Poker champ drives home brand new car

MANILA, Philippines - Former billiards sensation Mike Takayama bested a huge field of 168 players to win the Metro Ultimate BMW Freeroll poker tournament Tuesday at the Metro Card Club in Metrowalk in Pasig City .

The feat earned the 21-year-old Takayama a brand-new BMW car worth almost P2-million plus the bragging rights as the champion of the biggest Freeroll tournament in Philippine poker history.

Apart from the BMW Series 116i, the Metro Card Club also gave away P1.5-million cash prizes to all the participants who made it by accumulating 300 hours in three months of playing at the cash game tables of biggest card room in Asia.

Takayama used his ultra-aggressive style of play to catapult himself into the chip lead early in the tournament. He made it to the final table as of the big stack and outwitted all his opponents to claim the biggest take down in his very young poker career that only started late last year.

Alexis Lim finished second and took home P200,000, while third-placer Marlon Silverio received P100,000. Other finishers were JR Mamuyak (P90,000), Howard Mar (P70,000), Barney Gellido (P50,000), Ashley de Guzman (P40,000), Pele Abella (P30,000) and Jimmy Gran (P30,000). All the rest of the 168 qualifiers got at least P3,000.

The tournament was the second million-peso freeroll Metro Card Club had in the last four months. The first was in December with a total prize pool of P1-million.