Tan Tai Zheng Wins the APT Cebu Main Event, Abhishek Goindi finishes 24th

The PHP 50,000 buy-in APT Asian Series Cebu Main Event at All In Poker Club, Waterfront Hotel and Casino saw a packed field of 251 players. This crushed last year’s field of 126 players and created a total prize pool of PHP 11,671,500 with first place set to receive PHP 3,623,000.

Those who didn’t make it through Day 1A included APT Asian Series Goa champion Sangeeth Mohan, Abhishek Goindi, Rahul Melwani and Amant Nauhria but all of them made re-entries on Day 1B. Joining them on Day 1B were Team Mentors Aditya ‘Intervention’ Agarwal, Rohit Bhalla and Ramandeep Gujral. From the Indian contingent Amant Nauhria (48.8K chips), Rohit Bhalla (46K chips) and Abhishek Goindi (19.6K chips) made it on to Day 2. Ramandeep Gujral got unlucky to miss out when his KK collided against an opponents TT and a Ten hit the turn to send him to the rails.

Players had to deal with some tough conditions at the event, specifically the ongoing aftershocks of a 6.8 earthquake that hit central Philippines in the early afternoon. After seven hours of play, the bubble finally burst with Edwin De Jong and he was followed to the rails by Brian Lovett, Abhishek Goindi, Kim Min Soo, Wyngard Brillo and Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang.

Abhishek Goindi was the sole player from Team India to cash in the Main Event and although short-stacked coming into Day 2, he made a valiant effort to finish in 24^th place to take home PHP 113K. The final table of the APT Asian Series Cebu Main Event saw 10 players led by Singapore’s Tan Tai Zheng (cover image) (1005K chips) battle it out for the top prize and the APT Cebu Championship Title.

The chip counts leading into the final table were

1. Tan Tai Zheng (Singapore) 1,005,00
2. Bernie Ho (Singapore) 885,000
3. Miika Viholainen (Finland) 386,000
4. Samad Razavi (England) 338,000
5. Alistair Duff (Australia) 335,000
6. Tan Gay Peng (Singapore) 270,000
7. Goh Hanruo (Singapore) 222,000
8. David Evans (Australia) 144,000
9. Bjoern Wiesler (Germany) 131,000
10. Bae Han Su (Korea) 49,000

After four days of intense tournament play, the APT Asian Series Cebu Main Event at the All in Poker Club ended with Day 2’s chip leader Singaporean Tan Tai Zheng lifting the championship. In just two hands of heads up play, Zheng eliminated England’s Samad Razavi to claim the PHP 3,623,000 first prize winnings plus the championship trophy.

Zheng came into the final table as chip leader with over a million in chips. He faced elimination several times, but was able to overcome the challenges. This was especially true during the heads up round where both he and Razavi were all in on the first hand with a board showing . Zheng held for two pair but Razavi had a flush with . Then a stunning river card of had Zheng crush Razavi’s flush with a full house.

The next hand ended the tournament with Zheng making a flush with his on a board showing ousting Razavi’s .

Congratulations to Tan Tai Zheng for becoming the APT Asian Series Cebu 2012 Main Event Champion!

The final table payouts were

Cashes by Team India

Sangeeth ‘Samohh’ Mohan

4^th in Event 4: PHP 35,400

Amant Nauhria

2^nd in Event 8: PHP 119,000

Abhishek Goindi

4^th in Event 1: PHP 87,800
24^th in Main Event: PHP 113,000

To read updates of Team India at APT Asian Series Cebu visit the APT Cebu forum thread.

For complete results from all events of APT Asian Series Cebu visit the APT website.