The High Stakes Challenge tournament in Macau has finished up and Stanley Choi walked away with the first place win and a record setting cash prize. Choi earned $6,465,560 for winning the event which had a buy-in of $257,854. The first place prize was so large that it became the 10th largest top prize in tournament poker history.
Seventy three players registered to compete in the event, which took place at StarWorld Hotel’s Poker King Club. The tournament also had a re-buy option and twenty one players choose to purchase the re-buy to get back in the game. Because of the amount of players competing, as well as the re-buys, the total tournament prize pool was $23,511,128!
Because the game was of high stakes caliber, the best of the best turned out to compete. Several big name players competed in the event but fell short of cashing out, including: Tom Dwan, Gus Hansen, Igor Kurganov, Andrew Robl and Erik Seidel.
In the end, Choi would face Zhu Guan Fai in heads up play. Choi held a three to one chip lead going into heads up play and this would lead him to victory. By the first hand of heads up play, both players would be all in. Fai min-raised to 400,000 on the button and Choi reraised all in from the blind. Fai called quickly and he was at risk with his pocket sixes. Choi showed pocket tens and the bigger pair.
The dealer showed 9-8-4 on the flop and Choi’s tens held up. The turn of a 4 was no help to Fai and a 7 in the end gave Choi the win and the title!
Final Results:
1 Stanley Choi $6,465,560
2 Zhu Guan Fa $4,349,610
3 Nicholas Wong $3,291,506
4 Tang Zheng $2,233,531
5 John Juanda $1,645,753
6 Lap Key Chen $1,234,347
7 Sam Trickett $999,184
8 Phil Ivey $822,941
9 Alan Sass $705,360
10 Philipp Gruissem $587,778
11 Di Dang $587,778
12 J.P. Kelly $587,778
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