Leon Sturm runner-up in APT Manila High Roller

The Asian Poker Tour Manila Classic 2025 series had the final day of the Main Event on the schedule yesterday, with Austrian pro Samuel Mullur as the runner-up. Today, the series schedule included the final day of the High Roller with a buy-in of €3,311 and a guarantee of just under €250,000.

Thanks to 127 entries, the prizepool was worth €363,325 and of that amount, €88,749 awaited the winner. Sitting at the final table here as chipleader was American player Benjamin Jacobs with a stack of 3 million. The best known and most experienced player here was German Leon Sturm, who started from third place.

The chipleader position was still held by Benjamin Jacobs, but everything changed after Emilien Pitavy was eliminated in fourth place, which was taken care of by Leon Sturm. Leon went up to a huge stack of 7.6 million after that hand, with his two opponents holding a combined total of just 5.2 million.

Slowly, however, Japanese player Yohei Kitazato was beginning to come to the fore, knocking out Jacobs in third place to go into heads-up play as the chipleader with a stack of 9,100,000. Leon Sturm started heads-up play with a stack of 3,700,000 and although he managed to regain the chip lead for a while, he didn't manage to keep the chipleader position for long.

After about 45 minutes of heads-up play, Leon eventually fell to the last 5 blinds, which he opted to go all-in with. His opponent called and was better off after the board was dealt. Leon Sturm had to settle for second place, which was worth €60,000. Yohei Kitazato was the winner and in addition to his €88,749 prize, he also took home a ticket to the APT Taipei Championship worth €10,430, which will take place in November.

Source - theasianpokertour.com, youtube