WPT Prime Vietnam: Duy Ho takes down the Mystery Bounty; Nuttaya Shinawatra draws the largest prize

05/24/2022

The launch of WPT Prime reached its halfway mark with six days of festivities already completed at the Crown Poker Club in Hanoi, Vietnam. From the get-go, turnout has been tremendous. Eager players jumped the felt early to test their skill and luck against the new format, and hopefully capture one of the coveted new trophies. The latest player to pull it off was USA’s Duy Ho at the Mystery Bounty event. Ho crushed the final table and defeated Vietnam’s Hai Le in just three quick hands. He is now race leader in the Player of the Festival leaderboard. Another big winner was Thailand’s Nuttaya Shinawatra who drew the single largest bounty prize of VN₫ 170,000,000 (~US$ 7,335). Check out the video highlights.

The Mystery Bounty event attracted a combined 256 entries across two flights to boost the prize pool well over VN₫ 2.4 Million. Each flight bagged at ITM for a total of 33 players advancing (Flight A – 18 players, Flight B – 15 players). Making headlines once again was Deepstack Cheap Freeze champion Ngo Minh Trien who topped the overall chip counts. Also newsworthy was the ultimate bubble round where short stack Ho eliminated an even shorter stacked player when his shove found success with a five on the flop to defeat 10c .

As expected, Day 2 was filled with drama and excitement as the returning players hunted down the largest bounty prizes, most especially the lone VN₫ 170M in the mix. It took seven attempts before Shinawatra came up to the plate after eliminating Singapore’s Li Wenxuan (26th). As the only woman in the field, lady luck shined on her, drawing the one-outer envelope to send her rail erupting.

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Leading up to the final table, Ho eliminated Victor Lam in 13th place. On the big blind Ho defended with which improved to two pairs on the flop to dust and bust Lam‘s pocket Aces. The day’s entering leader Tien exited 12th; and to form the final table, Nguyen Hoang Linh dominated Hong Kong’s Yik “Ray” Chiu out in 10th place.

Buy in: VN₫ 11,000,000 (~US$ 475)
Guarantee: VN₫ 1,000,000,000 (~US$ 43,150)
Entries: 256
Cash prize pool: VN₫ 1,664,000,000 (~US$ 373,852)
Bounty pool: VN₫ 819,200,000 (~US$ 35,348)
ITM: 33 players

Total prize pool: VN₫ 2,483,200,000
Most kills: Hai Le = 6
Richest in bounties: Nuttaya Shinawatra = VN₫ 179,200,000
Highest grossing: Hai Le = VN₫ 422,083,000

Final table payouts in Vietnamese Dong

Place	Player	Flag	Payout	Bounties	Total
1st	Duy Ho	USA	321,517,000	47,500,000	369,017,000
2nd	Hai Le	Vietnam	274,583,000	147,500,000	422,083,000
3rd	Nguyen Tien Thanh “Villanelle”	Vietnam	213,903,000	45,000,000	258,903,000
4th	Nuttaya Shinawatra	Thailand	103,500,000	179,200,000	282,700,000
5th	Rajesh Sabapathy	Australia	80,000,000	20,000,000	100,000,000
6th	Nguyen Hoang Linh	Vietnam	65,000,000	40,000,000	105,000,000
7th	Huynh Ngoc Cuong	Vietnam	55,000,000		55,000,000
8th	Le Van Dien “Kenny”	Vietnam	46,000,000	90,000,000	136,000,000
9th	David Erquiaga	Philippines	38,000,000		38,000,000

Final Table

First to tumble was Philippines’ David Erquiaga. Prior to reaching the final table, Erquiaga survived a staggering six all in showdowns with one of the hands earning him a triple up. Le Van Dien aka Kenny followed in 8th place. Kenny eliminated four players to boost his payout three times over. It took time before the next bust. Hai Le was clearly in command until Ho lucked out with straight cracking the leader’s pocket Kings. From there, Ho was on fire. He outdrew Huynh Ngoc Cuong with pairing the king to beat , then in separate hands, he burned both Nguyen Hoang Linh (6th) and Rajesh Sabapathy (5th) on the river.To bring about heads up, Hai Le matched Ho in final table kills, cleaning out both Nuttaya Shinawatra (4th), and Nguyen Tien Thanh “Villanelle” (3rd). In total,Hai Le scalped the most heads totaling six kills.

Before heads up got underway, the pair immediately reached an ICM deal and opted to play for the trophy plus split the remaining two bounties down the middle. Ho went on to victory, shaving down Hai Le in just three quick hands.

Remaining payouts 10th to 33rd

10th	Yik Chiu “Ray”	Hong Kong	32,000,000	5,000,000	37,000,000
11th	Dang Quang Thi	Vietnam	32,000,000		32,000,000
12th	Ngo Minh Tien	Vietnam	32,000,000	110,000,000	142,000,000
13th	Vu Hoai Lam “Victor”	Vietnam	27,500,000	125,000,000	152,500,000
14th	Lasse Klieve Lien	Malta	27,500,000	5,000,000	32,500,000
15th	Duc Hanh Pham “Minh Than”	Vietnam	27,500,000		27,500,000
16th	Minh A Nguyen	Vietnam	23,000,000		23,000,000
17th	Duong Vi Khoa	Vietnam	23,000,000		23,000,000
18th	Dinh Xuan Dinh	Vietnam	23,000,000		23,000,000
19th	Dang Duy Thanh	Vietnam	19,000,000		19,000,000
20th	Le Anh Minh	Vietnam	19,000,000		19,000,000
21st	Julien Melet	France	19,000,000	5,000,000	24,000,000
22nd	Van Sang Nguyen	Vietnam	15,000,000		15,000,000
23rd	Nam Le	Vietnam	15,000,000		15,000,000
24th	Mai Tri Minh aka Max Black	Vietnam	15,000,000		15,000,000
25th	Zach Bernstein	Thailand	13,000,000		13,000,000
26th	Li Wenxuan	Singapore	13,000,000		13,000,000
27th	Kim Truong Son Nguyen “Jason”	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
28th	Tien Quyet Pham “Teddy”	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
29th	Nhu Hai Le	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
30th	Tran Van Thinh aka Tuan Lam	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
31st	Ngoc Tuan Truong	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
32nd	Bien Mai	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000
33rd	Cao Ngoc Anh	Vietnam	13,000,000		13,000,000

Player of the Festival update

The race is steamy at the Player of the Festival with the US$ 5,000 WPT Passport prize to any brand Main Tour of choice causing players to rethink their deals. While money can be negotiated, points are not. With the completion of the Mystery Bounty event, champion Duy Ho now leads the race with 750 points. He overtook four time final tablist Vu Thai Bao in second rank with 710 points. Satellites and Super Stars Challenge Invitational are not point-generating. Here are the top 5 after 10 side events.