APT Championship Returns to Taipei With $5 Million Main Event Guarantee
APT’s 20th-anniversary finale runs Nov. 13-29, expanding to 23 Championship Events after last year’s Main Event beat its guarantee.
The Asian Poker Tour will stage its second APT Championship at Red Space in Taipei, Taiwan, from Nov. 13-29, with a $5 million guaranteed Main Event. The $10,000 Main Event Freezeout runs Nov. 20-27 and carries a TWD 311,900 buy-in, listed by the official schedule as equivalent to the $10,000 entry fee.
The 17-day series is positioned as the climax of APT’s 20th-anniversary season. It will offer more than TWD 260 million, or about $8 million, in total guarantees, according to the tour, and PokerOrg reports a 209-event schedule.
The Main Event’s freezeout structure means players get one tournament life, with no rebuys or re-entries. That format is central to the tour’s ambition of making the event “Asia’s Main Event,” a role it has compared with the WSOP Main Event.
Last year’s inaugural APT Championship at the same venue showed the festival’s scale. The 2025 Main Event drew 671 entries, beat its $5 million guarantee and built a TWD 194 million prize pool, worth about $6.2 million. India’s Nishant Sharma won the title and roughly $1.2 million.
Across the whole 2025 festival, APT recorded 28,265 entries and about $34.2 million in prize money. Players from 55 nations took part across the series, while the Main Event field represented 47 countries and regions. The festival also set 17 APT records, including entry, prize-pool and top-prize marks.
This year’s schedule expands the number of Championship Events to 23 from 20. Alongside the Main Event, the program includes National Cup, Mystery Bounty, Ultra Stack, 7-Max, PLO, mixed-games, women’s and Natural8-branded championships.
The higher buy-in end includes a $15,000 High Roller Championship, a $25,000 Super High Roller Championship and a $50,000 Superstar Championship. The PLO High Roller is set for Nov. 18-19 with a TWD 150,000, about $4,700, buy-in; the $10,000 Single Day High Roller follows on Nov. 19, and the Ultra Stack Championship runs Nov. 25-26 at the same TWD 150,000 price point.
APT is hosting the festival with the Chinese Texas Hold’em Poker Club at Red Space, a central Taipei venue dedicated to poker rather than slot machines or table games. Players can qualify for the Main Event through APT tour stops and online via Natural8.
As covered in September, APT Jeju offered 12 $10,000 APT Championship Main Event seats through designated events, Main Event finishes and lucky draws. Those seats are for the Taipei series.
