Sydney Resident Wins Australian Poker Open Main EventHometown Hero Nelson Dong Bests Field of 690 Entries To Hoist The APO Trophy |
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The 2025 Australian Poker Open $3,300 AUD no-limit hold’em main event attracted 690 entries to Club Marconi in Sydney, up from 549 in last year’s debut running. The 26 percent increase in turnout resulted in a $2 million AUD prize pool, more than doubling the guarantee.
After three starting flights and two more days of action, the sizable field was narrowed down to a single player: champion Nelson Dong.
Nelson earned $249,600 USD for the win, the largest live tournament score yet for the Sydney resident. He also secured 1,260 Card Player Player of the Year points for his third final-table finish of 2025. With 1,742 total points, he has climbed inside the top 50 in the POY standings.
Plenty of big names ran deep in this event, including World Poker Tour champion Toby Joyce (22nd) and two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Kahle Burns (3rd). The Geelong, Australia resident wound up earning $110,720 for his podium showing, bringing his career tournament haul to just shy of $16 million.
Burns got the last of his stack in with pocket tens leading the J-10 of Dong, who had shoved from the button. Burns called from the small blind and remained ahead through the flop, but Dong spiked a jack on the turn to take the lead and held from there.
With that, Dong took better than a 3:1 chip lead into heads-up play with France’s Romain Morvan. It didn’t take long for him to convert that advantage into the title. In the final hand, Dong limped in from the button for 400,000 with K
K
and Morvan raised to 1,300,000 out of the big blind with A
J. Dong three-bet to 2,800,000 and Morvan four-bet shoved. Dong quickly called and the board ran out 10
8636 to bring the tournament to a close.
Morvan earned a career-best score of $153,600 as the runner-up.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Earnings | POY Points |
| 1 | Nelson Dong | $249,600 | 1260 |
| 2 | Romain Morvan | $153,600 | 1050 |
| 3 | Kahle Burns | $110,720 | 840 |
| 4 | Steven Zhou | $84,480 | 630 |
| 5 | Paawan Bansal | $67,200 | 525 |
| 6 | Louis Luo | $51,840 | 420 |
| 7 | Chad Awerbuch | $38,400 | 315 |
| 8 | David Pham | $26,240 | 210 |
| 9 | Luke Edwards | $20,480 | 105 |
Photo credit: Australian Poker Open Facebook account.
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