Overlay Alert at the Gods of Poker The Trials of Wisdom in Taiwan

The first of five starting flights of the NT$ 17 Million guaranteed Gods of Poker Taipei 2026 Main Event has concluded well after midnight and five survivors bagged up chips out of 35 entries in the NT$ 33,000 flagship tournament.

That wraps up the half-way point of The Trial of Wisdom at the Asia Poker Arena in Taipei City as Day 5 out of 10 has come to a conclusion. However, another five days of thrilling live poker action remain and the crown jewel on the schedule may perhaps become one of the best value tournaments here in Taiwan with a potential overlay looming right out of the gates.

After a lengthy bubble, South Korea's Daeyoung Park went from last in chips to top of the leaderboard whereas Chien Hung Chi experienced the same rush only to fall from grace once more and then become the last player to leave empty-handed. Park was actually among the last players to even enter Flight A as his registration slip has the number 32. He turned his 120,000 starting stack into massive 1,559,000 and is one of two chip millionaires in the tournament so far.

Li Kung

The other is Malaysia's Lance Goh who burst the bubble with pocket tens against the ace-five of the serial jammer Chi with the latter coming up short of securing a min-cash via the opening heat. Li Kung finished in third place with 695,000 in chips after leading during the extension bubble period, followed by fellow Taiwanese players Jung An "I just want to go home" Chiang (611,000) and CTP Club legend Chia Yun Wu (329,000).

The blinds for Day 2 will roll back to 8,000-16,000/16,000 but until then, another four flights in the next three days are set to be completed here in Taiwan.

Final Chip Counts Main Event Flight A:

Notable casualties included Kristof Segers, Hayato Kitajima, Melvyn Liwanpo, Kosuke Ito, Harry Halim, Jung Ho Im as well as festival leaderboard contender Shi Rong Wang.

Taiwan's Tseng Po Sheng saw his hopes of making it to the money stages vanish in explosive ten minutes to set up the nine-handed final table, during which he went from second in chips to out in remarkable fashion.

Another four starting flights remain across the next three days at the Asia Poker Arena and each of them will play down to the top 13.5% of each respective field with all survivors securing a portion of the NT$ 17 Million guaranteed prize pool (or more).

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Speaking of guarantees, the elephant in the room is the NT$ 5,500 Accumulator Event which has now wrapped up five of the seven flights. Across all of them, only 257 entries have been generated up until now with 76 of them coming tonight. To reach the NT$ 3 Million guarantee, another 343 entries are needed without rake and that makes additional value to everyone quite likely.

With the clock soon approaching two in the morning, the very last river card also fell in Flight E of the Accumulator Event. Down to the last 12 players, Hsu Yu Lin jammed a short stack with the A ♠️ 3 ♥️ and was called by Jui Heng Tsai with the 8 ♠️ 8 ♦️ . The board ran out J ♠️ 7 ♠️ 4 ♥️ K ♥️ 10 ♥️ and that let the bubble burst,. Just prior, Chi Jen Chen was knocked out and will have another two chances to try and qualify for the final day.

Prior to the fifth flight, three players had already bagged up chips for the second time to secure the NT$ 25,000 bonus and another two followed in their path. Hung Cheng Lin (152,000) and Hsien Paul Wee (28,000) may have the bottom two stacks for a small boost to their previous tally, but they earned the extra payday to sweeten the night.

Leading the way is Japan's Ayato Watanabe, who is the only player so far to bag up a seven-figure stack in a single flight.

Ayato Watanabe

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Mikael Andersson was responsible for the first two eliminations in Flight A of the NT$ 220,000 Super High Roller and entered the three-handed money bubble with the far largest stack against Rob Hollink and Rudy Edenata. The battle lasted for quite a long time and at the end, Andersson was once again left empty-handed to quickly leave the tournament area without any word.

The near deadly blow to the Swede's stack came by Hollink who turned a king-high straight on J ♠️ 10 ♦️ 3 ♣️ Q ♦️ 2 ♠️ with his K ♠️ 9 ♥️ and Andersson only held Q ♥️ 7 ♦️ for the naked top pair.

Andersson was then all-in for a mere eight blinds and change holding the K ♥️ 8 ♣️ , looked up by the Dutchman with the superior K ♣️ Q ♦️ .

“Not again, three times ...” Hollink sighed when the odds changed with the 10 ♥️ 8 ♦️ 4 ♥️ flop. The 9 ♠️ turn opened up a gutshot and instead, he got there with the Q ♥️ river to knock out Andersson and carry over the lead over Edenata to the final day.

Rob Hollink

In the turbo flight B, Harry Halim defeated Kuo Wei Kao when his ace-deuce flopped a full house against pocket eights to carry over 240,000 in chips to the final day. The trio will battle for NT$2,134,000 of which half is reserved for the eventual champion.

During the last stop in Manila, Fendy Kosasih won his first GOP gauntlet trophy and would have loved to jump into Flight B. However, right one table over he was busy in the NT$ 27,500 Turbo High Roller which he ended up winning for NT$ 156,000 in heads-up against South Korea's Jaegeol Cho.

Fendy and Jade Kosasih

Japan's Tomoya Hasewaga won his fourth Side Even trophy in Event #33 PLO Bounty and he jumped into second place on the leaderboard.

In a field filled with Japanese players at the end of the night, Kohichi Shimizu claimed the top prize of NT$ 129,560 in the Hyper Turbo High Roller after defeating Yuta Arai heads-up.

Po Yi Liu took down the next edition of the NT$ 1 Million guaranteed Titan Stack Daily after the NT$ 11,000 buy-in produced a small overlay with 93 entrants this time. Liu's victory came with a top prize of NT$ 279,000.

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The Schedule for Day 6

All eyes of the local low and mid-stakes players in Taipei City will perhaps be set on the last two flights of the NT$ 3 Million guaranteed Accumulator Event. Flight F starts at 12.30 p.m. local time and closes at 3.15 p.m. local time followed by the last chance Flight G as of 7 p.m. local time with the late registration open until 9.45 p.m. local time - don't be late because it closes on the minute.

Most Side Events retain their usual slots and Flight B of the NT$ 33,000 Main Event will start the tournament clock at half past noon as well. The structure is the same as Flight A with one level of 60 minutes followed by two levels of 120 minutes each, closing the blinds at 1,500-3,000/3,000 before moving to 30 big blinds for all entrants when it closes at 6.15 p.m. local time.