The poker scene in Vietnam has witnessed huge growth in recent years, and now the country is getting set to host two significant poker festivals in the weeks ahead.
The World Poker Tour lands in the capital of Ho Chi Minh City for the WPT Vietnam starting Friday. It’s the first of three stops on the WPT’s “Asia Swing,” which also includes festivals in Tokyo, Japan, and Incheon, South Korea in the coming weeks.
The Main Event is a VND 22,000,000 ($USD 950) buy-in, and the three-day tournament kicks off today. The festival features a full lineup over the seven days.
Sept 28 – $950 Main Event, $343,000 guaranteed prize pool
Sep 28 — $285 Bounty, $85 per bounty
Sep 29 — $380 Team Event Freezeout
Sep 30 — $285 PLO, 2 Day Event
Sep 30 — $1,900 High Roller, Day 1
Oct 1 — $285 6-Max Shootout
Oct 2 — $475 WPT Pro Poker Club Superstack, Day 1
Oct 3 — $238 Vietnam Ladies Championship
The WPT is seeing plenty of opportunity in Asia. In addition to the effort to raise poker’s profile in Vietnam, Japan, and South Korea, the tour will head to Goa, India, for a second time following its three-stop tour in Asia.
APT on Deck in Da Nang
The Vietnamese capital isn’t the only place cultivating a healthy poker scene of late.
Up the coast in the central region of the country is the city of Da Nang, which witnessed the opening of a second poker club earlier this year. That’s one more than even Ho Chi Minh, a city about eight times the size.
And for the first time, Da Nang will play host to Asian Poker Tour (APT) event. The one-week festival features a full slate of tournaments, including the VND 20,000,000 ($USD 860) Main Event which kicks off on October 6.
The Super High Roller event gets going on the same day and features a buy-in of $4,300. Other events on the seven-day stop include a $215 Deep Stack Hyper Turbo, a $300 NLH, and a “regular” $2,150 High Roller.
All In for Vietnam
It will mark the third time the APT has made a stop in the Southeast Asian country. The most recent came in January, when Ho Chi Minh’s Pro Poker Club hosted an 18-event festival, highlighted by a $660, Main Event with a $120,000 guaranteed prize pool.
That stop was deemed to be “hugely successful,” attracting entrants from all over Europe, South Africa, and North America, while the Main Event winner hailed from Hong Kong.
While the overall numbers weren’t mind blowing – the Main Event featured 110 players – it was enough of a hit that the APT was willing to return for a second-straight year.
And with the WPT now on board as well, the potential is there for a true poker boom in Vietnam.
