Wrapped in a fluffy hotel bathrobe to ward off the cold during the duration of the final round, Ando Kimio ranked lower in chip counts compared to his other opponents during the last four hands. He surprised his opponents during the final hand, toppling Park Jin Hee who had been maintaining the lead in the last four hands. Kimio emerged as the overall champion with 23,300 chips.
He is a regular player at the Tinian casino tournaments but it was his first time to make it to the final round and eventually win the pot money.
Second prize winner Higashi Kensaku went home with $25,000, while third place winner Seino Go won $12,000. Seong Gil Kang grabbed the $4,000 fourth prize.
Sixth to 10th place winners who received $1,000 each were Nakano Watari Junichi, Momoi Misao, Masuda Sunao, Cui Qing Hua, and Murakami Nagamasa.
Casino pit manager Nimfa S. Alarde said all players started with 5,000 chips for the elimination and the semi-final rounds. The 10 players who made it to the finals all started with 10,000 chips. Each had three pass cards
127 players from Japan, Korea and China joined preliminaries for the Baccarat Challenge on Saturday afternoon. 55 of them made it to the semi-finals and 10 made it to the final table on Sunday night.
Kimio is the fifth and final winner of the Baccarat challenge at the Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino for 2011.
Promotions and marketing manager Chell Funtanar said she was happy with the big turnout of players over the weekend.
“We did not expect this many considering the series of disasters in Japan but players still came and joined us,” she said.
Funtanar said over the last few months, they had noted an increase in the China market.
“We had been having more players from China in our scheduled tournaments and in our regular casino games. These tourists come in from the chartered flights and we are happy for this development because we need all that we can have to help the ailing economy,” Funtanar said.
The next event will be a blackjack tournament slated for Dec. 10-11.
