The Poker Dream Manila Main Event has crowned a new champion! After an intense competition, local player Edwin Dela Cruz emerged victorious. After hours of intense competition, he has managed to outlast 499 other players, including a three-hour match against Alessandro Taranto of England.
But after all this struggle, he has now become the new main event champion. With that win comes his rewards. Dela Cruz will take home the Golden Dream trophy and a huge cash prize of PHP 5,510,000 (~US$ 99,400). Aside from this victory, Dela Cruz also recently took part in the inaugural U Series of Poker Main Event title in Taiwan two months ago. There in the USOP Series, he won his first gold trophy.
Dela Cruz was very excited to talk about his win.
“This win is very special. This is my second golden trophy and it is very precious and expensive. I am so overwhelmed and so happy. I’ve been studying so hard for two months and I was able to apply what I’ve learned both live and online. It helped most especially to become more successful live.”
Dela Cruz, winner of the Poker Dream Manila Main Event
When asked how he would celebrate his victory, the champion said he was still taking everything in and that he would most likely take some time off and get some rest.
Poker Dream Manila Main Event Overview
The Poker Dream Manila Main Event was full of thrills and excitement, with over 500 players joining in this game, it was a huge tournament. Being helpd in the luxurious Grand Wing of Newport World Resorts helped make this event especially special.
With so many participants, the prize pool reached an impressive amount of PH₱ 28,751,400 (that’s around US$ 519,480) with the top 76 players being able to get part of that prize pool. There were many exciting matches and plays throughout the tournament, but non more so than the showdown between Dela Cruz and Taranto. Though he was the chip leader for msot of the game, Taranto didn’t back down and made a surprise recovery. From just 4 big blinds, he had managed to bring it up to 50 BBs and catch up to him.
Alessandro Taranto stared off carefully by limping or placing the minimum allowed bet to stay in the game. Dela Cruz responded by checking. However, as the next flip came in, he raised the pot by betting 300,000, something Taranto decided to call. Rather than back down, Dela Cruz added an additional 750,000. With an already impressive number of chips on the table, it was very surprising then when Taranto placed 2,000,000.
With the pressure mounting, Dela Cruz went all in, something which Taranto matched.
For a long time, the two were closely comepting in the Poker Dream Manila Main Event and it seemed like the match could go either way. In the end, it was Dela Cruz who got the advantage when he revealed two pairs that defeated Taranto’s pocket queens. Despite all his efforts to catch in the Poker Dream Manila Main Event, Dela Cruz managed to come out as the winner.
While this main event was definatelty exciting and memorable, but it isn’t the only big main event that happened recently. Over in Taipei, they are having the largest APT Main Event.
To learn more about how that tournament is going, check out our update on the APT Taipei Main Event.