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DafaPoker has just announced the creation of two new mini sites, the Mega Million De Zhou Poker Tournament and the Mega Million, aimed at promoting their upcoming tournament, the Mega Million Main Event on July 7, 2012. Although these sites are in Chinese and targeted towards the Chinese market, the event itself is open to all registered DafaPoker players.

As previously reported, the Mega Million Main Event is DafaPoker’s biggest tournament to date with a CNY 1 million (USD $158,000) maximum prize pool. What makes this event unique is that during the event, players will initially compete online, but when the field whittles down to 30 players the tournament will resume in a live setting during the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Macau tournament in late July. Additionally, each of the qualifying players will receive a USD $500 package which includes transportation, accommodation and spending allowance.

With this format, the qualifying online players will have the exciting chance to meet some of the best poker players in the region and participate in the APT, one of Asia’s most prestigious tournament organisers.

There are a variety of ways to qualify for this big event, all of which do not have a cash buy-in fee. Instead, players will be required to use their accumulated Gold Coins (GC) or tokens to sign up.

For existing DafaPoker players, there are several ways to enter:

- Daily Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 5 GC or Token
- SNG Mega Million Qualifier with buy-in fees ranging from 10-50 GC
- Weekly Mega Million Qualifier with a buy-in fee of 7,500 GC or Token
- Monthly Mega Super Satellite with a buy-in fee of 30,000 GC or Token

For newly registered DafaPoker players, there is the New Player Mega Daily Freeroll. Winning players will receive 2 tokens as prizes to be used towards the next steps leading up to the Mega Million Main Event.

For the full schedule and details of the satellites, check out DafaPoker as well as their newly launched mini sites at www.mmdzpk.com and www.1mpuke.com.

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The India Poker Pros (IPP) 2012 wrapped up this weekend at Casino Royale, Goa with Phil Sanders standing tall after winning the INR 30,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event. He takes home INR 350,000 in cold cash along with the Main Event Trophy.

Entering the final table as the chip leader, Sanders proceeded to knock out most of his opponents starting with Bhavesh Patel in 6th place. Patel moved all in with and would be denied his double up when Sanders opened up that remained ahead throughout the hand. Following that win, he eliminated Rohit Valoo in 6th place, Kenneth Sequeira in 5th place, and bubble Anjali Pandey in 4th place when his Pocket Threes tripped up against Anjali's Pocket Sevens.

With three players left, Sanders intimidated with his massive stack and continued with the bludgeoning as he knocked out short stacked Andrew Ling with that held up against Ling's on a board of .

The heads up round didn't take long as Sanjay Kashyap reraised Sanders all in holding , however Sanders had better with . The board ran giving Sanders the win and the title.

 

 

 

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2010 WSOP Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel may be a bit happier these days with the recent recovery of his stolen WSOP Championship gold bracelet. But, despite the good news, the bracelet was badly damaged and features missing links and heavy scratches in an apparent failed attempt to remove Duhamel’s name that was engraved on the back.

According to TVA Nouvelles, a street sweeper found the champion’s bracelet or, to be more accurate, the remains of the bracelet, when he unclogged the machine he was using to clean the Ville-Marie Tunnel in Montreal. The gold bracelet was immediately turned over to the authorities who notified Duhamel, however it is to remain with the police as part of the evidence in the ongoing case.

As everyone may recall, Duhamel was the victim of a robbery and home invasion in late December 2011 wherein one of the items taken was his treasured gold WSOP bracelet. Shortly after the incident, it was widely reported that the World Series of Poker (WSOP) contacted Duhamel and offered a replacement if it wasn't recovered. But whether the discovery of the above pictured battered and twisted piece counts as a 'recovery' remains to be seen.

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The PokerStars Macau room at Casino Grand Lisboa kicked off this weekend with a field of 196 players taking to the felt for the opening event of the 2012 Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. After all the excitement, it was Xiao Yang Cui from Australia who claimed victory in the HKD $3000 No Limit Hold’em event, earning himself HKD $127,100 in winnings.

"This is my first time playing a tournament in Macau... I plan to play all the events this time,” said Cui. "I'm planning to build up my (APOY) points and get the sponsorship from PokerStars Macau this year."

