Pete Chen Wins the Opening Event of Season XVI

Pete Yanhan Chen certainly kicked off Season XVI of the World Poker Tour with a memorable performance, going in with the half the chips in play, never relinquishing the chip lead, and coming out with the first title of Season XVI.

Chen was never all that confident the title would be his though. He said before the final table, he posted on social media with a focus on making the final table, not having the overwhelming chip lead. He also had plenty of experience, with over $700,000 in career tournament earnings, nine years as a poker pro, and living in Macau where he plays poker literally every single day.

As for his final table performance, he says a lot of his success came from getting lucky, but he also played an aggressive brand of poker where he used his chip stack to put pressure on his opponents.

It took just ten hands for Chen’s arguably most formidable competition, Bryan Huang, to exit in sixth place. The pro from Singapore came in as the short stack and took a stand with pocket deuces only to run into the pocket jacks of Zhang Wenbin.

Zhang knocked out another opponent just a short while later, slowplaying pocket aces against Tan Yancheng. Tan and Zhang got it all in on the flop with Tan holding a flush draw to Zhang’s pocket pair. The aces held and Zhang started to amass a stack to contend with Chen.

After a lengthy stretch of four-handed play where Zhang and the other two final table players, Lu Yingqi and Chen Ke, tried to pick up chips, but Chen kept the pressure on.

Zhang chipped down, but managed to find a great spot to double through the chipleader Chen. It looked like he would do it again when he got it all-in against Pete Chen the very next hand holding pocket queens to Chen’s . Chen managed to flop a king though, busting his biggest chip opponent to take the field to three.

Pete Chen disposed of Lu just seven hands later in third place, setting up a David vs. Goliath battle of the Chens with Pete holding a roughly 5-1 chip lead over Ke. Ke tried to rally, but Pete’s chip lead was too much to overcome. In the end Ke took a stand with queen-high, but Pete had him bested with king-high and held up to give Pete Chen the victory.

Pete Chen has traveled to the US to play WPT events before, but this time, he will be doing so take part in the WPT’s most prestigious event, the Tournament of Champions. He has about a year to wait, but Chen is fine with that. He is content to go back to Macau and play poker every day, never resting on his laurels or his newly earned WPT title.

Here are the complete final table results:

1st place: Pete Yanhan Chen – CNY 2,063,454* (US $299,485*)
2nd place: Chen Ke – CNY 1,373,026 (US $199,278)
3rd place: Lu Yingqi – CNY 882,619 (US $128,101)
4th place: Zhang Wenben – CNY 585,468 (US $84,974)
5th place: Tan Yancheng – CNY 450,616 (US $65,401)
6th place: Bryan Huang – CNY 373,218 (US $54,168)

* First-prize amount includes the winner’s $15,000 entry into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Photo:  Ourgame Chairman Eric Yang congratulates Pete Yanhan Chen, while Tournament Director Justin Hammer and Royal Flush Crewmembers Andrea Johnson and Caitlyn Howe look on.