After five days of play in the 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Asia Championship of Poker Main Event in Macau, which culminated with a six hour heads up match, they flipped for the trophy.
China’s Xing Zhou defeated Hong Kong’s Ying Kit Chan in the HKD $100,000 ($12,902) championship for HKD $3,547,500 (US $454,808) after the players agreed to go all in blind, even though Zhou held a 3-2 chip lead.
“In the end it’s still all about luck,” Zhou told PokerStars.tv. “After six hours of heads up, my body couldn’t take it anymore. I feel the skill level was almost the same, so if we continued it was going to be very tiring and wouldn’t make a lot of difference.”
The 17-day series held at the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex attracted 2,757 plaers, including Phil Ivey, Johnny Chan, John Juanda and a slew of Team PokerStars pros. The events paid out an APT record of more than HKD $46.2m ($5.9m US).
The Main Event drew 184 players, with the top 22 getting a piece of the HKD $17,305,200 (US $2.22M) prize pool.
Zhou, a 29-year-old businessman, held an 8-1 chip lead as heads up play started. As the two battled on, the lead even changed hands at one point. When Zhou had 3.321m chips and Chan had 2.203m, Chan suggested chopping the difference in first and second place money, and Zhou agreed to flip for the title.
On a board of 9♦8♠3♦5♠7♥ , Zhou made a straight with T♦6♣ v Chan’s 7♠5♦.
“I’m really tired,” Zhou said after winning.
