APT CHAMPIONSHIP 2026 SCHEDULE | OFFICIAL RESULTS | PLAYER LISTS | LIVE REPORTING | IMAGES | WINNERS

Boasting a TWD 20M guarantee, the National Cup Championship saw a 13% opening turnout increase over the initial two flights

TAIPEI, TAIWAN, November 13, 2026 – Run in partnership with the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Club (CTP) at the cavernous Red Space 多元商務空間 venue, the Asian Poker Tour Championship 2026 is officially underway.

The festival is headlined by the TWD 330,000 (USD 10,100) buy-in APT Championship Main Event Freezeout, which carries a massive TWD 165M/USD 5M guarantee.

In total, the series features 23 Championship Events alongside an additional 186 side events and satellites, boasting over TWD 256 million (~USD 8.1 million) in prize pool guarantees.

The festival pregame took place on Thursday, November 12 with Taiwan’s Heng Je Hu claiming a career best score in the [Event 0] Asia Gaming Industry Championship Freezeout, which saw a 34 percent year-on-year increase over its 2025 debut. That trend continued with the official launch of the festival.

An Explosive Start

The starting pistol firing on the latest edition of the season-ending series looks to have been packed with explosives; the opening two of five flights in the TWD 16,000 (~USD 490) National Cup Championship saw the festival fire a solid opening salvo, drawing a combined total of 820 entries – up 13 percent (13.2%) year-on-year over the opening two flights of the 2025 debut.

The debut edition of the National Cup Championship set a new APT record as the largest-ever APT side event in tour history, before this was eclipsed five months later by the APT Taipei 2026 National Cup.

While it’s too early to say whether the 2026 National Cup Championship will raise the bar still higher, the portents are certainly promising.

Flight A

Japan’s Konosuke Nakajima bagged a seven-figure stack to top the opening flight of the National Cup Championship

With the tournament sporting a TWD 20 million (~USD 613,000) guarantee – a sizable 66 percent increase over last year’s edition – the initial starting Flight A got underway at 11am local time (TST).

The field climbed to 602 entries (464 unique) by the time registration closed following the 75-minute dinner break preceding level 11, representing a 30.6% increase in entries and a 32.2% increase in unique players over Flight A of the APTC 2025 National Cup Championship.

Level length increased by five minutes over its predecessor, with players battling at the baize over twenty 35-minute levels. Competition for a place in the paying positions was fiercely contested, and there was a notable buzz around the poker room as the bubble approached, with play going hand-for-hand two bustouts away with 87 players remaining right at the start of level 20.

An intense 30 minutes followed, before a sudden flurry of cards and chips saw Japan’s Takahiro Kondo and Taiwan’s Jung An Chiang, seated on two separate tables, hit the rail simultaneously to guarantee the 84 remaining survivors a place in the paying positions.

Two players broke the seven-figure chip threshold, with Japan’s Konosuke Nakajima topping the Flight A action with a stack of 1,234,000, closely followed by Taiwan’s Jun Wei Yan who finished on a stack of 1,126,000.

Yan’s compatriot Chien Fa Chou rounded out the top three, concluding the action with just under a million and bagging up 940,000, with the top ten Flight A stacks as follows:

FLIGHT A TOP TEN STACKS

Malaysia’s Hazel Tan (497,000) was the best positioned female player out of the Flight A survivors. Other notables to make the Final Day included Taiwan’s Chao Ting Cheng (302,000), and Pete Chen (232,000), the USA’s Robert Nemeskeri-Kiss (210,000), and Thai TV host Napat Chokejindachai (73,000).

For National Cup Championship Flight A Player List please CLICK HERE

For National Cup Championship Flight A Survivors please CLICK HERE

All tournament information can be found on the National Cup Championship Flight A tournament page and you can follow all the Flight A action as it played out via the APT Blog.

Flight B

Australia’s Troy Mclean bagged biggest on Flight B to take the overall lead

The Turbo Flight B got underway at 8pm (TST) drawing a further 218 entries (181 unique) – while this is a slight 17 percent decrease from the 263 Flight B entries from 2025, the solid numbers from the opening flight still put the tournament over 13 percent higher overall from the combined two flights.

With the top 14 percent of each respective flight making it through to the Final Day a total of 31 players bagged up chips at the end of the evening’s play. The elimination of Japan’s Shunsuke Imai in 32nd place ended the action after twenty-two fast-paced 15-minute levels.

Despite the strong showing on Flight A, it was Flight B frontrunner Troy Mclean of Australia who bagged the overall chip lead after the two starting flights with a stack of 1,261,000.

Mclean was the only Flight B player to crack seven figures, with China’s Pei Chih Shih (956,000), and Taiwan’s Wei Lin Lai (748,000) rounding out the top three, with the top ten as follows:

FLIGHT B TOP TEN STACKS

Former APT Super High Roller champion Shung Er “Terry” Sua bagged a top ten stack, with other notables to fight their way through including Australia’s Jack Sweet (271,000) Vietnam’s Tran Thi Xuan Ha (240,000), and the UK’s Ryan Plant (76,000).

For National Cup Championship Flight B Player List please CLICK HERE

For National Cup Championship Flight B Survivors please CLICK HERE

All tournament information can be found on the National Cup Championship Turbo Flight B tournament page and you can read about how all the Flight B action played out via the APT Blog.

The final three flights play out on Saturday, November 14. Flight C gets underway at 11am (TST) and comes with 25-minute levels.

Flight D kicks off at 4:30pm and sports 20-minute levels, and the fifth and final Turbo Flight E follows the same format as Flight B with an 8:30pm start time and faster-paced 15-minute levels.

The survivors of these final three flights will join the 116 players who made it through from Flights A & B on the Final Day, which gets underway at 11:15am local time (TST) on Sunday, November 16.