The Asian Poker Tour has broken a country/region record for the fourth festival in a row after its APT Taipei Poker Classic became the largest and richest tournament series to ever play out in Taiwan. The Taipei Poker Classic bested the record set during APT Taipei in March of 2024.
From September 27 to October 7, the 11-day festival ran in tandem with the Chinese Texas Hold'em Poker Club at the Asia Poker Arena – Asia's largest permanent poker room. 2,776 unique players travelled from 48 countries/regions to generate a total of 16,787 tournament entries across 98 trophy events, competing for ~$12.8m USD in prize money. Four of the events on the schedule drew four-figure fields, including the APT Taipei Poker Classic Main Event which became the richest tournament in Taiwan's history.
Records broken, records set
Over the course of the series, 12 records were broken, with the most notable being the APT Main Event beating the previous record for the largest and richest tournament in the region while also setting a new all-time record in Taiwan for prize pool and first-place prize. Event #10: Mystery Bounty Hunter, Event #89: Mini Main Event, and Event #97: Micro Main Event all set records for field size, unique players, prize pool, and first-place prize.
Below, you can see a breakdown of the top 20 events by prize pool.
As shown, the APT Main Event accounted for just over a quarter (27%) of the festival's top 20 events by prize pool and drew a field of 1,991 entries (1,103 unique) from 39 countries to compete for Taiwan's richest-ever prize pool of ~$2,724,460. Germany's Rene von Reden rose above the field to claim the ~$453,960 top prize and the Golden Lion trophy.
The series' other headlining tournaments, the APT Super High Roller and APT High Roller, did not set tour records, but both generated six-figure (USD) prize pools. The pewter lion APT High Roller trophy returned to Thailand in the possession of Phanlert Sukonthachartnant following his triumph over the 81-entry field for a ~$183,530 score – the third-largest top prize of the series. The bronze lion APT Super High Roller trophy went to Germany alongside its golden counterpart after Martin Sedlak beat out the field of 275 entries to claim the lion and the ~$164,850 top prize.
Images Courtesy of Asian Poker Tour
