Amateur player lives the dream with APT Taipei Main Event win

But 'David vs Goliath' has been done; sometimes the more interesting story lies elsewhere.

Just ask the man who went on to win it all: Lau Chun Shing, a recreational player from Hong Kong who goes by ‘Walter’.

A moment to remember for an emotional Lau Chun Shing.

With a little over $75K in lifetime tournament earnings, Lau may have not reached the final table with the most intimidating reputation, but certainly had the biggest stack.

He started the day with most of the chips, and ended it with them all. He takes the $525K top prize, the Gold Lion trophy, and a free seat in November’s APT Championship $5M freezeout.

So, what's his story?

Act I: The setup

Lau began the day wisely wielding his chip advantage to pile pressure on his opponents.

With 33M chips he was the only player at the table with an above-average stack, leaving his eight opponents to jostle for position — and lucrative pay-jumps.

The ICM implications of being the first to step out of line loomed large, and left Lau to pick up pot after pot. Eventually, a stand would have to be made.

The first two dozen hands saw pocket aces shown four times, and the fourth would be the killer for Pakinai Lisawad.

Pakinai Lisawad of Thailand.

The Thai raised preflop with pocket nines and jammed over the top of Ching En Chen’s 3-bet. With aces, Chen quickly called, and Lisawad quickly lost. He picked up $43K for his run to the final table.

Next out would be Ren Lin. The current GPI world #1 hit top pair with on a flop of , but Lau Chun Shing had him outpipped with .

When the turn brought another diamond to give Lin a flush draw, he couldn’t get away from the hand. Lau shoved, Lin called, and the diamond didn’t come.

Lin won $57K, and immediately put some of it to work in the APT High Roller, playing out at the very next table along.

Ren Lin was good fun, while he lasted.

Taiwan’s Chia Lin Huang was next out, all-in preflop against his compatriot Ching En Chen in a classic coin-flip: Huang’s against Chen’s .

A king on the flop was enough to send Huang to the rail in 7th for $79K — more than double his previous best tournament cash.

With Lau still far ahead in the chip counts, a game of chicken developed between the short stacks; every hand they contested without him was even more crucial to their own survival.

Such a hand came up shortly after Huang’s departure, as Australia’s Josh McCully and Japan’s Miki Siraishi got it all-in preflop with all-but-identical stacks.

McCully had . Shiriashi had , and less than half a small blind more than McCully.

The board ran out to leave McCully’s ace in front, and Shiriashi was left with just 75K. At this stage the big blind was 500K.

Shiraishi couldn't work a miracle.

Shiriashi won the next hand which, including the big blind ante, got him back up to 800K.

But this would not be his story; the man from Japan was next out, taking $104K — plus an APT Championship Main Event seat worth $10K, awarded to the top six.

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Act II: Confrontation

The five players that remained then battled hard for close to four hours.

The huge chip lead Lau had built began to shrink, then was finally overtaken by Ching En Chen, a local Taiwanese player with an impressive ability to shift gears.

Playing beneath a cap pulled low and a facemask, Chen was difficult to predict and playing with a locked-down discipline that belied his lifetime earnings of $140K.

At one point Chen got it in bad against McCully, pocket nines against the Australian’s pocket tens, only to hit a lifesaver on the river.

McCully was still alive, though, and would not be the next one out. That fell to Japan’s Kazuma Ishihara — the man with no recorded Hendon Mob cashes — who lost a big flip against McCully before making a stand with and running into Lau’s .

No king came and Isihara went, with a $129K payday to bring his Hendon Mob results up to, well, $129K.

Ishihara's Hendon Mob is now looking a lot healthier.

Act III: Resolution

The surface tension was broken. The bubble had popped on five-handed play, which had lasted for most of the afternoon.

Within the next hour, the tournament would be over.

Belgian-born but Taiwan-based, at least Kristof Segers didn’t have far to travel to get home after running into trouble against Lau Chun Shing.

Segers flopped top tair, top kicker with on a board of . Lau had , and wouldn’t get off the pot when Segers bet, calling for 3M.

