As in the case of nearly every final starting day, Day 1D of the Asia Poker League – Main Event – attracted the largest field of 209 unique players with 80 re-entering for a total of 289 entries. Add this with the 334 combined entries of the previous starting days, that sums up to 623 entries.
Let’s take a look at that in detail:
Day 1A: 64 entries – 14 advanced
Day 1B: 70 entries – 15 advanced
Day 1C: 200 entries – 46 advanced
Day 1D: 289 entries – 75 advanced
With each entry at VND 16,500,000 (~US$720), the 150 remaining players are now in for a staggering prize pool of VND 9,064.650,000 (~US$ 388,000). Only 78 will see a piece of it. Though it is still days away, the eventual winner will pocket VND 1,700,440,0000 (~US$ 73,000).
Main Event Day 2 info
As we move on to Day 2, bringing in the mightiest stack of the 150 runners is USA’s Matthew Mortensen with 400,000 bagged at Day 1C. He is trailed by Day 1D chip leader Vietnam’s Chu Thai Thinh with 378,500.
Total chips in play: 18,690,000
Average stack: 124,600
Opening blinds: 1500-3000 ante 3000
Blinds intervals: increases every 40 minutes
Day 2 gets underway at 1pm on Thursday, May 16. They will play out a total of 10 levels. In the event the money isn’t reached by then, play will continue until the bubble bursts. Live updates running throughout.
More: Opening Day 2 Chip Counts and Seating Draw
Day 1D recap
Host venue Pro Poker Club was jam-packed from the get-go. All that was needed in Day 1D was 200 entries to meet the guarantee. By the close of registration, a thunderous 289 entries turned up. Among the notable players heating up seats and surviving the fourteen 40-minute rounds were Alex Lee (199,000), Steve Yea (161,000), Le Ngoc Khanh (150,500), Vincent Chauve (149,000), Cao Ngoc Anh (132,500), Linh Tran (130,500), Jack En Ching Wu (123,500), Feng Zhao (104,500), Dhanesh Chainani (92,500), and Sumit Sapra (68,000).
However, all of these players took a back seat to the day’s chip leader, Vietnam’s Chu Thai Thinh with 378,500.
Also finishing very strong was second-ranked Singaporean pro Norbert Koh with 320,000. Koh has continuously done well in Vietnam with an abundance of numerous deep runs in various festivals held in the country.
Day 1D top 10 chip counts
1 – Chu Thai Thinh – Vietnam – 378,500
2 -Norbert Koh – Singapore – 320,000
3 -Sahil Agarwal – India – 298,500
4 -Chung Fai Ngeow – Malaysia – 296,000
5 – Tran Thanh Van – Vietnam – 279,500
6 – Te Mai China – 262,500
7 -Thang Vu – Vietnam – 257,500
8 – Tao Tien Manh – Vietnam – 250,000
9 – Alex Lee – Singapore – 199,000
10 -Nguyen Hoai Dai Phong – Vietnam – 168,500
11 -Yi Won Lee – Korea – 165,500
With Day 1D only seeing 75 advance, this meant a large portion fell out of the running and will miss out on the lucrative pot. Among them was the defending champion Quang Nguyen who was railed late in the day by Tony Chung Fa Ngeow with A-K winning the flip against pocket jacks. Other notable players bumping the rail were Tzai Wei Phua in a cooler, Lim Yohwan, Minh Le, Ian Brion, Huu Dung Nguyen, and Soo Jo Kim to mention a few.
You can read up on all the starting days action via our live updates.
Day 1D in Video
APL Vietnam Main Event draws 623 total entries; Chu Thai Thinh tops the 75 survivors: https://t.co/PdSRrYg9qs pic.twitter.com/zDgpxknm6p
— Somuchpoker (@Somuchpoker) May 15, 2019
APL Vietnam 2019 – Full coverage
Tricia David
Tricia David has long experience as a recreational poker player and has been covering poker events since 2010 for numerous outfits in Asia. She spent one year working part time with Poker Portal Asia then became editor and lead writer for all event coverage of the Philippine Poker Tour (PPT). Under the PPT, she overlooked content for their website, and produced live updates on all their events. In addition, she served as the live and online events website content writer for the Asian Poker Tour. Currently, she does live events reporting in Asia for online news site Somuchpoker and is also one of their news contributors.
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