Congratulations to Liang Yu, Winner of the 2015 PokerStars.net APPT9 Macau High Roller Event (HK$2,492,500)
The second and last day of the HK$100,000 High Roller Event of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau Season 9 stop at the PokerStars LIVE Macau at City of Dreams saw 30 of the 75 participants return to the tables and within the first three levels the field was already whittled down to the last two tables.
It took about seven hours of play to determine the winner, and Liang Yu emerged victorious to claim the first-place payout of HK$2,492,500 (US $321,519.14) after defeating Shunu Zang in heads-up.
Among the early eliminations was PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin, while HK$50,000 Freezeout runner-up Jack Hu cracked pocket aces to jump into the lead.
Start-of-the-day chip leader Steve O'Dwyer was left very short in a huge pot against Chang He, and later busted in a somewhat controversial slowroll by the very same player.
The hot run of Shashank Rathi started with the elimination of Sunny Jung, and the player from Hong Kong proceeded to dominate the action at the tables from there on. Meanwhile, JP Kelly's bustout brought the field to the money bubble, and Japan's Hajime Haraikawa ended up being the last participant to leave the tournament area empty-handed.
While Randy Lew of PokerStars' Team Online recovered from falling down to just over one big blind, the final table was set with the eliminations of Zhou Zhou in 11th and Asa Smith in 10th place. Rathi then sent three players in a row to the rail to reduce the field to its last six hopefuls: Yuan Zhou in ninth, Marcus Lau in eighth and aforementioned He in seventh place all sent their chips over to the local regular from Hong Kong.
Hao Tian fell in sixth place after failing to improve with pocket nines against the pocket jacks of Zang while "nanonoko" had to settle for fifth place after a preflop all-in situation against Hu.
The latter lost a big pot to Yu and was then two-outered by Rathi to miss out on the podium and finish fourth, his second final table during the festival after coming second to Sheng Sun a few days ago.
Rathi was still the by-far chip leader, but bluffed away most of the chips to Zang before losing the remaining chips against the same player, ultimately finishing in third place. A failed bluff also gave Yu the chip lead, and the tournament ended in bad-beat fashion after Yu turned a straight with the 
to better the 
of Zang.
Final Result APPT9 Macau High Roller:
| Place | Winner | Country | Prize (HKD) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liang Yu | China | $2,492,500 |
| 2 | Shunu Zang | China | $1,711,000 |
| 3 | Shashank Rathi | Hong Kong | $1,124,000 |
| 4 | Jack Hu | Chinese Taipei | $929,000 |
| 5 | Randy Lew | USA | $782,000 |
| 6 | Hao Tian | China | $684,000 |
| 7 | Chang He | China | $587,000 |
| 8 | Marcus Lau | Malaysia | $489,000 |
| 9 | Yuan Zhou | Canada | $391,000 |
| 10 | Asa Smith | United Kingdom | $293,000 |
| 11 | Zhou Zhou | China | $293,000 |
You can check out the winner interview with "Leo" Yu below:
The next APPT stop takes place from July 30th through August 9th in Manila, and with that the PokerNews live reporting officially comes to an end here in Macau. I hope you enjoyed the show and will tune back in soon again!
*Winner picture by Kenneth Lim Photography courtesy of PokerStars LIVE Macau