There were some big wins on the poker circuit this week, both individually and for charity. Let’s take a look back at the week that was and recap where the money went.
Chen Claims WPT Borgata Championship
Guc Liang Chen has won the World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open Championship, taking home $789,058 in the process. The tournament, which was held at the Borgata Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, had a field of 1,132 battling it out. Overall, 110 players made it into the money but it was Chen who stood out above the rest. He defeated Gregory Weber, who won $471,059, followed by Jia Liu, who won $288,071. Then you had Matt Parry in fourth place with $240,965, Cliff Josephy in fifth place with $199,294 and Thomas Paul in sixth place at the final table with $161,247. There were a number of other big-name players in the field, highlighted by World Series of Poker Main Event champion Scott Blumstein, but he could only manage a 52nd-place finish. He still collected $10,507, which is chump change compared to the $8.15 million he won at the WSOP. The star of the show was Chen, who is well known in Asian poker circles. Now this could be his big break into the North American scene.
Kim Wins APT Main Event
The Asian Poker Tour’s main event has come to a conclusion. Hosted in Manila, Philippines, South Korea’s Sung Ho Kim managed to win the event. He defeated countryman Jae Hyun Lim to win $40,250, along with the APT Championship trophy and a ring. There was a buy-in of $1,650 for this event, which attracted 132 entries, making for a prize pool of $192,060. A total of 18 players would end up getting paid out from that prize pool. Lim won $28,880 for second place. Fellow South Korean Soo Jo Kim won $28,530 for third place, followed by Japan’s Daiki Kohagi in fourth place with $14,500 and the Philippines duo of Eugene Co and Mike Takayama in fifth and sixth place with $12,000 and $9,890, respectively. Japan’s Zentaro Nakayashiki won $8,160 for seventh place and Lebanon’s Hanna Khalife rounded out the final table with $6,820 in eighth place.
888poker Raises Plenty For Charity
XL Eclipse is known as one of 888poker’s biggest events of the series. This year, there was more than $9 million in guaranteed prizes throughout the series of events. However, what really raised headlines was the three charity tournaments on the schedule that raised money for different causes. In total, more than $40,000 was raised for the Against Malaria Foundation in these “Chip-In!” tournaments. The tournament fees were paid for by the players and this money went to the foundation. The first event was a high-roller tournament that had a buy-in of $5,200 for each player with a prize pool of $500,000, and $200 from each buy-in went to the charity. From this event came $24,000, and then in the second event, there was a $215 buy-in for 585 players, and 360 players bought re-entries; this brought in over $14,000. Finally, there was a buy-in of $55 for the third tournament with 277 players and around $1,850 came from this event.
The foundation uses 100 percent of all donations toward preventing malaria. The money will go to the purchase of insecticidal nets to help protect people from contracting malaria, which is a preventable disease.