Asian Poker Tour to Hit Taiwan in 2019
Asian Poker Tour (APT) will continue its expansion into new markets and has just added another stop to its tour next year. Back in October, they announced the tournament series would travel to Japan but now they expanded their lineup with a stop in Taiwan.
APT announced that they will host another event in Taipei, Taiwan taking place from 20 February to 3 March, following the events in Japan from 1 to 11 February. With this change of course, 2019 will mark the first year that APT has been held both in Japan and Taiwan.
The APT Taiwan will be hosted at Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Association (CTR) room in Taipei that can accommodate 25 tournament tables. CTR has six poker rooms all over the city and is Taipei’s largest poker venue. The CTR room is also among a few Asian rooms that can offer RFID live-streaming tables and while the club has hosted other events, this may be the one that puts it under the spotlight for a wider international audience.
Lloyd Fontillas, Executive Director and General Manager of the APT, said, “As the market leader in bringing world-class poker tournament events to new destinations in and around Asia, the Asian Poker Tour in partnership with the Chinese Texas [Hold’Em] Poker Association, are proud to bring the first APT event to Taipei.”
The further details are yet to be announced for the two-week tournament but for now, we know there will be a TWD 33,000 ($1,066) Main Event and also TWD 49,000 ($1,599) Championship Event. A number of side events and satellites will be added to the site as they become available. Since real money poker isn’t allowed, the tour can only offer tournament entries as prizes. The winners of APT will win packages for APT Philippines from 24 April to 5 May 2019.
“We are happy and excited to be hosting the very first APT event here in Taiwan,” CTP President David Tai said in a statement on the ATP website. “Players for sure will have a great time being in the vibrant city of Taipei which has so much to offer.”
The APT sees Japan and Taiwan as a potentially lucrative market since not many tournaments have been seen there in the past. Their expansion there will expand poker awareness on a global level and promote poker as a game of skill not a game of chance.
