The Philippines continues to be one of the most enjoyable destinations for poker players around the region with the country host to a large number of festivals year-round. For the month of February, players have their calendars nearly blacked out with three events scheduled and more on the way in March. One event has already concluded, we’ve got a short recap on that for you. We also have updates below on the other events on deck.
Rommel Angeles wins the Metro 2M Guaranteed
The Metro Card Club, the country’s biggest and most popular stand alone poker room recently concluded its 2M GUARANTEED Main Event. Each year, the Metro, as most commonly called, hosts several of these guaranteed events. To attract the large local market, buy-ins usually run very low, in this case P4,000 (US$80). After four starting days, the event drew in 602 entries to bring the prize pool up to P2,043,790 (~US$39,000).
Last night, the six day festival wrapped up with local enthusiast Rommel Angeles claiming the title. Angeles was a strong contender from the start having topped Day 1B which put him in third position entering Day 2 with 92 players still in the running. By the time it was down to the final 18 players, Angeles was once again one of the leaders, ranked second in the chip count.
One of the toughest players Angeles had to get past was local pro Emmanuel Segismundo. Segismundo led the final table and was the bane of several players on the final day. In the end, Angeles proved too tough at the three-handed bout finishing off Segismundo in 3rd place. Taking 2nd was Janette Dee. As his reward, Angeles filled up his pockets with P555,000 (~US$10,600) earning the single largest payout of his career.
Final Table payouts
1st Rommel Angeles – P555,000
2nd Janette Dee – P285,000
3rd Emmanuel Segismundo – P162,000
4th William Anonuevo – P110,000
5th Carlex David Co – P82,000
6th Juan Paolo Dela Pena – P62,000
7th Mark Robert Sy – P46,000
8th Janno Alvarez P34,000
9th Venoni Paltep Jr – P26,000
10th – Jon Jon Lumanian – P22,000
Cards in the air at the PokerStars LIVE Manila Super Series
PokerStars LIVE Manila’s first festival of the year has just begun with the Super Series underway running from February 13th – February 18th. This is the fifth installment of the series. A total of 13 events are lined up all week with three of them backed by a generous guarantee plus satellites for nearly all of the games. What will surely pile in the numbers is the Main Event (P3 Million Guarantee) which begins on February 15th. Buy-in is P10,000 (~US$200).
Other events in the roster are the P8,000 NLH-PLO, the Warm-up (1 million guarantee) which will be seeing a champion crowned on the second day of festivities, and the P15,000 NLH Shot Clock with the highest buy-in of the series.
More: PokerStars LIVE Manila Super Series 5 Schedule
Asia Poker League Road Series running online qualifiers on Pokamaax
While most poker festivals happen in the country’s bustling metropolis, the Asia Poker League defies the norm and ventures a bit north for the APL Road Series Vol.1 Philippines. The event will be taking place at the Royce Hotel Casino in Angeles City, Pampanga. With prior events held only in Mainland China, APL’s expansion to the Philippines is great for a local market that embraces world class poker events.
For the upcoming series, APL has teamed up with PokamAAx – a new Asian Network – offering two online qualifiers to the P5 Million Guaranteed Main Event. One ticket per satellite is set to be awarded. There are several ways to join the Main Event Online Qualifiers with the quickest route being a direct buy-in of US$25. Qualifiers run on February 17 and February 18 at 7PM (GMT +7).
More: Qualify for free on PokamAAx for the APL Road Series Main Event
P10 Million Guaranteed announced for the APT Philippines Championships
With guaranteed events always attracting big numbers, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) announced over P10 million in guaranteed prizes for the upcoming APT Philippines Championships. This amount will spread over three events:
- Main Event – P8 million guarantee
- Opening Event – P2 millon guarantee
- MegaSportsWorld Deep Stack Turbo – P500,000 guarantee
Last month, the APT extended a VND 3 million guarantee to the APT Vietnam Main Event. With a record-breaking 664 entries. This tripled the prize pool to over VND 9 million.
The upcoming APT Philippines Championships is a twelve-day festival scheduled to take place on March 21 – April 2 at Resorts World Manila. Through the years, this event has proven to be the tour’s most popular stop.
More: APT Philippines Championships 2018 Schedule
Article by Triccia David
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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