Over two weeks, Taipei City, Taiwan, witnessed an impressive display of poker skills as hundreds of participants gathered for the most significant stop of the World Poker Tour, or WPT Taiwan. The event ended strong with the handing out of a record $3.9 million across all events including a substantial prize for the Main event. This makes an unprecedented success in the franchise and provides a bright future for the WPT in this region.
Now that the festival has finished, it is time to look back at some of the highlights. Who are the winners and which players should you keep an eye out for?
Record-breaking WPT Taiwan Main Event
The WPT Prime series has been making rounds all across the region in places like Australia, Cambodia, and Vietnam for events. These places saw huge crowds of excited poker players so there were high expectations for the WPT Prime Taiwan Main event. The goal of this event was to have at least 1,224 attendees.
In reality, the WPT Taiwan Main Event broke these expectations by having a record 1,359 entries. With so many people entering, the prize pool ballooned to approximately TWD 39,546,900 (approximately USD 1,236,845).
With such a big prize pool, the grand prize also increased to a respectable TWD 6,652,200 (USD 208,340). This is the largest WPT Prime prize for a main event. The lucky winner was visiting Korean player Seonguk Huh who gave a spectacular performance and outlasted the other 1,358 through several days of hard competition. For Seonguk, this is a career-best for him and comes with a ticket to the WPT World Championship worth USD 10,400.
Player of the Festival Announcement for WPT Taiwan
Seonguk wasn’t the only winner of WPT Taiwan as the player of the festival was announced and Hong Kong’s Park Yu ‘Sparrow’ Cheung claimed the title. This bonus competition was a tight race as 4 players had almost the same number of points. For a while, it seemed like Yu Chung ‘Nevan’ Chang was going to take home the prize, but after being eliminated in the Hyper Turbo Event, Park Yu managed to reclaim the lead.
He continued to lead with a small margin of about 20 points on the final day of the WPT Taiwan. His two closest rivals, Yen Han ‘Pete’ Chen and Hsuan Chao Chen both had events and could have reclaimed the lead. Lucky for Park, both players lost their event, allowing him to maintain his lead. With this trophy, Park also received a passport to any main tour of Season XXI worth $5,000.
Pradeep Sharma Becomes the Only Two-Event Winner
Compared to other countries, India was not as well represented in the WPT Taiwan but that did not stop them from winning some big achievements. One of these players, Pradeep Sharma “Lionroar” Nudurumati was crowned champion in not one, but two events. This made him the only player in this entire tournament to achieve that.
The first of these was the Accumulator event where Sharma competed against and outclassed 299 other players. Less than a week later, he entered the Closer Megastack event against 179 other players. Here Sharma showed his skills once again as he outcompeteed all of these players and claimed a trophy and prize money. Together, he’s expected to return to India with TWD 1,237,200 (~USD 38,750).
“It was my first trip to Taiwan. I flew in for the second part of the series on August 15th and to start on a winning note at the Megastack Accumulator was so sweet. Focus was on the Main Event, was playing well and in the zone to take it deep but unfortunately fell on the wrong end of variance. Nevertheless, it was icing on the cake to take down the Closer Event for a memorable trip.”
Pradeep Sharma, Two-Event Winner of the WPT Taiwan.
Upcoming WPT Events in Asia
India was not as well represented in the WPT Taiwan but that did not stop them from winning some achievements. One of these players, Pradeep Sharma “Lionroar” Nudurumati was crowned champion in not one but two events. This made him the only player in this entire tournament to achieve that.
The first was the Accumulator event where Sharma competed against and outclassed 299 other players. Less than a week later, he entered the Closer Megastack event against 179 other players. Here Sharma showed his skills again as he outcompeted all of these players and claimed a trophy and prize money. He’s expected to return to India with TWD 1,237,200 (~USD 38,750).
The main event of WPT Taiwan was one of the largest and most prestigious events of this festival with not only a trophy but a huge prize money.
If you want to get all the details of this event, you can read our WPT Taiwan Main Event Explained post.