A hustlin’ and bustlin’ Main Event! What a day! Day 2 saw 168 players take to the felt with just one mission, to accumulate as many chips as possible and survive another day. With payouts starting at 54 players, many players missed the mark, some of them pros, some of them regulars in the Asian circuit, and some with large stacks entering the day. By the end of the scheduled eight hours of play, only 39 survived. Here are some of the action we picked up throughout the day.
Alex Lee and Seongsu Kong tie for the chip lead
Day 2 ended with Singapore’s Alex Xiang Wei Lee and Korea’s Seongsu Kong bagging up exactly the same stack of 673,000 chips. For Lee, he was on a slow yet steady rise all day but there was a moment when he claimed a very big pot during the bubble stage against fellow countryman Kah Seng Sim. Lee shoved Sim out of the pot (on the turn) and then kindly showed his open-ended hand. We are not really sure if Sim wanted to see that as he tanked for a long time before folding.
As for Kong, his turning point was in a nerve-wracking preflop raise war hand against China’s Ang Li. At the time, Li was the big chip leader with around 70 players left in the field. Kong was eventually all in with pocket nines and Li called with ace-king. With Li missing the board, Kong earned a big double up and his joy was quite thunderous.
Pocket Nines in the House
Speaking of pocket nines, this particular pocket pair seemed to be quite successful for several players. In addition to Kong who double up against Li, Filipino player John Sayo doubled up with his pocket nines improving to quads; Jack Wu called down Jason Lo to the river holding pocket nines and won (Lo was bluffing and later commented to us that maybe he should stop bullying the table too much); and Keiju Murata avoided elimination with his pocket nines improving to a flush of diamonds against pocket jacks with no diamond.
Top 10
| Last Name | First Name | Table | Seat | Chip Count |
| Kong | Seongsu | 34 | 1 | 673,000 |
| Lee | Alex Xiang Wei | 42 | 5 | 673,000 |
| Leonarez | Jessie | 33 | 1 | 653,000 |
| Angeles | Rommel | 42 | 2 | 622,000 |
| Jong | Kim Teng | 42 | 4 | 621,000 |
| Chua | Ying Lin | 34 | 2 | 519,000 |
| Heng | Siong Boon | 42 | 6 | 500,000 |
| Lau | Alan | 35 | 8 | 426,000 |
| Kim | Gab Yong | 35 | 4 | 412,000 |
| Ye | Renjie | 34 | 6 | 405,000 |
More: Day 3 draw and Full Chip count
Tracking Malaysia’s Ying Lin Chua
One of the first hands we caught today was that highly active pocket nines which was held by Malaysia’s Ying Lin Chua. Not only did Chua dodge the infamous two overcards, ace-king, he improved to a full house. From there, we continued to track Chua who amassed more towers with pocket aces clearing out a player’s corner. At the bubble round, he delivered Sweden’s Thomas Larsen the painful bad beat elimination with ace-eight hitting trip eights against pocket aces.
Gab Yong Kim delivers a sick bad beat
Alike what happened to Larsen, there were definitely many sick bad beats at the felt today. One of those was when Korea’s Gab Yong Kim eliminated a player with his jack-three against pocket eights. The flop gave Kim a jack top pair and an eight for a set to his opponent. That’s when all the chips went in. The turn of three gave Kim two pair, then on the river of jack, both improved to a full house with Kim’s hand the higher of the two. Ouch. Kim finished the day running ninth in chips.
With and without dividends
Many well-known pros fell before reaching any dough. Last year’s final tableists Hayato Kitajima, Douglas Olsson, and returning champion Aaron Lim all bit the dust early. Joining them were Team PokerStars Pros Kosei Ichinose, Chen-an Lin, and just before the bubble, Bryan Huang Diwei. Several of the day’s entering chip leaders, Charles Lesmana and Azusa Maeda also couldn’t survive the heat and burned before the money round.
Among those who did make it through the border for some cash were China’s Jason Lo in 52nd place, Chinese Taipei’s Jack En Ching Wu in 49th place, India’s Kunal Patni in 47th place, and surprisingly, Malaysia’s Marcuss Liow in 44th place. Too bad we missed that moment as we had been tracking his steady progress since Day 1b.
Poker action everywhere
In addition to the Main Event, there were several events also lined up namely the Saturday Superstack Charity Event with a PhP500,000 guarantee, and the NLH/PLO (2-day) event. The charity event saw a fantastic turnout of well over 300 players. Taking a glance at the cash tables, it was also bustling with more tables needed to accommodate the waitlist. Buy-ins ranged from P25-P50 to P20k-P100k.
More: Full Coverage
More: APPT10 Manila Main Event – Day 3 Draw and chip counts
Louis Hartwell
Graduated in Media Communication at the University of Lausanne, Louis Hartman is a co-founder of somuchpoker.com. He began his career in Cambodia as freelance journalist. In same time he was making his living by playing poker every night at that time. Intense learner, he read dozens of poker strategy books to improve his skills during many years. With a strong interest about poker "behind the scene" in Asia and his communication skills, Louis launched Somuchpoker in 2014.
Follow Me:
