2017 ACOP: Alan Lau Creates History By Shipping Record-Breaking Main Event

The headline Main Event at the ongoing 2017 Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) hosted at the PokerStars LIVE Macau poker room drew a record breaking field of 308-strong runners with the top 36 players cashing their share of the mammoth HK$28,674,800 prize pool.The final six contenders returned to play down to a champion on the final day and the champion who took down the coveted Gold Spadie finally emerged in none other than Alan Lau (cover image).

This 30-year pro has had a trailblazing year and wins the largest ACOP Main Event to close out his exceptional year in style. He is now the first player to win Asia’s two biggest titles in less than 12 months i.e. ACOP Main Event and the Macau Poker Cup (MPC) signature Red Dragon Main Event all in a single season.

The former commercial banker outlasted the record 1,216-strong field in the Red Dragon Main Event back in February and went on to break numerous records in the APOY race for the largest number of points earned and titles won in a single season. The Hong Kong based pro had already locked the Asia Player of the Year (APOY) and used the momentum to dominate the final table throughout.

At the close, Lau found himself up against USA based online pro Aaron Been who started the day as the chip leader and quite fittingly it came down to these two with the former denying Been his first major live title after the duo decided to cut a deal in the heads-up battle.

Been sealed HK$5,500,500 and Lau secured HK$5,400,500 with the two playing it out for the trophy, a further HK$100,000 in cash and the 2018 ACOP Main Event seat worth HK$100,000. By the end, Lau walked away with HK$5,600,500 for his victory, bringing his total tournament winnings amounting to over HK$10 million (~$1.28 million) this year.

An elated Lau said, “I feel unreal, never thought it could happen. I played ACOP Main four years in a row and it’s always such a tough field. I don’t know what to say, I’m honestly running too good. I’ve put in a lot of hard work this year but you need some run good as well, I mean to win the Red Dragon and this one… I can’t believe it. I’m going to spend the night celebrating with friends.”

Final Table Recap

The official final table featured not a single amateur and it Germany’s Dominik Nitsche who drew first blood by sending David Laka packing in sixth place. Nitsche slow-played his pocket tens and busted the Spanish player (Laka) after he jammed with .

USA’s Brian Altman fell as the second casualty after just over an hour’s play on the final day, again at the hands of Nitsche. Nitsche’s were up against Altman’s and the former took down the hand to seize a commanding chip lead.

The four-handed table was indeed a tough one, with all of them i.e. Lau, Been, Nitsche and Stephen Chidwick among the best in the world and they surely brought their A-game as after several rounds of trading chips, all were close to evenly stacked.

Eventually it was Lau who started making moves, winning pots from both Stephen Chidwick and Nitsche to storm in front.

The four became three as Chidwick fell next after losing a race to Been, the Brit’s (Chidwick) pocket nines lost to American’s (Been) .

Former frontrunner Nitsche soon followed Chidwick to the rail in the very next hand after jamming with ace-three only to run into Been’s pocket tens.

Down to heads-up play, both players cracked a deal and decided to speed up the levels but a long and grueling battle ensued. The chip lead was exchanged several times before the final hand played out.

Been lost a huge part of his stack to become short and was forced to call off with trailing Lau’s . The final board of the event fanned out to grant the Hong Kong pro the title to crown off a superlative year.

Final Table Results (HKD)

1. Alan Lau – HK$5,600,500

2. Aaron Bean – HK$5,500,500

3. Dominik Nitsche – HK$2,714,000

4. Stephen Chidwick – HK$2,142,800

5. Brian Altman – HK$1,571,700

6. David Laka – HK$1,285,800

Keep following all the updates from 2017 ACOP right here on PokerGuru!