2017 ACOP: Dietrich Fast Wins Super High Roller For $2.14 Million, Nan Hong Leads Main Event Day 1A

The 2017 Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) hosted at the PokerStars LIVE Macau poker room continues unabated with its first headline champion emerging from the live felts yesterday. We are talking about Germany’s Dietrich Fast (cover image) who bested the 79-entry field in the Super High Roller event to win a cool HK$16,690,000 (~$2.14M) in prize money after defeating high roller specialist Steve O’Dwyer in the heads-up battle.

Meanwhile, the HK$100,000 ACOP Main Event [25M GTD] played out the first of two starting flights with China’s Nan Hong leading the pack with 269,500 in chips. The opening flight drew 125 runners but the total turnout is expected to surge further today as many notables including Team PokerStars Pro Aditya ‘Adi Agarwal’ Agarwal are expected to join the action on Day 1B.

In side events, Australia’s David Wang outlasted the 47-entries in the two-day HK$40,000 NLH-PLO Championship to clinch his first Spadie along with HK$604,000 in prize money. Another ACOP Title Event that played out was the HK$20,000 Teams Championship with Australia’s Bobby Zhang and Phachara Wongwichit shipping it for HK$202,720 (split two ways).

Super High Roller

The first flagship event of the 2017 Asia Championship of Poker i.e. the HK$800,000 Super High Roller boasted of a speedy 30-second shot clock format with an unlimited re-entry option. All in all, the event attracted 57-unique entries with an additional 22 re-entries that took the total count to 79 entries creating a mammoth HK$60,690,960 (~$7.77M) prize pool.

The last man standing was Germany’s Dietrich Fast who managed to outlast the tough final table to bank the biggest first place prize in ACOP history of HK$16,690,000 (~$2.14M).

Fast defeated high roller specialist Steve O’Dwyer after a short 30-minute heads-up battle. Whilst the Irishman (O’Dwyer) is the most successful player in ACOP history, Fast’s 5-1 chip lead turned out to be too big for Dwyer to counter and he settled for a runner-up finish.

An elated Fast after taking down the single biggest prize in ACOP history said, “I feel awesome, that’s why I’m playing poker. I love to play with the best players and compete with them and eventually beat them. That’s what’s happened right now so I’m really happy.”

Germany’s Christian Christner and Mexico’s JC Alvarado busted in 11th and 10th respectively for a min-cash of HK$1,517,000 to set up the final table that concluded the action on Day 2.

The nine survivors returned to play down to a champion on the final day and with top-notch names like Global Poker Index frontrunner Bryn Kenney and O’Dwyer making it to the final nine.

Final Table Recap

The nine-handed final table saw Canada’s Timothy Adams leading the charge and the action was fast paced right from the get go. The first elimination was seen in just two hands! Short-stacked Paul Newey shoved with king-queen and got one caller in Kenney with ace-nine and the former was sent packing in ninth place.

China’s Shan Huang followed shortly thereafter with Kenney doing the honors again. Huang announced all-in holding king-jack over the top when Kenney opened and the latter made the call with ace-four. Kenney hit two pairs to eliminate Huang.

Seven-handed play lasted for a while before USA’s Jason Koon departed at the hands of the eventual champion Fast.

Bryn Kenney was looking like an unstoppable killing machine but he lost a huge pot to Fast and left short-stacked, he busted shortly thereafter.

Felix Bleiker was maneuvering his stack well but O’Dwyer delivered a brutal beat soon to make him short. Bleiker’s pocket aces were looking in good shape against O’Dwyer’s ace-queen but the latter managed to river a Broadway straight. Bleiker couldn’t recover and soon fell to Daniel Dvoress.

Canadian Dvoress incidentally then clashed with fellow countryman and his good friend Timothy Adams. Dvoress moved all-in holding king-jack and Adams called off with ace-ten. Dvoress got no help the board and went out in fourth place.

Down to three-handed action, the eventual champion Fast then locked horns with Adams to finish him off in third place. Adams defended his big blind with pocket eights and the German (Fast) shoved with queen-nine; Adams called. Fast rivered a pair of nine to set the heads-up play in motion.

The last hand of the event saw O’Dwyer moving all-in with on the river with the board open . Unfortunately for O’Dwyer, Fast called tabling for a better two pair and sealed the title!

Final Table Results (HKD)

1. Dietrich Fast – HK$16,690,000

2. Steve O’Dwyer – HK$11,865,000

3. Timothy Adams – HK$7,768,960

4. Daniel Dvoress – HK$5,978,000

5. Felix Bleiker – HK$4,734,000

6. Bryn Kenney – HK$3,702,000

7. Jason Koon – HK$2,913,000

8. Shan Huang – HK$2,276,000

9. Paul Newey – HK$1,730,000

Main Event Day 1A

The first of two starting flights at the headline HK$100,000 ACOP Main Event [25M GTD] drew 125 fighters. As expected the field was full of notables including Timothy Adams, Daniel Dvoress, Paul Newey, JC Alvarado, Nick Petrangelo, David Peters and Dan Smith along with many others.

However, the end of day chip lead was taken by China’s Nan Hong who powered into the lead as the days’ play wound down and bagged 269,500.

USA’s Brian Altman got off to a flying start and climbed to 80,000 by the end of the first level itself. He bagged the second strongest stack of 260,900. Denmark’s Michael Falcon rounded out the top three stacks with 220,700 in chips.

Canadian Daniel Dvoress continued his hot as after finishing fourth in the Super High Roller, he managed to bag 164,300 while defending champion Vladimir Geshkenbein bagged 160,000.

The last starting flight (Day 1B) is set to underway today and Team India’s campaign at the series will kick-off with Team PokerStars pro Aditya ‘Adi Agarwal’ Agarwal joining the action.

Top Ten Chip Counts At The End of Day 1A

1. Nan Hong – 269,500
2. Brian Altman – 260,900
3. Michael Falcon – 220,700
4. Mian Wei – 196,800
5. Daniel Dvoress – 164,300
6. Vladimir Geshkenbein – 160,000
7. Daniel Demicki – 148,000
8. Chin Wei Lim – 146,800
9. Jianzhong Song – 142,200
10. Wei Liu – 140,000

Keep following all the updates from 2017 ACOP right here on PokerGuru!