Twenty three year-old PKR tournament phenom Adrien ‘zlatan35’ Allain from Rennes, France, has won the 2009 Asian Poker Tour Macau Festival Main Event! Three days of high octaine poker culminated in a final hand that saw Adrien’s A-3 outdraw Inwook Choi’s A-Q for first place honours and a big $391,556 payday.
zlatan35, who recently turned pro said of his first win in a major, “I’m overwhelmed, this is so wonderful. I qualified for this tournament through a $5 lottery tournament on PKR and end up beating all these top players. Vive La France!”
The APT Macau boasted a number of world class players among its 326 strong field including ten time bracelet winner Johnny Chan, WSOPE champion John Juanda, November Niners past and present Chino Rheem and James Akenhead, past WSOP main event winner Mansour Matloubi and all round poker superstar JC Tran.
zlatan35 dominated the likes of JC Tran and Casey Kastle at the final table.
APT Main Event final table chip counts
- Seat 1: Casey Kastle (130,000) Slovenia
- Seat 2: Winfred Yu (61,000) Hong Kong
- Seat 3: David Steicke (876,000) Hong Kong
- Seat 4: J.C. Tran (444,000) USA
- Seat 5: Adrien Allain (482,000) France
- Seat 6: Michael Woo (64,000) Hong Kong
- Seat 7: Inwook Choi (934,000) Korea
- Seat 8: Chris Chau (143,000) Hong Kong
- Seat 9: Christer Hallberg (132,000) Sweden
There were five small stacks on the final table and after shuffle up and deal was called by the world’s leading tournament director Matt Savage, the action was fast and furious. First out was Casey Kastle, who celebrated his third consecutive Asian Poker Tour final table appearance by going out on the third hand of play. He was followed quckly by Winifred Yu, who came to the Starworld Hotel and Casino as a member of the crew for Chinese poker language film ‘Poker King’ (which also features a cameo from PKR Pro James666) and left with $3,369.15.
Christer Hallberg was out next, followed by Michael Woo. All the while zlatan35 was forcing the play and could do no wrong, building a commanding chip lead. Sharks JC Tran and David Steicke circled the waters but Allain was up to the challenge and kept his lead in tact throughout the final table. Meanwhile Chris Chau flamed out in fifth, followed by Steicke – whose fourth place finish caps a great Asian Poker Tour Macau in which he also took down the Poker Pack High Rollers event.
What followed was a long session of small ball poker with zlatan35 continuing to dominate, Inwook Choi holding up well and poker superstar JC Tran seriously short stacked but fighting back. In the end Inwook Choi’s queen high straight saw off Tran’s challenge, disappointing the large group of Poker Pack supporters on the rail. It wasn’t long before zlatan35 dispatched Choi – finally getting it all in with a dominated A-3 to Choi’s A-Q, only to spike the three and send Choi back to Korea with $214,175 in second place winnings.
PKR in the house! It’s zlatan35’s world at the APT closing ceremony.
zlatan35’s own group of die-hard supporters waved French flags in celebration as the Asian Poker Tour closing ceremony at the Starworld Hotel and Casino drew to its conclusion.
He now plans to use the winnings as a bankroll to push forward his poker career. And there isn’t a much better start than a win at a major event and a ringing endorsement from poker legend JC Tran who gave zlatan35 full props saying , “It has been a great 12 day festival for The Poker Pack - it is disappointing not to take down the Main Event but congratulations to Adrien, he played good poker and is a deserving champion. To take down such a major tournament for just $5 is quite something – there’s no doubt he has great potential.”
Commenting on what it was like to face a poker legend on the final table of one of poker's major events zlatan35 said, "I played more than 12 hours with him and was lucky to have position on him, it helped me a lot as he is a VERY agressive player. After a while I thought he wanted to win every single pot!
I am very proud to have played Poker, high level Poker with JC. Three years ago I was watching him on TV for the WSOP, and a few hours ago I was on the final table with him, wow that was amazing!"
To see the man at work check out zlatan35's dominating performance in the PKR Big Shot with cards-up commentary from Colin Morris and Stacked editor Dave Woods.
APT Main Event final table payouts
- Adrien Allain (AKA zlatan35) (FR) $391,556
- Inwook Choi (Korea) $214,175
- JC Tran (USA) $117,476
- David Steicke (Hong Kong) $91,389
- Chris Chau (Hong Kong) $65,287
- Michael Woo (Hong Kong) $52,230
- Christer Hallberg (Sweden) $39,172
- Winfred Yu (Hong Kong) $26,115
- Casey Kastle (Slovenia) $16,967
Thanks to PKR _Antoine for sourcing and translating quotes.