PokerStars Championship down to final two

Elliot Smith (left) and Tianyuan Tang

After more than 260 hands, the PokerStars Championship Macau Main Event is down to just two players – China’s Tianyuan Tang and Canadian Elliot Smith – with the pot roughly split between them at the last count.

As of midnight, Tang was leading by about 1.3 million chips out of a combined total of around 16 million. However, the lead had been flip-flopping between the two remaining players all Sunday evening.

The two finalists beat out four other competitors earlier in the day, and 10 more on Saturday in the LIVE Macau poker room in the City of Dreams integrated resort.

According to Poker News, first-place in the competition play-off rewards the winner HKD3.13 million and the title of PokerStars Champion.

On Saturday, it took less than seven hours for the six competitors to be weeded down to just two. But even while the other players remained, Tang and Smith were battling it out all day.

Early in the day, Tang stole the chip lead from Aymon Hata when the two engaged in a drawn-out preflop betting war that resulted in Hata folding. Shortly after, Smith challenged Tang and took the chip lead himself. 

Saturday’s closing table

Player Chips

Elliot Smith           4,585,000

Tianyuan Tang      4,500,000

Ayman Hata           1,970,000

Daniel Laidlaw       1,855,000

Avraham Oziel        1,735,000

Yen Chen                  1,170,000