Having made its mark on Asia and players around the world with two highly successful poker events in 2008, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) has announced the first event for its 2009 tournament schedule.

APT Philippines 2009, the Manila leg of next year's Tour, will be held at the Dusit Thani Manila Hotel in Makati, Philippines, from January 27 to February 1, 2009. Buy-in is set at USD $2,500. Interested parties may contact their local or online poker room for information on scheduled satellites.

This year's APT Philippines event, held at the same venue last May, attracted 316 poker players from around the world - a number that the APT is looking to surpass at next year's event. It featured a USD $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool and had various attractions such as Asia's first 13-card poker tournament. The main event was won by Australian poker pro David Saab, who walked away with the USD $280,000 top prize.

APT Philippines was followed by an even more successful APT Macau tournament, which was held in late August. The event featured an even bigger guaranteed prize pool of USD $1,500,000 and was won by U.S.-based Yevgeniy Timoshenko.

The Tour will feature at least four major events in 2009. Further announcements regarding this year and next year's events will be made by the APT next week.

Chris Parker, CEO of the APT, said that the Tour has big plans and that he is looking forward to next year:

“The APT has already held two major events this year - APT Philippines and APT Macau. After consultation with players, online partners, and sponsors, a comprehensive schedule is now being planned for 2009 to successfully meet the needs of all concerned. We are looking forward to enhancing poker's presence in Asia.”