A total of 373 entries were registered in the 2019 WPT Vietnam Main Event, easily surpassing the tournament’s VND 15 billion guarantee to create a whopping prize pool of VND 18.9 billion,the biggest one in Vietnamese poker.It was New Zealand’s Hamish Crawshaw who championed the marquee event for VND 3,782,723,000 (INR 1.17 Crore). This was his 5th live poker title, and with this major victory worth $163k, the player took his total live tournaments earnings to $719,386.
Final Day Action
The final day of the richest WPT Vietnam main event saw 6 players returning to the felts. Leading these players was Vietnam’s Huynh Tan Dung with 5,265,000 in chips. Australia’s Michael Seymour (3,920,000) and New Zealand’s Hamish Crawshaw (2,090,000) began as second and third in chips respectively. From Team India, Poker Stars Team Pro Aditya Agarwal was the sole player to enter the final day and he began as one of the shortest stacks with 1,205,000chips among the final six.
The first elimination of the day came in David Erquiaga whose pocket queens could not hold up against pocket tens of Crawshaw on the run-out of 8 A 9 A 10. Erquiaga earned VN₫ 712,404,000 for his 6th place finish in the tournament. A little later, Crawshaw then went on to eliminate the Indian poker star Aditya Agarwal who pitted his As 7d against Ad Ks of Crawshaw. The board ran Ac Ah Jh 4d Kh, giving the latter a full house to bust Agarwal in 5th place -VN₫ 861,108,000 (INR 26.5 Lacs).
Currently ranked 3rd in India All Time Money List with $1,099,823 in live cashes, Agarwal has been in great form over the last few months. Earlier this year in May, the poker champ had won the DPT Colossus 200K Main Event for INR 31,00,000. Later, he followed up that score with three cashes at the 2019 WSOP with his best score coming from the Main Event where he finished 844th for $18,535.
A total of 5 Indians scored ITM finishes in this WPT Main Event. The other 4 Indians to finish in the money were Jaideep Sajwan (13th for VN₫ 267,739,000), Rubin Labroo (17th for VN₫ 219,438,000), Alok Birewar (18th for VN₫ 219,438,000) and Sumit Sapra (22nd for INR VN₫ 150,151,000).
Coming back to the final day action, the next victim of Crawshaw was Chen Da Jia who had started as the shortest stack but he did pretty well to finish in 4th place (VN₫ 1,118,174,000). He was all in with Ks10c and Crawshaw called with AcQc. The board ran 9c3sJc7h2d to send Chen in 4th place.
After this hand, Crawshaw took a massive chip lead into three-handed play with 7.62m chips and then further extended his lead to 8.195m after winning a couple of more hands. A little later, Crawshaw scored his fourth elimination in Michael Seymour who exited in 3rd place for VN₫ 1,702,497,000. Seymour had pitted his As 9d against pocket queens of Crawshaw. He needed to get lucky but the board ran Qs Js 3h 10c 5s to send him out in 3rd place (VN₫ 1,702,497,000).
Heads-Up
After Seymour exiting in 3rd place, it came to heads-up between Hamish Crawshaw (9,200,000) and Huynh Tan Dung (5,720,000). The dual lasted for about three hours. Dung got off to a strong start and won the first 6 pots to retake the chip lead from Crawshaw. However, he could not keep the lead for long as Crawshaw regained his chip lead a few hands later and maintained it until he emerged victorious. The winning hand was Qc 9d vs As 3s and the board ran 9c 10c 3d 9s 2d where Crawshaw won the coveted title for VN₫ 3,782,723,000 in top prize. Vietnam’s Dung who put up a strong fight eventually settled for a good VN₫ 2,648,278,000 for his runner-up finish.
Final 6 Payouts (VND):
1st – Hamish Crawshaw – VN₫ 3,782,723,000
2nd – Huynh Tan Dung – VN₫ 2,648,278,000
3rd – Michael Seymour -VN₫ 1,702,497,000
4th – Chen Da Jia – VN₫ 1,118,174,000
5th – Aditya Agarwal -VN₫ 861,108,000
6th – David Erquiaga – VN₫ 712,404,000
