Last week was the official start to the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Season 4. The first stop in the series of events has taken us to a lovely destination called Macau. Located just off the Chinese main land Macau is rapidly becoming the new ‘Las Vegas’ with casino’s such as the Wynn, MGM Grand, Hard Rock Casino and the Venetian to name just a few. However the kick off to APPT’s Season 4 was going to be at the wonderful Grand Lisboa casino. The poker room at the Grand Lisboa is sponsored by PokerStars and the room clearly states this fact with walls and tables adorned with the PokerStars logos.

The buy-in for this leg of the tournament was 40,000 HKD or approximately $5,160 USD; the tournament attracted 342 players creating a prize pool of 13,680,000 HKD or approximately $1.7 million USD. After 3 day 1’s and a total of 5 days of play the final table was set to be an epic battle with 8 different countries represented from 9 players, this included Hong Kong, New Zealand, United States, United Kingdom, Norway, Costa Rica, Denmark and the North Mariana Islands.

In the field that fell before the final table was Team PokerStars Pros Tony Hachem, Eric Assadourian, Celina Lin, Bryan Huang, Marcel Luske and APPT Season 3 Grand Final winner Aaron Benton. There was also a big contingent of Aussies making up the field including Daniel Neilson, Liam Moffat, Brendon Rubie and Julien Cohen.

First to fall at the final table was Keith Hawkins followed by Albert Kim. Norwegian poker pro Kai Danilo Paulsen was the next victim of the very aggressive final table collecting $445,000 HKD. Brian Green was the next to hit the rail when he ran into kicker problems in a blind versus blind battle against Denmark’s Jeppe Drivsholm, Green 4 bet shoved on a board of 8h 5h 2d with 9s 8d only to be called by the Dane’s Ac 8s, Green failed to improve and hit the rail. Next to fall victim was Kenny Neilson when he open shoved from the cut-off only to see a call from Victorino Torres on the button, he was in bad shape holding A8 against Torres’s A9, he failed to improve and hit the showers early but with a respectable $700,000 HKD.

The play slowed down at this point until the short stack Jeppe Drivsholm found himself all-in with a caller from Torres holding K5 up against the superior holdings of Torres who tables A7, Jeppe failed to get the help he wanted as the board ran out 10 6 2 J 8, he collected $891,000 HKD for his fantastic effort.

Victorino Torres really started to take control of the table winning hand after hand, play was starting to speed up and both Cole Swannack and Chong Cheong were starting to slide down the chip counts. That was until Cheong laid a very clever trap for the young kiwi Swannack when Cheong limped in only to see Swannack move his stack in only to see an insta-call from Cheong who was holding AA, Swannack was in bad shape with 22, the board blanked for Swannack and he was eliminated in 3^rd for a very handsome payday of $1,177,600 HKD.

Heads up play lasted just 9 hands, with Torres winning the first 6 hands in a row. On the 7^th hand Torres kept the pressure on moving all-in against the very short stacked Cheong, Cheong snap called the shove with KQ only to see he was in bad shape against Torres’s AJ, the crowd jumped to their feet to watch the first all-in showdown of the heads up battle. The player at risk was Cheong, that was until the flop came down 5d Kd Qd, Torres was quick to ask the dealer for a 10 to give him Broadway however the dealer had other ideas putting a Q on the turn locking up the hand for Cheong who doubled up. After Cheong’s double he was still a 5-2 underdog. On the 9^th hand of heads up play Cheong raised from the small blind and Torres came along for the ride. The flop was an interesting texture landing Js 10h 9s. An interesting board that ensured fireworks and that’s exactly what we got. Torres checked and Cheong instantly shoved his 1.8 million chip stack into the middle which was instantly called by Torres who flopped the sucker straight with 8c 7c. However the hand was far from over as Cheong held Qs 6c drawing to a better straight or a back door flush. The turn brought the Ad to the crowd’s excitement, it changed nothing but at this point the crowd is cheering at anything. It was to be Torres’s victory as the river revealed a meaningless 7d. Chong Cheong couldn’t get to the top of the podium today but he did pick up a respectable $2,088,000 HKD for his accomplishments.

After 4 days of play and outlasting 341 other players Victorino Torres of the North Mariana Islands was crowned APPT Macau Season 4 Champion. His calm control through the whole tournament and his control of the final table has secured this man’s name in history. He collects $3,246,000 HKD which roughly equates to $415,000 USD, a life changing sum of money for the man from the middle of the Pacific Ocean. If it interests anybody the Northern Mariana Islands are located near Guam north of Papua New Guinea and East of the Philippines’.