Luteng Li Wins First PPT Event He Enters

May 23, 2025

Level:	23 (15000/30000/30000)
Entries:	1/69
Prizes:	$26,220

Considering Luteng Li just flew in from Richmond, BC, and this is the very first event he’s ever played on the Pure Poker Tour, it’s safe to say he’s off to a good start. He started off his Edmonton trip with a win, besting some fairly notable regulars along the way.

He made it through the 69 entries in about 13 hours tonight, and when they got down to the business end, he was facing a table that contained a lot of faces we regularly see deep in 4-card games here on the PPT. Runner-up Varan Sidhu, 4th place Nu Teliani, 5th place Sebastian Crema, 6th place Josh Myers, and 7th place Tony Ma are all regulars deep in PPT games (Ma and Crema were both working on their 3rd final table in this series alone). Add to that the wildcard of David Fong (3rd), and it’s clear that Li wasn’t facing down a table of fish tonight.

Perhaps he had the advantage of being an unknown quantity, but he played a solid, quiet game at the final table. He was rarely the chip leader, until it counted, but he was also rarely short-stacked. He played a waiting game, taking full advantage of the spots where he had the goods and making solid laydowns when it mattered.

In one example of the latter, Li was stuck in the middle of Fong and Teliani. In what turned into a massive pot, Teliani bet the 8♠7♦3♠ flop and Li called before Fong potted it and Teliani called for less. That left Li facing a decision — Fong outchipped him at the time, and after a couple of minutes of going over the hand action, he found a fold in the huge pot. I don’t know what he folded, but regardless, it was an example of strategic play that ensured he kept playing with a stack. Teliani eventually ran out to a bigger boat than Fong to stay alive with a double plus.

When he got heads-up with Sidhu, they were about even, but it didn’t take long for Li to chip into the lead. Heads up only took about 15 minutes to complete. In the final hand, Li turned a set of aces against a boatload of straight outs for Sidhu. The river ran clean for Li, and he took down his first PPT trophy in his very first PPT event.