Justin Chu has claimed his first major victory on Aussie soil, taking out the WPT Prime Gold Coast Mystery Bounty after a dominant heads-up performance against Kevin Lee.
The Taiwanese pro, who finished runner-up in last year’s WPT Prime Cambodia Main Event, claimed the last two bounties on offer including a Big Bounty worth $16,700, adding to a further three bounties of $7K+, and five $400 surfboards for a combined total of $130,062 in prize money.
The $1,350 buy-in tournament was extended into a third day after a lengthy short-handed battle, but as Chu revealed to PokerMedia Australia during his post-match interview, it more than made up for his first visit down under during last year’s WSOP Gold Coast Circuit series.
“It feels fantastic, really nice to win it,” Chu said. “Yesterday, we played six-handed for about three hours … it went back and forth for a while, but then I was lucky enough to get Aces versus two all-ins and was able to build my stack up from there.”
Chu now plans to spend more time to explore more of the land down under after the series, and hinted at an even greater Taiwanese contingent for the WPT Australia Main Tour festival in September.
“The CTP (Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker) Club is associated with WPT, and we just finished an event there about a month ago,” Chu explained. “Poker’s going really well in Taiwan right now, and I think we’ll see more players coming over. The environment is just lovely, I really enjoy it here.”
WPT PRIME GOLD COAST MYSTERY BOUNTY ($1,350 buy-in, 596 entries, 75 players paid)
| Place | Name | Country | Amount | Bounties |
| 1st | Justin Chu | Taiwan | $89,962 | $40,700 |
| 2nd | Kevin Lee | Australia | $63,075 | $4,500 |
| 3rd | Geoffrey Mooney | Australia | $40,555 | $2,000 |
| 4th | Jarrod Thatcher | Australia | $29,036 | $15,200 |
| 5th | Jason Sampson | Australia | $22,286 | $1,200 |
| 6th | Liem Tran | Australia | $18,278 | $2,400 |
| 7th | Steven Burgess | Australia | $15,042 | $14,200 |
| 8th | Paul Lombardi | Australia | $11,995 | $3,500 |
| 9th | Andrew McLaren | Australia | $8,996 | $2,600 |
The WPT Prime Gold Coast Mystery Bounty tournament brought in a total of 596 entries, smashing the previous year’s record and bringing in a total prize pool dividend of $476,000. There was also another big score for the Kiwis, with Jason Gilbert picking out $62,500 Grand Bounty after fellow New Zealander Yor Ecoziba won it last year.
PMA‘s coverage of the WPT Prime Gold Coast series continues today with our coverage of the $3K PLO, as well as social media content and feature articles from the WPT Prime Gold Coast Main Event, together with live updates from our friends at WPT.com.
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