship Ring.

Weng’s road to victory

Choong Kian Weng’s quest for the title began all the way back in Day 1A where he topped the 44 player field to enter Day 2 running second-in-chips to Day 1B chip leader, China’s Yang Song. By the end of Day 2, Song was nowhere to be found while Weng ruled the charts with a stack that dwarfed all others. In Day 3, he helped trim the field by eliminating two players, Wang Ye (11th) and Weiyi Zhang (15th) then secured his seat to the Final 8.

Getting to the finish line wasn’t exactly a breeze for Weng. The Final 8 players all wanted the glory that it took over two hours before the first casualty was delivered. Germany’s Kilian Loeffler, who happened to be the Final 8 entering chip leader, fell with K♥ K♠ running right into Dang Van Hien’s A♦ A♣. Not long after, Dang also eliminated China’s Xu Dong Hui in 7th place to take a commanding chip lead which he brought all the way to the final heads up round.