Nakabo Takes Down 6-Handed Championship At The ACOP
If you are one of those people that like to follow the action in Macau, having watched the action over the past few years, you will know all about Hirotoshi Nakabo. This player is very well known in poker circles because of his outbursts and unmistakable screams that is almost enough to make him the biggest cry baby since Phil Hellmuth.
Friday though so him being remembered for something else, he won the HKD $8,000 6-Handed Championship. He beat a field of 178 players in the Asia Championship Of Poker event and banked a very nice $304,600 for his efforts. That left the remaining top 21 players to share a cut of the remaining $750k prize pool.
The 39 year old Japanese player was quick to exhibit his delight after winning by stating “I am over the moon, I have always wanted to be known more than just for being a regular poker player and now after nearly three years of hard work I have finally got my first major trophy. Winning an ACOP event is a really big thing for me”.
How It Finished!
1. Hirotoshi Nakabo (Japan) — $304,600
2. Scott Calcagno (Australia) — $205,100
3. Tsuyoshi Ota (Japan) — $124,300
4. Jung Wei Huang (Chinese Taipei) — $99,500
5. Benjamin Abrahams (UK) — $80,800
6. Tsugunari Toma (Japan) — $68,400
7. Sergei An (Russia) — $55,900
As the day started there were just the 22 remaining players who had survived Day 1, with some big names included in the mix such as Tony Chang and Yosuke Sekiya. Both fell short though as they were eliminated in 16th and 12th places respectively.
Nakabo did actually start the day with a minor chip lead and did extremely well to keep hold of it and win. By the time he reached the final table his lead had increased to around 600k in chips and he wasn’t about to let this chance slip away.
As it turned out he would face Australian pro Scott Calcagno in the heads up session, though when it came around he had a massive lead of 4-1 over his opponent. It didn’t last too long either, just three hands in fact before the chips were in the middle.
Nakabo pushed all in and Calcagno called almost instantly, however he would have wished he didn’t when he saw that Nakabo was holding pocket aces against his Kd-Qh. The flop gave him a chance with a straight draw when it ran down as 9s-As-Js, the turn showing as the Qd also was of no help, whilst the river was almost insulting as it came another Ace to give Nakabo the four of a kind.
