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Japan’s Mikiya Kudo ships APT Finale Main Event

The Asian Poker Tour (APT) Finale Main Event saw its champion being crowned yesterday out of 56 players aiming for a seat at the Final Table the day before.

The Main Event ran for 5 days, from Nov 28 to Dec 2. A total of 307 runners were racing for the trophy at the Resorts World Manila. The guaranteed prize pool of PHP 10 million was crushed, creating a new prize pool of PHP 14,889,500 (~INR 1.99 Crores) due to the overwhelming response for the event.

Japan’s Mikiya Kudo, a lesser known player till now with four recorded live cashes in Asia, was crowned as the champion of the APT Finale Main Event yesterday. With this win though, Kudo has taken home a staggering PHP 2,844,500 (~INR 38.17 Lakhs) and the coveted APT Championship Ring. It is a huge addition to his bankroll and is definitely a huge confidence booster this early in his career.

The Final Table saw 8 players fixated on the Championship ring, including APT Philippines Champion Lim Yohwan aka ‘Boxer’. The first elimination was by Kudo himself, busting the only Filipino at the table, Jiego Erquiaga in 8^th place. After the table was half empty, Yohwan took a leap for the chips and successfully got it after bagging a big pot against Kudo. Kudo made up his lost chips off of Le Ngoc Khanh, who got busted at 4^th by Yohwan.

The three-handed gameplay had Koji Asaka, a fellow Japanese, rounding up the top 3. Kudo closed the gap between him and Yohwan after eliminating Asaka in 3^rd place. Entering heads-up play, Yohwan was leading in chips, but from then on, Kudo showed what he is made of, winning majority of bigger pots between them. Some hands later, Kudo was leading 3:1 in chips and the final nail in his opponent’s coffin was in Hand #24. Yohwan went all in with Ah Qc, Kudo called with As 3h. The board came to 4s 5s 2d 9d 8h. The crowd was up in euphoric cheer when Kudo flopped the straight.

The APT Finale also saw India’s Amanpreet Singh winning a title. The festival is still being conducted and will go on till Dec 6. Another big attraction of the festival is the Championships Event which has PHP 10,000,000 in guaranteed prize pool. The event begins today at 1pm local time and a lot of entries are expected for this too.

Keep reading GutshotMagazine.com for more tournament updates, general poker news, and much more.

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