Senh Ung Wins the 2013 ACOP HKD$250,000 High Roller for HKD$4,086,700

Chad Holloway

Level 14 : 50,000/100,000, 10,000 ante

Senh Ung is the 2013 ACOP High Roller Champion

On Sunday both the 2013 PokerStars.net Asia-Pacific Poker Tour Macau Asia Championship of Poker (ACOP) HK$100,000 Main Event and HKD$250,000 High Roller came to a close at the PokerStars LIVE at the City of Dreams. Sunny Jung emerged victorious in the Main Event – which you can read about by clicking here – while Senh Ung topped a field of 43 entries to win the High Roller title for HKD$4,086,700 (~$572,000 USD).

Day 2 began with 15 players looking to make the top five and claim their share of the HKD$10,216,800 prize pool. Action resumed in Level 8 with the blinds at 8,000/16,000/2,000, and it didn't take long for the first two eliminations as Mikael Thuritz and Chunlei Zhou fell in back-to-back hands to Aidan Tam. Yan Tsang joined them on the rail a short time later, as did legendary Macau high-stakes player Winfred Yu.

Any hope of a member of Team PokerStars capturing the came to an end in Level 10 (15,000/30,000/5,000) when Eugene Katchalov was eliminated from the tournament. It happened when Katchalov and Jonathan Karamalikis raised back and forth preflop until the former was all in for roughly 580,000.

Katchalov:
Karamalikis:

It was a bad spot for the Team Pro, and his best chance to survive was to catch an ace. The flop was no help, and neither was the turn. Katchalov was up out of his seat, and just as soon as the useless fell on the river, he made a beeline for the exit.

From there, Paul Newey, Kyle Cheong, and Brandon Meyers all hit the rail. Meyers began the day with the chip lead, but lady luck was not on his side on Day 2. His pocket aces were cracked by Tam's queens in an all-in preflop confrontation, and despite making the final table, he fell short of the money in eighth place.

After James McCarty fell in seventh place, Vladimir Troyanovskiy was eliminated as the bubble boy, which of course put the final five players in the money.

Last year Karamalikis won the same tournament for HK$3,707,000 ($478,292 USD) while fellow Aussie Jeff Rossiter finished runner-up for HK$2,224,000 ($286,949 USD), and amazingly both made the money in 2013. Unfortunately they wouldn't repeat their performances as they were eliminated in fifth and fourth place respectively. Ung would then go on to knock out both Tam before taking a big chip lead into heads-up play against Predrag Lekovic.

The final hand would come in Level 14 (50,000/100,000/10,000) when Ung moved all in from the button and Lekovic instantly called off for his last 1,140,000.

Ung:
Lekovic:

Lekovic was the favorite to win, and the board kept him in the lead. That is when the devastating on the turn thrust Ung into the lead and left Lekovic drawing to just an ace to stay alive. Unfortunately for Lekovic, the dealer would deliver the on the river to eliminate him in second place for HK$2,452,000 payday.