China’s Alvan Zheng has emerged victorious at the 2016 Macau Millions poker event that concluded on Monday, taking home the top prize of HKD911,000 (US$116,732) for his first place finish.
The competition – part of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) – is promoted by online poker brand PokerStars and took place at ‘PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams’, a branded venue at Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd’s City of Dreams casino resort on Cotai, Macau.
The main event of the 2016 Macau Millions set a new Macau record for “largest-ever field” with 2,343 entries, which shattered the previous record of 1,804 entrants from 2014, according to PokerStars.
The 2016 Macau Millions took place from January 8 to 18, and had a guaranteed prize pool of HKD3 million. PokerStars described the 2016 Macau Millions as the city’s most popular poker tournament, awarding a total of HKD6.14 million in cash prizes.
“I’m over the moon with the result and it’s safe to say that poker in Macau is still thriving,” APPT president Danny McDonagh said, quoted by PokerNews.com.
He added: “We increased the buy-in from HKD2,200 to HKD3,000… But the structure adjustments that were implemented have clearly worked as intended and it’s a terrific accomplishment to break the record in half the amount of days [compared to previous tournaments].”
Next in PokerStar’s calendar in Macau is the 24th instalment of the Macau Poker Cup, running from February 19 to March 6. The regional series will host 18 Official Asia Player of the Year events including the HKD12,000 Red Dragon main event, featuring a HKD8 million guaranteed prize pool, according to the organisation.
