David Tang Wins WPT Australia Main Event After Nearly not Playing
The World Poker Tour (WPT) recently hosted its inaugural festival in the land down under. It kept up to its billing highlighted by Australia's David Tang defeating China's Po Ho heads-up to win the 2022 WPT Australia $5,000 AUD Main Event for $647,470 AUD ($425,712 USD). In addition, Tang earned something all players covet in having his name engraved on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup and will have a chance to win even more money thanks to being awarded a seat in the WPT World Championship at The Wynn Las Vegas in December.
This is by far the biggest live poker victory for Melbourne's Tang, who came into the event with about $100,000 in live poker earnings tracked by The Hendon Mob dating back more than a decade.
If things worked out differently, Tang would have never had a taste of WPT glory. In fact, he nearly didn't play the event at all.
“I’m still a bit stung, but it’s awesome," Tang shared with WPT after his victory over Ho. "I wasn’t expecting to get this far,” said Tang, after his victory. “To be honest I was actually trying to cancel my flight here because I wanted to watch the (Australian Football League) Grand Final in Melbourne, but they wouldn’t give us a refund on our flights so it just all worked out.”
2022 WPT Australia Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize (AUD) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | David Tang | Australia | $647,740 | $425,712 |
| 2 | Po Ho | China | $421,635 | $277,225 |
| 3 | Naj Ajez | Australia | $310,675 | $204,269 |
| 4 | Daisuke Ogita | Japan | $231,505 | $152,215 |
| 5 | Josh Hutchins | Australia | $174,480 | $114,721 |
| 6 | De Kun Li | Australia | $133,025 | $87,464 |
The WPT Australian Main Event attracted a banner field of 710 entries to generate a $3,550,000 AUD ($2,352,583 USD) prize pool. The top 69 players in this no-limit Texas hold'em affair went home with at least a min-cash of $6,138 AUD.
“We are very happy with our first-ever WPT Australia festival. The Star Gold Coast proved to be a wonderful venue,” said WPT CEO Adam Pliska. “Thank you to all the players that participated and congratulations to David for earning his spot in the WPT Champions Club.”
Final Table Action
According to the WPT Blog, Eventual champion David Tang began the final table in second to last place, although was closely grouped with De Kun Li and runner-up Po Ho with each of the trio holding between 34 to 37 big blinds. Daisuke Ogita began the final table with a massive stack of 176 big blinds, nearly triple that of his nearest competitor in Naj Ajez with 59 big blinds.
Meanwhile, Josh Hutchins entered the final table with just 14 big blinds. While he was unable to make the podium, he did ladder up with Li hitting the rail first as on the 15th hand of play Li unsuccessfully jammed ace-six suited into Ogita's cowboys. A dozen hands later, Hutchins was on the rail. Hutchins jammed with king-nine from the small blind and was unable to get there after Ajez called with ace-five suited.
Although the start-of-the-final-table chip leader Ogita began the day with a hot hand, things cooled off and he failed to reach the podium. It was a huge hand for Ho who five-bet jammed with rockets. Ogita called with big slick and was on the rail after the board didn't provide any miracles for the Japanese native.
After this hand, Ho had a substantial chip lead with about half the chips in play. While he held onto his lead for a while, things eventually fell apart and he became one of the shorter stacks about 100 hands into three-handed play when his ace-seven suited got nowhere against Ajez's jacks. Ho later doubled back through Ajez and was just inches behind Ajez for the chip lead with Tang holding the short stack.
Tang continued to hang in and chipped up but was still in third place when Ho delivered a bad beat to Ajez to send him to the rail in third place when his ace-four improved to trips to defeat his opponent's ace-five.
Ho began the heads-up battle with a 3:2 chip advantage over Tang. This quickly changed after Tang doubled through Ho to give him nearly five times the chips of his opponent when his king-queen held against queen-ten. It was all over a hand later as follows.
Ho three-bet jammed with A 8 for 12 big blinds and was called by Tang with K 10 . Both players hit the 8 7 5 hard with Ho holding top pair and Tang showcasing a flush draw along with two live overcards. Tang improved to a flush after the A landed on the turn but Ho, who improved to two-pair, still had thin hopes of winning the hand to stay alive with four live outs to a full house. The K river wasn't one of the cards Ho needed and he fell one player short of a monumental victory at a WPT Main Event.
Huge congrats to David Tang for winning the WPT Australia Main Event and best of luck to Tang at the end of the year in the WPT World Championship at The Wynn Las Vegas.
*Images courtesy of the WPT/WPT Blog
