Neil Arce Wins 2009 APT Philippines

The 2009 Asian Pacific Poker Tour held a series of tournaments in the Philippines at the Dusit Thani Hotel In Manila. The tour carried a $2,700 Main Event that attracted 262 players that represented 40 different countries from around the world, although, it was a local homeboy named Neil Arce who earned $185,000 for the first place finish.

Arce wrapped up Day 1A as the chip leader and ironically enough met Steve Yeah, who was Day 1B chip leader heads up competing for the large first place prize and bragging rights. When the match started Arce had 1,572,000 in chips to Yeah’s 1,048,000. Early in the match the chips were sliding to Arce’s side of the table and when he had 1,700,000 to Yeah’s 800,000 chips is when the final hand came.

Preflop there was several raises and both players ended up putting all their chips in with Arce being completely dominated holding King-Queen spades against Yeah’s Ace King off suit. Although, the board ran in Arce’s favour with a queen of hearts hitting on the turn. The river could not improve Yeah’s hand and Neil Arce became the 2009 PokerStars APT Main Event champion.

“This is great,” said Arce moments after winning. “I always felt it would come down to me and Steve. For me the key to winning the tournament was position. I was so lucky that Steve was on my right – if he was on my left it would have been a completely different final table. I played with Steve all day yesterday when he was on a charge and kept out of his way. I knew that to get anywhere at the final able I had to keep applying pressure and my game plan worked perfectly.”

“We would like to congratulate Neil on his fantastic win and thank all the players for making the 2009 Asian Poker Philippines such a successful event. Neil’s win is fantastic for poker in the Philippines – we hope that it strengthens the appeal of the game even further.” said APT spokesperson and Chief Executive Officer, Chris Parker

1st – Neil Arce – Philippines – $185,000
2nd Steve Yeah – Korea – $100,000
3rd Casey Kastle – USA – $70,000
4th Cicurel Didier – Switzerland – $46,000
5th Susumu Toge – Japan – $36,000
6th Ron Kluber – USA – $30,000
7th Liz Lieu – USA - $22,000
8th Vesa Leikos – Finland – $16,000
9th Kim Tae Hyung – Korea – $12,000