The World Poker Championship is now over and the Hanoi WPC winner has been announced. This year’s main event winner, Nguyen Van Sang is a skilled poker player from Vietnam who emerged as the victor after demonstrating his mastery of the game in the main event.
The World Poker Championship Main Event is one of the best prestigious poker tournaments in the world, and winning it is not easy. Sang had to beat almost six hundred poker players from around the world to win. This win is a testament to his skill and dedication as a poker player.
But now Sang will be able to take home not just the trophy and title, but also an impressive cash prize. With so many poker players attending, the WPC prize pot was huge. Sang is expected to take home a staggering ₫2,600,000,000 or roughly $111,800.
Becoming the Hanoi WPC Winner
After his big win at the WPC, Nguyen Van Sang was interviewed by reporters to share his thoughts on the experience. However, the champion was still in awe of his win and didn’t have too much to say. He was still processing the excitement and emotion of the momentous occasion. All he managed to say was.
“There were many good players on this final table. It was a really great finale and everybody played well.”
Nguyen Van Sang, Hanoi WPC Winner
It was not too surprising given everything he had to accomplish to get where he was.
Sang’s journey to becoming the Hanoi WPC winner was far from easy. First was the buy-in fee which cost around ₫25,000,000 (~$1,050). Even among poker players, this is not a small amount of money. Next was beating the rest of the completion. With 588 players who entered the tournament, the competition was tough. Over several days, these players were slowly eliminated until only 8 remained.
These 8 would be those who join the WPC main event.
The Main Event of the Tournament
The first of the 8 players to be eliminated was Anton Lu from Australia. He seemed to struggle from the start due to a lack of chips. Eventually, he was eliminated when Sang had an ace-king combination that beat Lu’s queen and forced him into 8th place.
The next to be eliminated was Dang Van Hien, a countryman of the Hanoi WPC Winner. He also had a small stack and wasn’t able to improve his starting hand before getting eliminated. He still took home ₫390,000,000 (~$16,700) as a consolation prize.
The third player to leave the table was Dylan Foster. While Foster appeared to have a good hand, it wasn’t good enough. He attempted to call the bet of another player, Hai Nam and managed to gain the lead. However, he wasn’t able to get the cards he needed to complete his hand so he had to leave the game.
Nguyen Phuong Nam would also try to challenge Hai Nam and seemed to have the hand to do so. Unfortunately, it was not good enough and he was eliminated as well.
Lin Hao from China played well in the final table, but unfortunately, he didn’t make it to the top three. He had made some great decisions and folded some tough hands. But then, he decided to go all in. It was a bold move to make, but it didn’t pay off as his opponents had better hands and forced him to go home, leaving only two people to face the Hanoi WPC Winner.
After days of competing and risk-taking, William Jia managed to secure the bronze medal position. Unfortunately, his luck ran out when he went up against Hai Nam’s pocket threes with his jack-ten. He wasn’t able to beat these cards and had to settle for third place. Still, even though he didn’t become the Hanoi WPC Winner, his prize of ₫1,130,000,000 (~$48,400) was a career-best for him.
The showdown was between Hai Nam and Sang. Nam had previously won the ATP Main Event championship and was hoping to add another title. At first, it seemed like Nam had the advantage with 10 million chips compared to Sang’s 7 million. This stack dwindled to just 3 million before Sang made an amazing comeback. Sang managed to form a flush and although Nam tried to bluff his way out, he wasn’t able to beat that hand and ended up in second place. This ended the game and Sang was crowned the Hanoi WPC Winner.
Nguyen Van Sanf isn’t the only high roller winning in Vietnam now, Jinwoo Kim has also recently won his tournament in the APT circuit.
To learn more about what’s been going on in APT Hanoi, check out our post on Jinwoo Kim’s recent win.