Cui is certainly well on his way to achieving this goal. He was an unstoppable force at the final table where he amassed a dominating 9:1 chip lead upon entering the heads up round against Taiwanese Chen An Lin. With all the momentum in his side, Cui swept the game when he called Lin’s shove with his against Lin’s . Not only did Cui have Lin dominated preflop but with a board of , Cui won the title with the nut flush.

Event #2 HKD $1000 + 2 Rebuys Charity Event was also underway this weekend with a total of 94 players helping raise HKD $47,100 for local charities such as Caritas de Macau and the Macau Child Development Association. Min Soon Lim from Singapore won the event and took home HKD $47,800 plus a Red Dragon entry. Lim previously had a runner-up finish in the same event and had this to express after going one place better, "I'm so happy, this is my first time winning a tournament. I was so unlucky last time."

There were several notables seen playing this weekend namely Team PokerStars Pros Celina Lin, Bryan Huang and Raymond Wu. The 2011 Asia Player of the Year, Shaq Lin, was also in attendance and, with more events to come, we should be seeing a lot more pros hit the felt over the next week.

Stay tuned to Poker Portal Asia as we'll have more updates on the MPC: Red Dragon including live reporting of the Main Event from Thursday, February 23 at 8.10pm local time.

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Bobby Cheong of Team Singapore (SG) Poker has recently announced the Zodiac Poker Series 2 will be hosted on March 3-4, 2012 at the Singapore Poker Federation. This is a No Limit Freezeout event with a buy-in of SGD $320. The top two players will each be awarded a full package to the APT Philippines Main Event as well as additional prizes up for grabs. Players must be 21 years or older to participate in this event and it's only open to members of the Poker Federation of Singapore (PFS).

It's worth noting that in the recently held APT Asian Series Cebu Main Event, final tablists Jerald Tan and Bernie Ho both qualified for the event through Zodiac Poker Series 1.

For more information, log on to Team SG Poker's Facebook page.

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One of the things we observed at APT Asian Series Cebu at the beginning of the month was that no players from the Philippines managed to make it to the final table. At last year's event, more than half of the final tablists were Filipinos and, with our curiosities piqued, we decided to take a closer look at the stats and found a few surprises.

In 2011, a large percentage of the players who participated in APT Asian Series Cebu were from within the Philippines, with 74 out of the total 126 entrants. The 2012 APT Asian Series Cebu, on the other hand, saw that ratio dramatically change. Not only did the total number of players double to 251 entrants, but only 26 per cent (or 63 players to be exact) were from the Philippines.

This is a big change when you consider that, historically, in APT tournaments held in the Philippines we have witnessed around 60 to 65 per cent of the field being Filipinos. We asked APT Tournament Manager Jason Morris if he had some ideas on why this was the case.

“I believe most of it has do with the marketing plan that APT has created in the Asian region. Singapore, Japan and China have not legally opened up poker to the public but the APT has assisted many of their government approved charity poker events. APT has also partnered with tournaments such as the Zodiac Tour in Singapore, Tokyo Poker Tour and, soon, the upcoming China Poker Carnival,” said Morris.

Reflecting on the recent stats concerning international players at the 2012 APT Asian Series Cebu, these partnerships appear to be responsible for the boost in numbers. A significant 40 per cent of entrants came from China and Japan combined. Another 8 per cent were from Singapore and, with the addition of Goa to the APT Asian Series last year, 4 per cent were from India.

Rounding out the list of international attendance were the avid Korean players whose migration into the Philippines for the past few years has no doubt contributed to the overall foreign player turnout in poker that has been booming throughout the country.

The effect of this increase can only mean good things for poker in the region. As more visiting players attend events, it will have a flow on effect for businesses in the areas, starting with the venue for the tournament and surrounding hotels. This will then trickle down to retail outlets, restaurants and, of course, bars (if we know poker players).

APT Tournament Director Lloyd Fontillas commented, “The amount of foreign players we are attracting to APT events is nothing but positive. For APT Asian Series Cebu, I am certain that casino and property numbers were up for the week, in terms of slots, table games and restaurants. Poker is just at the tip of the iceberg here in Asia, compared to the market in USA and Europe, and I believe these numbers will continue to increase."

