By Paul Seaton
This month has already seen some spectacular action on the World Poker Tour, with our second-ever trip to Cambodia welcoming record numbers to the felt and region.
Tougias Takes WPTDeepStacks Title in Cambodia
The WPT DeepStacks events have been getting busier and busier no matter where we pitch up, so we couldn’t wait to see if Cambodia was the same, and it didn’t disappoint!
Brian Tougias took down a record-breaking event as the guarantee was almost trebled by the 750 entries who took part. The former teacher, who only moved to Thailand recently, from his hometown of Boston Massachusetts, won his biggest-ever live score of $131,430 in the $1,100-entry event.
We couldn’t wait to tell the world about Brian’s win after the event.
Congratulations to ?? Brian Tougias for winning the first-ever #WPTCambodia Main Event for $131,430 at @NagaWorld! 750 entries created a prize pool of $727,500, almost triple the $250,000 guarantee.
??https://t.co/Zk9rJwNvLA pic.twitter.com/obQtsjGB8b
— World Poker Tour (@WPT) November 25, 2019
The NagaWorld Integrated Resort was the perfect venue, with a buzzing atmosphere throughout. With a WSOP bracelet winner in Jiyoung Kim busting in 9th from a top-quality final table, the level of competition was very high.
Tougias beat Kai Fu Wong heads-up after going into the duel marginally behind. From then on, however, Tougias dominated his opponent and captured the $131,430 in fine style, celebrating as he carved his name in WPTDS history.
Ping Liu was just one of the players who took part in the festival, and he praised the event and location:
This #WPT Cambodia @NagaWorld broke the 250k gtd by 3x‼️
Venue is surprisingly nice as well.
Great to see poker is booming in this part of the world – always enjoy my time out here and looking forward to being back again soon
— Ping Liu (@Pingdotcom) November 23, 2019
Here are the WPT DeepStacks Cambodia final table results:
Position Player Prize
1st Brian Tougias $131,430
2nd Kai Fu Wong $92,152
3rd Jae Kyung Sim $59,400
4th Aladin Reskallah $43,941
5th Si Yang Phua $33,574
6th Kue Seong Tchong $26,583
7th Alex Lee $22,007
8th Yong Cheong Foo $17,504
9th Jiyoung Kim $13,146
WPT Five Diamond Classic Returns!
Last year, Dylan Linde was the winner of the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic, one of our signpost events throughout the year. In winning the title, which he counts as one of the biggest in his entire career, Linde had to topple some very tough players at the final table, including Serbia’s Milos Skrbic heads-up.
Another player Linde triumphed over last year to win the WPT Five Diamond Classic was the always indomitable Andrew ‘Lucky Chewy’ Lichtenberger, who was the subject of a fantastic hand analysis from his roommate, our own Tony Dunst, a few years ago.
But could ‘Lucky Chewy’ perform a trick against The Magician? Watch and find out:
In Other News
While there were many laughs this past fortnight on the World Poker Tour, there was a little sadness too, as the news filtered through of the passing of a former Champions Club member. ‘Gentleman’ John Gale was a much-loved player over the years and will always be remembered for his enormous sense of humor at the felt as much as his sublime skills.
As happy for others to win as he was himself, it’s with an immense shock that we heard of ‘The Gentleman’s passing, and our own Tony Dunst paid tribute on his Twitter page.
Sad to see this. John was a fixture at the table during the poker boom and always a class act. RIP Gent https://t.co/xwwVWQVDUZ
— TonyDunstTV (@tonydunsttv) November 19, 2019
While we were thinking of one man’s glorious past, another man’s previous life came back to haunt him. It’s fair to say that Vince Van Patten possibly endured rather than enjoyed being reminded of a blast for his past when he featured in an episode of Wonder Woman. We think he looks… heroic.
Haha Paul. Pretty funny .. the old shows come back to haunt. It’s all good .. still get residual checks for 99 cents. https://t.co/bmzCHrAKgI
— Vince Van Patten (@VinceVanP_WPT) November 11, 2019
This month, the World Poker Tour will crown another Five Diamond champion and welcome yet more players into the WPT family. We can’t wait to tell you all about who wins the signature event next time we’re Under the Lights!