Nearly killing yourself during a snowboarding trip to Japan, resulting in a broken arm pieced together with ten screws and a titanium plate, is a major pain in the arse, but it does leave a hand free for a poker trophy should one come along, and one did for Michael Soyza.
Maybe it was meant to be; Soyza has, after all, been playing bionic poker for the past 18-months, winning $2.6m in 2018 alone including a 449-entrant KRW 1,800,000 Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Main Event in Korea for $148,629, and $588,249 for taking down a 2,877-entrant $1,655 buy-in event at the Venetian in Las Vegas.
But this was the biggest of all.
Event #3: HKD 500,000 (USD 64,000) No-Limit Hold’em Six-Handed attracted 81-entrants (32-re-entries), dwarfing the 2018 field of 39-entrants when a severely jetlagged, David Peters, went on to win the $1,118,484 first prize.
More than 20-players returned for the second day of action, and the final table was a cracker. Triton Ambassador, Jason Koon, sat down at his second final table of the series, the Aussie Millions Main Event winner Bryn Kenney took a pew as did the Triton Titan, Ivan Leow.
Koon was the first to find the door marked ‘exit’ when he ran QTo into the pocket nines of Bryn Kenney. And the same hand was equally as useless for Kok Beh with Michael Soyza finding the bits and pieces necessary for A8o to come out on top.
The 29-year-old Malaysian took control from that point onwards eliminating every player left in the contest. Kenney lost A9 v AK, and after Sam Greenwood had cracked Ivan Leow’s pocket kings with ace-rag, Soyza took his remaining chips when the pretty looking KJdd beat A8o.
Greenwood would have been the slight favourite going into his heads-up encounter with Soyza for no other reason than Greenwood is Greenwood. But Soyza pulled off an incredible call on the river after the Canadian had moved all-in on a board of Td8d3c8hKc with Soyza holding pocket sevens to take charge and never looked over his shoulder.
The victory for Soyza is the 13th of his short career, and he has already moved over the $5m mark in live tournament earnings.
Final Table Results
1. Michael Soyza – $1,420,581
2. Sam Greenwood – $1,019,251
3. Ivan Leow – $662,513
4. Bryn Kenney – $499,560
5. Kok Beh – $387,315
6. Jason Koon – $300,679