The next APT event to arrive will be APT Philippines on April 19-25, 2012 and we'll be sure to keep an eye on the numbers to see whether Fontillas is right in his predictions.

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In just a few days, PokerStars Macau will be buzzing at Casino Grand Lisboa for the commencement of the Macau Poker Cup (MPC): Red Dragon. This big event marks the beginning of the 4th Asia Player of the Year (APOY) season running from February 18 to November 11, 2012. The APOY awards sponsorship and glory to the player with the highest points in PokerStars Asian tournaments at the end of the season.

Players such as Team PokerStars Pros Celina Lin, Raymond Wu and Malaysian player Raiden Kan are all strong contenders looking to get their names etched on the APOY trophy side by side previous winners Kitty Kuo in 2009, Team PokerStars Pro Bryan Huang in 2010 and PokerStars sponsored player Hung-sheng "Shaq" Lin in 2011.

According to PokerStars Macau stats over the last three years, reigning champion “Shaq” Lin and Raiden Kan are the only two players who made the top ten lists for each accomplishment broken down into 'highest winnings', 'highest points' and 'most final table appearances'.

Here is a breakdown of the top finishers in each category:

By Winnings

1. Randy Lew (Canada) – HKD $3,772,000
2. Jimmy Pan (Netherlands) – HKD $2,367,000
3. Devan Tang (Hong Kong) – HKD $2,086,450
4. Nicholas Cho Fai Wong (Hong Kong) – HKD $2,052,800
5. Raiden Kan (Malaysia) – HKD $2,023,683
6. Hung-Sheng "Shaq" Lin (Chinese Taipei) – HKD $1,701,430
7. Zuo Wang (China) – HKD $1,429,800
8. Jeffrey Rossiter (Australia) – HKD $1,306,000
9. Julian Hasse (Germany) – HKD $1,148,750
10. Mark Benasa (Philippines) – HKD $1,100,000

Randy Lew leads the top of this category after capturing first prize in the 2011 APPT Macau Main Event in November, 2011. Most may also remember Lew as the player who set a Guinness World Record for the most hands played in an eight-hour period (while remaining profitable) last month at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) Bahamas.

By Points

1. Hung-Sheng "Shaq" Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 8,606 pts
2. Raiden Kan (Malaysia) – 7,885 pts
3. Tae Joon Noh (Korea) – 5,954 pts
4. Bryan Huang (Singapore) – 5,884 pts
5. Celina Lin (China) – 5,828 pts
6. Chen An Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 5,747 pts
7. Aaron Hung-Chang Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 5,643 pts
8. Devan Tang (Hong Kong) – 4,808 pts
9. "Kitty" Hui-chen Kuo (Chinese Taipei) – 4,752 pts
10. Justin Chan (Hong Kong) – 3,878 pts

"Shaq" Lin is well ahead in this category with winnings that include a 1st place finish at the 2011 Macau Millions and 3rd place finish at the 2011 Macau Poker Cup: Red Dragon. Trailing on his heels is Raiden Kan who bagged first prize at the 2011 Macau Poker Cup Championship and a 4th place finish in the 2011 Macau Millions.

By Final Table Appearances

1. Hung-Sheng "Shaq" Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 15 FTs, 2 titles
2. Celina Lin (China) – 15 FTs, 1 title
3. Raiden Kan (Malaysia) – 14 FTs, 2 titles
4. Aaron Hung-Chang Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 13 FTs, 2 titles
5. Milton De Spain (Macau) – 13 FTs, 0 titles
6. Bryan Huang (Singapore) – 12 FTs, 3 titles
7. Ted Wang (China) – 11 FTs, 2 titles
8. Sparrow Cheung (Hong Kong) – 10 FTs, 2 titles
9. Alexandre Chieng (China) – 10 FTs, 0 titles
10. Chen An Lin (Chinese Taipei) – 9 FTs, 3 titles

Once again "Shaq" Lin leads the pack followed by Celina Lin and Raiden Kan. With these consistent stats, Lin and Kan are certainly the players to beat, and the time to start racking up those points is now.

To date, there have been a total of 131 Official APOY tournaments held with over HKD $111,000,000 awarded in prizes.