The came on the turn, giving Lau two pair, and Segers picked the wrong moment to jam.

The on the river was a brick, and Lau was back up to the top of the chip count. Segers took $154K for 4th.

Segers is an adopted son of Taiwan.

Just two hands later, it would be the impressive Chen who ran out of luck at the worst possible time.

With blinds of 500K/1M, Chen 3-bet jammed preflop for 26M with . Lau called with .

Chen loved what he saw, but his mood quickly turned when the flop came ten-high. Lau was rushing, and it seemed nothing could stop him.

The rest of the board ran out clean — for Lau — and he hit heads up with a massive 74M to 20M advantage against Josh McCully. Chen hit the rail with a very healthy $205K payday.

A Taipei local, Chen played very well.

McCully made a dent in Lau’s stack in the first hand of heads-up play, but victory for Lau felt like it was written in the stars.

It took barely 10 minutes for it to become written in the history books.

With blinds at 600K/1.2M, McCully raised to 3.8M only for Lau to heap on the pressure with a shove for the Aussie’s remaining chips.

“I think I have to gamble,” said McCully, tossing in a chip to signal the call.

Josh McCully:
Lau Chun Shing:

Board:

A smiling McCully graciously applauded the victorious Lau, who celebrated emotionally with his friends on the rail.

McCully takes it on the chin

“I’m blessed that I had such a big chip lead,” Lau told PokerOrg, with the confetti still settling around him on the Red Space stage, “I don’t think I was the best player at the table in terms of poker knowledge or skill, but I’ve been studying, and I asked some friends last night for advice on how to approach this situation.”

Lau was conscious of the advantages in having such a large chip lead at a table where the payjumps were so significant, but he was also aware of the extra dynamics at play when you’re playing on a livestreamed table.

“Most of the players at this table were very good, professionals, so I know they were watching the stream on the break and reacting to my play.

“I knew this, of course, so I had to make adjustments.”

Heads-up between McCully, left, and Lau was friendly and respectful.

Lau’s heads-up opponent Josh McCully started the day in the chasing pack, and so came into the final table with a different game plan in mind.

“I was mainly focusing on how the chip leader was going to play,” McCully explained, “and then obviously the two people on my right [Ren Lin and Pakinai Lisawad], who were the most volatile players.

“So I was keeping those 3 players in mind, but I realised yes, we have to play a little bit tight, but I was always going to go after it.”

Like Lau, McCully will be back in Taipei for the APT Championship in November.

Before then, though, he’ll be traveling to Las Vegas for the WSOP, then celebrating his wedding.

McCully was quick to congratulate Lau on his incredible achievement.

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Despite coming so close to the win, he doesn’t feel he got unlucky.

“As we know, poker is infinite variance. And everyone experiences the good and the bad.

“I was blessed the whole time. I should have bust probably about 8 times in this tournament — like, genuinely I should have been out — but each time I got saved in some weird way.”

An emotional epilogue

There are no villains in the story of the 2026 APT Taipei Main Event, then, just heroes.

For its final chapter, here are some words that a visibly emotional Lau delivered to the room, in Cantonese, as he received his trophy.

“I haven’t been in the money many times. I’ve thought about giving up. The buy-ins aren’t cheap, and it can be frustrating.

“However, anyone who plays enough poker knows that, in a massive field like this, not getting a result is actually normal. You have to accept the variance. I think it’s important not to focus too much on a single result, but rather on personal growth.

“You have to ask yourself: am I consistently learning? Am I getting better? When you know you are doing the right things, even when the results are bad, it gives you the confidence to keep moving forward.

“Just because I won doesn't mean I've ‘made it’... While I want to learn and play well, I want to maintain the mindset of a recreational player... Life needs balance.”

And so, in the end, it was a feel-good story.

And the best part is, the main cast will be back in November for the sequel.

Note that the dollar amounts mentioned in this article have been converted from Taiwanese New Dollars, are approximate and correct at time of writing.

^{Images courtesy of the APT.}