After a grueling 16-hours of play Norway's Henrik Tollefsen has emerged victorious within the 21st Macau Poker Cup High Roller Event. Tollefsen defeated the 59-strong field, winning the lions share of the HK$4,439,160 prize pool to take home an outstanding HK$1,465,000 for first place.
"Obviously I'M more than happy to win,' said an upbeat Tollefsen, 'It was an enormous rollercoaster ride of an afternoon. I got lucky in a couple of spots and all of it worked out well within the end."
Despite the Scandinavian player beginning the general day as some of the shortest stacks with just over seven big blinds, Tollefsen dug deep and made a sterling come again as play progressed to make the nine-handed final table as some of the top three largest stacks.
Just 20 of the 59 players made the Day 2 cut with former Day 1 chip leader, Korea's Eddy Kim, bursting the overall table bubble to take play nine-handed with the overall table shaping up like this:
Seat 1: Quan Zhou, China - 1,059,000
Seat 2: Shashank Rathi, Hong Kong - 1,027,000
Seat 3: Henrik Tollefsen, Norway - 961,000
Seat 4: Victor Chong, Malaysia - 264,000
Seat 5: Rono Lo, Macau - 225,000
Seat 6: Daniel Xiong, Malaysia - 615,000
Seat 7: Li-Ta Hsu, Chinese Taipei - 724,000
Seat 8: Makoto Yoshimichi, Japan - 415,000
Seat 9: Kunaal Chandra, India - 510,000
It could be three very cagey levels before the general table saw its first casualty with India's Kunaal Chandra exiting in ninth place to bring play to the money bubble.
The unfortunate Li-Ta Hsu burst this after taking a success by the hands of Malaysia's Victor Chong, exiting shortly afterwards with Rono Lo administering the coup de grâce.
Japan's Makoto Yoshimichi became the primary of the paying casualties departing in seventh place for HK$267,160 when his short stacked shove with [qd][5h] bumped into Daniel Xiong's [ad][6h].
China's Quan Zhou hit the rail a little bit later in sixth place for HK$311,000 after running out of steam and cards, getting it all-in with [2s][2c] pre-flop and running afoul of Rono Lo's rivered nut flush.
Former big stack Shashank Rathi followed suit, kindly giving Tollefsen a hefty chip lead on his way out of the tournament, finishing in fifth place for HK$355,000 when his [kc][6h] couldn't overcome the might of the Norwegian's [5s][4d].
Victor Chong departed at the beginning of level 18 when his [qc][10d] lost a race to Tollefsen's [3c][3h], further padding out the latter's stack and leaving Chong to go to the money desk to gather his HK$488,000 fourth place winnings.
Tollefsen then powered into the chip lead when his [kd][ks] hit top two pair at the activate a [9h][qd][jh][jc] board against the flopped two pair of Rono Lo, who was holding [qs][9c].
A rather unfortunate Daniel Xiong was unlucky to complete in third place for HK$621,000 after a lengthy three-way battle. By this time it had become the Tollefsen show and the Norwegian poker professional had begun turning the screws mercilessly. Xiong got his chips in good twice to no avail against fellow short stack Rono Lo, who sent the young Malaysian to the rail after winning back-to-back hands.
Despite back-to-back double-ups within the first two hands of heads-up play Lo couldn't overcome Tollefsen's commanding chip lead. With blinds at a hefty 100,000/200,000 with a 30,000 running ante Tollefsen emerged triumphant after moving all-in from the button with [9d][7c] with Lo making the decision holding [kd][10h]. The overall board ran out [5h][6s][qh][9s][2c] to grant the Norwegian player victory and notice Lo finish in second place for HK$932,000.
Read More... [Source: PokerStarsBlog.com :: PokerStars Macau]
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