Duy Thuc Nguyen Takes Down World Poker Tour Prime Vietnam Title

The 2023 WPT Prime Vietnam VND25,000,000 ($1,065 USD) main event drew a field of 1,151 entries, making it the largest WPT main event ever held in Asia and the second-largest WPT Prime main event overall. The strong turnout resulted in a prize pool equivalent to nearly $1.1 million USD. The tournament ran from May 25-29 at the Crown Poker Club in Ha Noi. In the end, Vietnam resident Duy Thuc Nguyen came out on top with the title and the top prize of $177,764.

This was Nguyen’s second title of the year, having also won an event at the APT Phu Quoc series in March. He now has nearly $220,000 in recorded tournament earnings to his name.

Nguyen also secured 960 Card Player Player of the Year points as the champion of this event. With two titles and three final-table finishes under his belt so far this year, Nguyen has climbed to just outside the top 150 in the 2023 POY race standings presented by Global Poker.

Nguyen came into the final table of nine in third chip position, with Xizhen Huang on top of the leaderboard and Chak Lam Tsang sitting just a single big blind ahead of Nguyen when cards got in the air.

Tsang scored the first knockout of the day to create some space between him and Nguyen, but that gap was soon closed when Nguyen’s A-4 suited cracked the pocket aces of Satoshi Kuriga to narrow the field to seven.

Nguyen also won a big preflop race with A-K suited against the pocket nines of sixth-place finisher Jaeho Lee to approach 100 big blinds as five-handed play began.

Nguyen then busted Phillip Nguyen (5th) and Yuhan Liu (4th) to take a sizable chip lead. Huang was the next to fall, with his K-7 suited unable to outrun the A-8 of Tsang. Huang picked up a flush draw on the turn, but missed on the river and was eliminated in third place ($87,753).

Heads-up play began with Nguyen in the lead, holding 21,225,0000 to Tsang’s 13,200,000. He soon extended his advantage to roughly 5:1 in time for the final hand of the even. The chips went in on a QJ89 board, with Tsang holding J8 for two pair while Nguyen had A10 for a queen-high straight. The 4 completed the board, officially making Tsang the runner-up ($118,637).

Here is a look at the payouts and POY points awarded at the final table:

Winner photo provided by World Poker Tour.