The Macau Poker Cup 28 wrapped up over the weekend at the PokerStars Live Macau City of Dreams and awarded four more PokerStars Players NL Hold’em Championship (PSPC) Platinum Passes, each worth about $30,000.
High Roller Belarusian Win
The HK$80,000/$10,229 buy-in Macau Poker Cup 28 High Roller, which featured unlimited re-entries and a shot clock, drew 124 runners to create a $1.2 million prize pool. Belarus’ Mikita Badziakouski began the final table as one of the short stacks, but hung in there to mount a comeback and win the title for $297,169.
Badziakouski began heads-up a huge lead over Spain’s Raul Martinez, and it didn’t take long for things to come to a head. In the final hand, Martinez moved all in holding K♠4♣ and Badziakouski called with a dominating K♦10♦. The board ran out 8♣8♥7♣A♥3♠ and Martinez had to settle for second place, but still a career-high $200,755.
“There were a couple of very strong professionals,” Badziakouski told Macau Poker Cup officials after the win. “I was just playing my normal game.”
The Macau Poker Cup win gave Badziakouski more than $4.8 million in tournament winnings over the past 12 months. That included $420,255 for defeating Tom “durrrr” Dwan heads up in the 2017 MBP Spring Challenge Super High Roller last March. In October, Badziakouski had another big score in Macau finishing second to Wayne Yap in the 2017 ACOP Single Day High Roller for $516,536.
Final Table Results
1 Mikita Badziakouski (Belarus) HK$2,324,000/$297,169
2 Raul Martinez (Spain) HK$1,570,000/$200,755
3 Elliot Smith (Canada) HK$1,021,000/$130,555
4 Raghav Bansal (India) HK$845,000/$108,050
5 Matthew Moss (UK) HK$682,000/$87,207
6 Dasheng Chen (China) HK$538,000/$68,794
7 Ben Lai (Hong Kong) HK$411,020/$52,557
8 Masaki Nakano (Japan) HK$309,000/$39,511
9 Martin Kozlov (Australia) HK$231,000/$29,537
Zheng’s Red Dragon Redemption
In January, China’s Alvan Zheng, a 29-year-old quantity surveyor, finished seventh in the ACOP Platinum Series XX Main Event. A month later, he returned to the island and came out on top of a 1,122-player field to win the Freezeout Macau Poker Cup 28 Red Dragon for HK$3,055,000/$390,692.
To win the title, Zheng had to go through Junhao Hong in heads-up play. The duo began the match with over 100 big blinds each, but it didn’t take long to crown a winner. A preflop raising war saw more than 4 million chips get in before the A♥10♦5♥ flop.
The rest of the chips went in with Hong holding the 10♠4♠, which was way behind the A♠A♣ of Zheng. The J♠ turn left Hong drawing dead, and he hit the rail in second place. As for Zheng, it was his second major win after prevailing in Macau’s largest-ever tournament field (2,343 entries) in the January 2016 Macau Millions for HK$911,000/$117,390.
“This is the biggest moment in my poker career, I’m very excited right now,” Zheng told officials after the win.
Zheng now sits in 10th place on China’s all-time poker money list with $1,160,016 in earnings. He’ll look to add to that in January 2019 when he heads to the PCA.
“If I can win that tournament, it will definitely change my life,” Zheng said about winning the $30K PSPC Platinum Pass. “In the Bahamas, I’m looking forward to playing against Martin Jacobson, Alan Lau, and Daniel Negreanu.”
Final Table Results
1 Alvan Zheng (China) HK$3,055,000/$390,692
2 Junhao Hong (China) HK$1,824,000/$233,234
3 Jiang Ho Huang (Singapore) HK$1,094,000/$139,889
4 Zhenhua Lu (China) HK$800,000/$102,296
5 Aleksei Opalikhin (Russia) HK$540,000/$69,049
6 Dongqi Lin (China) HK$394,000/$50,380
7 Minho Lee (Korea) HK$336,000/$42,964
8 Zhou Tong (China) HK$292,000/$37,338
9 Jiming Chen (China) HK$248,000/$31,711
