Jian Guo Sun: Champion!

Poker, by its very nature, throws up surprises at every turn. And we've just seen an attractive huge one here on the PokerStars LIVE card-room on the City of Dreams Casino, where the newest champion at the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) is a 52-year-old coffee shop worker from Beijing, who only took up the sport two years ago.

That, at least, is what Jian Guo Sun told us yesterday when he made his strategy to the general table of the HK$25,000 main event, however the way he carved in the course of the final table today to be crowned champion made it appear to be he knew much more about this game than he was letting on.

Sun won HK$2,149,600, beating 533 players, after cutting a heads up care for Bernard Vu at a bit of after 8pm. It was the tip of a rapid-fire final table, bossed for the primary half by the British player Alex Ward and then, after a pivotal hand between the two, finished off by Sun. He sat in stony-faced silence for the most efficient a part of four days, flying a great deal under the radar. But then he got his chips and have become an all-action, big-pot-playing, excitable maniac. After which he was the champion.

Ward was the person expected to be hoisting aloft the trophy tonight. He had 45 percent of the chips in play once they headed to a seven-handed final table. But he was just one of the players to repay Sun when he found a large hand, and Sun is now shining the entire as far back as Beijing.

When they resumed today, the imbalance in stacks was pretty stark. They sat down behind the next stacks and with expectation that it might start at an excellent pace.

Seat 1) Jiayi Jin, China - 465,000Seat 2) Weijian Xie, China - 1,215,000Seat 3) Ying Fu, China - 1,105,000Seat 4) Zhiyi Feng, China - 685,000Seat 5) Jian Guo Sun, China - 1,055,000Seat 6) Alex Ward, Uk - 4,715,000Seat 7) Bernard Vu, France - 1,420,000

Final table players at APPT10 Macau

That expectation soon became reality. The overall table was only three hands old when the primary player was all-in. That was the short-stacked Jiayi Jin, but he got his shove through. However, when the second-shortest player, Zhiyi Feng, tried to copy the trick at the next hand, he wasn't so fortunate.

Ward, sitting within the big blind, found Q♦Q♥ and made a rapid demand a fragment of his stack. Feng's A♦2♠ needed help, and although the flop brought two aces, there has been also a queen nestled between them. The turn and river were both blanks, and Feng was toast before he had even finished his first can of energy drink.

Zhiyi Feng: Out in a flash

That took Ward's stack beyond 5 million, and kept him firmly answerable for the general. It seemed just a case of when, not it, he'd get it done--and, of course, in what order the others would perish. But that was complacency...

As it happened, it was Weijian Xie who went out next. He found pocket queens, which was an overpair to the flop of J♦6♦9♣. But he got all of his chips in against Vu, who had quite a few equity along with his Q♦T♦. And the 8♣ fell at the turn to bust Xie.

The end of Weijian Xie

Xie was the eighth Chinese player in succession to be knocked out, and the following two were Chinese too: Jin, who had successfully laddered up together with his short stack, after which Ying Fu, who tried an enormous bluff against Ward, failed, and got picked off soon after.

To be specific, Jin's elimination happened on the hand of Fu. He couldn't get A♦6♦ to overcome Fu's A♥9♣. But very soon after, Fu had a dominated ace when he was all-in and he couldn't outdraw Ward's A♣J♣ together with his A♥J♦. They took HK$519,000 and HK$755,000 for fifth and fourth respectively.

Jiayi Ji shakes the hand of his assassin...

...but then he's next out

It meant that by the point we took the primary break of the day, only three players remained, and Ward's stack of 6.5 million was nearly double the dimensions of the others' combined.

But, folks, that is poker. And there's nothing ever set in stone. Although Ward had enjoyed nothing but plain sailing for the most efficient a part of two days, he soon entered very choppy waters.

After about an hour of three-handed play, they took a short lived bathroom break and Vu particularly came back with a distinct strategy. Sitting to Ward's left, he began to play back on the chip leader and halt Ward's dominance. Sun seemed content to depart them to it for essentially the most part, but if his opportunity came, he seized it with both hands.

Arguably the tournament-defining pot occurred after Sun limped his small blind after which called Ward's raise. They saw a flop of 7♦K♣6♥ and Sun check-called Ward's bet of 160,000. Sun again check-called Ward's 350,000 bet at the 7♠ turn, but after the 4♣ river, Sun shoved.

Sun's surge begins

He also then started whooping and cheering, breaking a reasonably icy facade behind which he had hidden for many of the tournament. Ward didn't know what to make of the sudden outburst, but ended up calling the 1.5 million shove, eventually being shown the 7♥ in Sun's hand.

It put Sun into the lead, put Ward at the ropes and he wouldn't recover. After dwindling to his last 1.3 million chips, Ward got them in with an open-ended straight draw. It missed and Vu's high card prevailed. Ward must make do with $1,002,000 for third place. Put it this fashion: he would have taken that in the first place of the week.

Alex Ward needed to make do with third

Vu had the slight chip lead when he went heads up with Sun. They immediately agreed an ICM deal and set about playing for an extra HK$140,000 and a HK$100,000 seat on the ACOP main event.

Bernard Vu and Jian Guo Sun prepare for battle

Sometimes heads-up deals in poker make almost no difference to the way in which players play. They are able to still often keep it tight. But with paydays assured, Vu and Sun played a high-octane heads up that lasted all of ten hands. Sun made an enormous bet at the first hand; Vu jammed the second one. Then Sun turned a whole house and got paid on an enormous value bet.

Vu said that he were preparing for this moment for plenty of months, playing every night on PokerStars and honing his game for this trip to Macau. But little will have prepared him for this crazy heads-up battle. It didn't take long until Sun found top pair on a jack-high board and Vu found middle pair. All of it went in and that was that.

Bernard Vu: vanquished heads-up

"I never thought I'LL win it," Sun said.

Vu picked up HK$2,065,000, but Sun is the champion, beaming his as far back as Beijing. Look back on our live coverage to look the way it all panned out.

APPT10 Macau Main Event

Date: May 25-29, 2016Buy-in: $25,000 ($23,000+$2,000) Players: 533 Total prize pool: $11,891,230

1 - Jian Guo Sun China $2,149,660*2 - Bernard Vu France $2,065,000*3 - Alex Ward Uk $1,002,0004 - Ying Fu China $755,0005 - Jiayi Jin China $519,0006 - Weijian Xie China $413,0007 - Zhiyi Feng China $336,0008 - Kan He China $283,0009 - Yuan Li China $236,000

*Denotes heads up deal.

All payouts in HKD.

Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: Asia Pacific Poker Tour]