GOP Phnom Penh: Hwisoo Kim, Jun Yan Kok, Karen Talamayan Highlight Day 4

Another bustling day of poker concluded at the Gods of Poker festival as action continued to heat up in its Cambodia debut. 

Running since March 26 at  NagaWorld Phnom Penh and scheduled to run through April 5, Day 4 saw Hwisoo Kim dominate, Karen Talamayan making her one bullet count,  and Jun Yan Kok capture his third trophy in this series. Those stories and other results are just below. 

Additionally, do check out the media gallery for all the photos and highlights captured so far. 

Hwisoo Kim Rules Pandora's Mystery Bounty

Hwisoo Kim stormed through Pandora’s Mystery Bounty to clinch his first ever GOP title and take home the Silver Spartan trophy. Along with the hardware, Kim pocketed $6,575 in prize money along with six bounties worth $7,100, to bring his total haul to $13,675.

Payouts

Final Day Recap

The final day brought the return of 11 players out of the 59 entry field, all of them vying for the largest cut of the $33,984 cash pool and the three biggest mystery bounty prizes worth $2,400 each. 

Hwisoo Kim entered running third in chips then quickly took control, steamrolling the field and eliminating five players on his way to the title.

Hwisoo Kim

At four-handed H.Kim knocked out overnight chip leader Adrien Berger to amass well over 100 big blinds. Younghun Kim managed to shave a small portion on a double up, only to give it all back on a cooler when his A ♦️ K ♦️ banged into H.Kim's A ♥️ A ♣️. 

At heads up, H.Kim was far ahead with 104 big blinds to Ke Lyu's 37 big blinds. The final hand quickly arrived on a board of 5 ♦️ 10 ♥️ K ♥️ 9 ♣️ 4 ♦️. After a checked flop, Ke check-raised all in on the turn, and Kim snap-called with K ♦️ 6 ♣️ top pair dominating Ke’s 9 ♠️ 8 ♦️ lower pair. The trap held through the river to seal his first-ever GOP victory. 

For the payouts and other info, click here. 

Titan Stack: Day 1 Results

The Titan Stack was undoubtedly the day's crowd favorite drawing 158 entries across three flights. With a $440 buy-in, the prize pool grew to $60,672. After the final flight bagged up, 23 players secured their spot at the ITM round.

Yao Liu

Earning the overall top spot was Yao Liu, who surged late in Flight C as the bubble approached. He delivered the final knockout blow to Srinivas Mangipudi, with J ♥️ 9 ♥️ straight over J ♦️ 8 ♦️ pair on a board of 8 ♠️ 10 ♠️ K ♠️ Q ♠️ 2 ♣️ to bag 1,144,000, good for 57 big blinds heading into the final day.

Chien-Kuei Shih

Flight B chip leader, Chien-Kuei Shih, also accumulated a towering stack of 930,000 (46 bb), to secure the overall second rank. Much of his stack came at bubble time where Joseph Talamayan went all in holding pocket Sevens that was called by Michael Lech with pocket Jacks and Shih with Ace-King. Shih and Lech checked it down. Shih spiked the king on the turn to win the pot and close the flight. 

Jack Maris

Rounding out the top three was Flight A chip leader, Jack Maris, with a stack of 820,000 (41 bb). Midway through the heat, Maris was already sitting on the lead and maintained it all the way to bagging time. 

When the final 23 players return on Monday, March 30, they will all be chasing the GOP Silver Spartan trophy and the $14,701 top prize. 

Cards start flying at 12:30PM with blinds of 10K-20K ante 20K, increasing every 30 minutes. 

For the chip counts and seat draw, click here. 

For the payouts, click here. 

Day 4 Winners

Jun Yan Kok

A new name headlined the side events on Day 4, as Jun Yan Kok captured his third consecutive trophy of the series. The win put him level with Martijn Gerrits, whose trophy streak was halted at three. 

Despite the win, Kok shared that it will still be a hard climb in the Player of the Series race as Gerrits and Alfie Adam dominate the top two spots with sizable leads. 

Karen Talamayan

Another Day 4 success story came from Karen Talamayan, who entered two events and fired just one bullet in each. Her first stop was the final Aphrodite Event (Women’s Event), which she went on to win, capturing the last Aphrodite Mirror trophy.

Riding the winning vibe, Talamayan jumped in the last Titan Stack flight, just before registration closed, and successfully secured a seat into the final day.

Up Next: GOP Main Event $500,000 GTD

Up next is the brand's most prestigious title, the GOP Main Event, where the mighty black-and-gold gauntlet awaits the champion. The first of five flights gets underway on March 30 starting at 12:30PM. 

• Date: March 30 to April 4
• Buy-In: $1,540
• Flights: 5
• Starting stack: 120,000

 

Players begin with a deep 120,000 stack worth 120 bb at the opening level and a 30 bb average at the end of registration. 

• Flight A runs a total of 240 minutes of late registration - two hours for Level 1 and 2 hours for Level 2. 
• Flight B / C / E each run a total of 180 minutes of late registration - 60 minutes for Level 1 and 120 minutes for Level 2.
• Flight D runs a total 9 hours of Day 1 late registration - four hours for Level 1 and 5 hours for Level 2. Players also have until the start of Level 3 in Flight D - Day 2 to sign up. 
• Day 2 takes place on April 3 
• Final Table is on April 4

Be sure to check the schedule for all the details. 

For All About the GOP Main Event, click here. 

There is no livestream for this event. To follow the action, check out the daily live reports. 

Links: 

• Schedule
• Photo Gallery
• Player of the Series (POS Leaderboard)
• News