TLPT: A New Series on the Poker Scene
The Lord Poker Tour is an ambitious series that, in 2025, presented its very first standalone festival in the luxurious setting of Landing Casino at Jeju Shinhwa World Resort. The festival offered players two levels of tournaments: Circuit Series with buy-ins from $500 to $2,000 and Super High Roller Series with buy-ins from $5,000 to $50,000, with the total guarantee for the event exceeding $8,000,000.
The Main Event with a $15,000 buy-in attracted players with a $3,000,000 guarantee, which, however, was not collected. The tournament generated a total of 191 entries, and financial rewards awaited the top 29 players.
Final Day Progress
The final day started with Austrian player Marius Gierse in the chip leader position, closely followed by Stephen Song. Since there was virtually no short stack in play, we had to wait a few hours until the final table was formed, where the top chip positions were still occupied by the same pair: Gierse – Song.
From that moment, however, Song's one-man show was in full swing, and none of his opponents stood a chance. Everything Song touched turned out well, and he gradually made it all the way to heads-up, where he went up against Filipino player Mendoza with a 7:1 advantage. Austrian representative Marius Gierse had to leave the tournament after a classic coin flip, when his combination of A s K h faced Song's pair of J h J c. A board without help meant 3rd place for Gierse, worth $320,000, and the tournament moved on to the final heads-up stage.
In heads-up, Song didn't allow his opponent anything, didn't let him double up even once, and completed what he started rather quickly. As the champion of this tournament, he rightfully took home the trophy and a $750,000 reward.
Final Table Results:
| # | Name | Country | Prize (USD) |
| 1. | Stephen Song | USA | 750,000 |
| 2. | James Mendoza | Philippines | 450,000 |
| 3. | Marius Gierse | Germany | 320,000 |
| 4. | Martin Nielsen | Faroe Islands | 220,000 |
| 5. | Patrik Demus | Hungary | 170,000 |
| 6. | Ivan Zhang | China | 130,000 |
| 7. | Huawei Lin | China | 100,000 |
| 8. | Jiaming Zhao | China | 76,000 |
| 9. | Haitao Lei | China | 62,000 |
The Great Run Continues
Stephen Song is rightfully currently regarded as one of the most successful tournament players of recent years. After taking down his first WSOP bracelet in 2019, he reminded the public of his presence especially by winning the WPT Prime Championship 2022 ($712,650), which also helped him to become the GPI Player of the Year for 2022. He appeared before the European audience during last year’s record-breaking EPT Barcelona Main Event, from which he took home a valuable title and his biggest career win so far (€1,290,386). Song’s total live tournament winnings exceed $9,000,000 and we all suspect that we will see his name more and more often!
Sources – TheHendonMob, SoMuchPoker, PokerNews