Run Like the Sun! Haoran Sun Wins 2025 WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition Championship

Historical past has been made at UOB LIVE within the coronary heart of Bangkok and the winner was topped within the flagship event of the first-ever WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition. Just a few days earlier than the occasion which is hosted by PokerTalk Thailand and WPTGlobal, the Thai authorities recognised poker as a sport and the next days noticed the event space crammed to the brim for the 37,000 Thai Baht Championship Occasion.

Throughout 4 beginning days, the primary main stay poker occasion within the Kingdom of Thailand attracted an enormous subject of two,337 entries and generated 75,488,000 Thai Baht (~$2,325,052) prize pool in journey funds. Solely 14 gamers returned for the ultimate day and China’s Haoran Solar satisfied with a really aggressive enjoying fashion, storming to victory and wrapping issues up in fashion inside two palms of heads-up play in opposition to Philipp Zukernik.

2025 WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition Championship Remaining Desk Outcomes

The 33-year-old engineer began enjoying poker in dwelling video games and give up his job to pursue the fervour for the cardboard recreation. Solar was second in chips after Day 1b and continued to be among the many massive stacks for the rest of the occasion. In his first worldwide event, Solar stormed to victory in dominating vogue and claimed the highest prize of 11,477,000 THB ($353,497) in journey funds. On high of that, he additionally obtained the $10,400 seat for the 2025 WPT World Championship on the Wynn Las Vegas in December.

Runner-up Zukernik has the Canadian and Czech passport with lots of his stay cashes coming from the King’s Resort in Rozvadov. He entered the event with greater than $1 million in stay cashes however the greatest rating so far got here in his present residence of Bangkok, as Zukernik earned a comfort prize of seven,620,000 THB (234,699).

Among the many finalists was additionally Singaporean poker professional Alex Lee, who bowed out in fifth place after shedding the overwhelming majority of his stack in opposition to the three outs of Zukernik. Begin-of-the-day chip chief Duhan “Henry” Lee bowed out in third place whereas Nikhil Kedia from India reached his second ultimate desk of the sequence and completed ninth.

Motion of the Remaining Day

As a result of laws within the model new Thai stay poker market with solely six hours of poker play allowed in the course of the week days, the extent period was diminished to twenty minutes every and that noticed a mean of simply 11 massive blinds at first of the ultimate day. 5 gamers had extreme quick stacks and it solely took 35 minutes to achieve the ultimate desk.

Chi Wei Lo was pressured all-in in the course of the very first hand and didn’t survive, instantly heading in the direction of the exit door. Kedia was in a position to spin up his final massive blind in consecutive palms and even despatched Mingzhe Zhang to the rail in thirteenth place, securing the primary ladder-up.

The subsequent three eliminations all happened on the outer desk and Hong Cai was answerable for every of them after knocking out Manabu Sato, Hoai Lam Vu, and Shaohung Yu in fast succession to enter nine-handed play with the lead. From there on, nevertheless, nothing went the best way of Cai and others jumped into the highlight.

Kedia’s second ultimate desk look in Bangkok lasted all however a single hand and Amit Ashkenazi was the following to name when he was all-in for fumes from below the gun with ten-six suited. Cai’s ace-nine got here up quick in opposition to the pocket queens of Lee with the Singaporean all however closing the hole.

Solar then claimed the quick stack of Allen Nielsen and continued to use stress on all different finalists to drag forward on the high of the leaderboard. Atsunobu Konishi fell to Zukernik, who then scored a really lucky double with ace-five in opposition to the ace-king suited of Lee. One hand later, the Singaporean busted to the exact same nemesis and all of the sudden there have been solely 4 gamers left with two massive stacks and two very quick stacks.

Each Cai and Lee have been all-in the identical hand for only a few chips and Cai bowed out when the massive stacks checked it down. Nevertheless, Lee primarily suffered the identical destiny quickly after and that arrange the stage between Solar and Zukernik in heads-up. The duel lasted a mere two palms and Solar had essentially the most enjoyable when all was stated and performed.