Day 9 of the highly anticipated World Poker Tour (WPT) Prime Vietnam has begun and broken a new record. The event started yesterday May 24 and while everyone was expecting plenty of high rollers and big rewards, no one was expecting just how big it really was.
Hundreds of players flooded into the city of Hanoi to join in this festival, and an unprecedented 168 poker players signed up for the high roller warm up. This included 110 unique players and 58 others who re-entered the tournament. This was far beyond what everyone was expecting. The prize pool for this event was only expected to be VN₫ 2BN. But with each player paying VN₫ 11,000,000 or about US$ 470. Instead, the prize pool now rose to an incredible VN₫ 8,148,000,000 (approximately US$ 347,100). This marked the largest prize pool of the entire festival.
WPT Vietnam High Roller Warm Up Event Details
With so much money at stake, many new players from all over the world have rushed to join the WPT Vietnam High Roller Warm Up, turning it into an international battleground. Aside from the many poker stars from Vietnam and the surrounding region, there are some players coming as far away from Europe to join this event.
Among the many global poker players who joined the high roller warm up are Benjamin Sai, the experienced Robert Kiss, the charismatic John Perry, and so many more. With that many experienced players, it wasn’t surprising to see that. the competition was intense and lasted for many hours.
At the head of these 21 lucky players was a familiar face, Huynh Ngoc Cuong. Huynh was the reigning champion of the Mystery Bounty event and joined the high roller warm up to show his skills again. He entered the WPT Vietnam High Roller Warm Up with a big lead of 1,440,000 chips. Just behind him is Alo Toi He Day with a chip count of 1,238,000, followed closely by Huu Dung Nguyen with a count of 1,222,000.
But he wasn’t the only local player lucky enough to make it into the bubble. Half of the 21 stars were from Vietnam, including Ngoc Anh Cao, Huu Dung Nguyen, and the highly regarded Dinh Tien Thanh, who ranked second in the Player of the Festival competition.
The High Roller Warm Up began earlier today at 11:30 AM and all 21 players are guaranteed to have at least VN₫ 116,000,000 or about US$ 4,940 with that number going up the higher they score. The eventual champion though will win a massive prize of VN₫ 1,964,000,000 (US$ 83,660).
Other Updates in the WPT Vietnam
Aside from the high roller warm up, there were other important events that happened today including the first round. of the two-day Big Bounty event which saw 182 players (136 unique, 46 re-entries) compete for a cash pool of VN₫ 855,400,000 (US$ 36,440).
Of these 182 players, only 23 advanced to the second round. They are expected to return on Thursday, May 25 at 11 am to compete for the prize money. The bubble means that they will receive part of the prize, but they have a chance to increase their share as this event offers a VN₫ 5M reward for every player they eliminate. That is not even mentioning the VN₫ 221,000,000 (US$ 9,415) top prize.
The Superstack Turbo event also got a lot of attention with 90 players joining the event including, David Tai, the founder of the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association (CTP). Tai had a successful run and managed to land in third place. However, the real winner was Thuy Trung Duong. This was his first-ever cash prize in the WPT tournament and was a big moment for him.
Lastly, there are updates on the Player of the Festival award. With the other half of the events finished, Armon Van WIjk from Australia emerged at the top with the most points. This was helped by his second-place finish in the Hyper Turbo event. This left, Dinh Tien Thanh down to the second rank. However, there is still time for him to catch up, especially with the main event starting.
This high-roller event isn’t the only big high-roller event recently. Just a few weeks ago, the APT had its own massive high-roller event with a huge payout.
To get all the details of the APT Taipei Super Highroller with Sam Lam taking home the money. You can read that in our APT Super High Roller Update.