Poker’s continued rise in popularity across southeast Asia shows little sign of slowing down, with the WPT Prime stop in Taipei breaking more records for the region.
By the time the TWD 35K (approx. USD $1,100) Main Event concluded earlier today it had entered the books as the largest ever live poker event in Taiwan with a buy-in of over USD $1K, as well as the best-attended Prime Championship event outside the World Championship in Las Vegas. The record-breaking tournament was held as a co-operation with Taipei's Chinese Texas Hold'em Poker Association - the fourth time such a partnership has taken place.
1,666 entrants created a prize pool of over USD $1.5M, of which the lion’s share went to event winner Jereld Sam. Singapore’s Sam banks a career-best score of TWD 8,065,000 - approximately USD $250K - as well as a free seat into the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas late this year.
Jereld Sam is the latest WPT Prime Champion (until next week)Jereld Sam overcomes 10-1 deficit to take the title
Sam earned it the hard way, coming back from a short stack of just 11 big blinds, and outstacked 10-to-1, to eventually overcome heads-up opponent Kosei Oguri of Japan. Oguri, who is relatively new to the game, having started under two years ago, also recorded a career-best result of TWD 5,390,000 (approx. USD $167K) for his runner-up finish.
