The second day of the APL Road Series Vol.1 Philippines was loaded with action with multiple poker games running simultaneously at the ballroom of the Royce Hotel & Casino in Clark Freeport, Pampanga. The hottest ticket was the P27,500 buy-in Main Event P5,000,000 Guaranteed with 94 entries burning up the tables. At the end of the scheduled 12 rounds, 26 players remained with only one of them deserving of the highest praise. That player was chip leader Guak Do Gyeong.
As for the side events, the biggest winner was Jaeheung An who took down Mike Takayama in just two hands at the heads up round of the High Rollers. Other proud title-holders were Tae Joon Cho for the Warm Up and Harold Ruaya for the Pot Limit Omaha 1. See all the recaps below.
Korea’s Guak Do Gyeong dominates Main Event Day 1B, Lester Edoc 2nd in chips
Korea’s Guak Do Gyeong was the player most envied at Main Event Day 1B. Out of the 94 total entries that saw only 26 alive at the end of regulation, Guak stacked up an enormous 423,400 in chips. To give you an idea of the immensity of his artillery, that’s nearly 17 starting stacks bagged up. One of the biggest hands that helped Guak reach those heights was a crushing pocket jacks set over pocket nines set.
For the rest of the players in contention, Guak’s closest competitor – though not even in his ballpark – was Philippine pro Lester Edoc with 176,700. Another player with a strong finish today was India’s Niwesh Sharma. Sharma jumped into the Main after a 6th place berth at the Warm Up event and finished day 1B with 170,000.
Speaking of the Warm Up event, champion Tae Joon Cho also joined the featured tournament after the awarding and all the paparazzi photo sessions. He continued to perform well, bagging up 104,200. Other notable players making it through were JC Sayo (114,000), Martin Gonzales (45,000), and Sung Ho Kim (39,300). You can read up on some of the day’s action in the live updates post; you can also find all the chip counts via the link below.
More: Main Event – Day 1A and B Chip counts
More: Main Event – Day 1 B Live Updates
Korea’s Jaeheung An overcomes the grueling High Rollers event
The High Rollers event was the last to wrap up with Korea’s Jaeheung An finally closing it out an hour before sunrise. However attaining victory was definitely no easy task. One of the most difficult stages to get past was the bubble round.
With four remaining, An held a dominating lead over his opponents with nearly half the chips in play at his disposal. After Anacleto Quijano won two double ups against him, this sent his stack spiraling downwards even dropping to the shortest stack.
Dwindling further, he risked it all with 
against Takayama’s 
. The hand began with An raising from 5k to 11k; Quijano called, Takayama three-bet to 30k, and both players called. On a flop of 
. An quickly shoved, and only Takayama called. Though An was behind, the turn 
and river 
awarded him a crazy running flush to avoid elimination. With a healthy stack once again, An railed one player in 4th place to regain the leader’s seat.
The three-handed bout saw a very volatile chip lead with each player earning time. Quijano first stole it back from An on a full house double up. It then switched hands to the ailing Takayama – with less than six big blinds – who landed two double ups against Quijano plus a big pot against An. With enough ammo Takayama finally put the brakes on Quijano in 3rd place with 
victorious over 
.
Unlike the previous long rounds, the heads up match between Takayama and An lasted all of two hands. Takayama led at the start but An quickly usurped with 
spiking a pair against 
on a board of 
. An’s shove was at the flop.
With An back on top, he closed it out on the subsequent hand. Takayama shoved with 
and An had better with . The board ran a low 
awarding An the title, the trophy, and the P307,750 first place purse.
High Roller payouts
Prize pool: P654,750 – Buyin: P50,000
1st – Jaeheung An – Korea – P307,750
2nd – Mike Takayama – Philippines – P209,500
3rd – Anacleto Quijano – Philippines – P137,500
Korea’s Tae Joon Cho captures the Warm Up title
The first player to lift up one of those unique APL trophies was Korean player Tae Joon Cho after reigning at the Warm Up event. This opening side event kicked off yesterday with 50 entries, and at a buy-in of P5,500 each, the prize pool summed up to P242,500. With the game running quite late, the final 6 players returned today each one guaranteed a piece of the pie.
Entering the day, Cho was armed with the largest stack while the shortest was Niwesh Sharma. Within minutes, Sharma left the field and from there, it was all Cho. One by one he delivered the axe to each of the remaining players starting with Anacleto Quijano’s exposed bluff. Richard Allen and Sooil Kim soon followed to quickly bring about the heads up round against Tony Khoang.
The duel was quite lopsided though with Cho sitting on 83% of the chips. A few hands in, Khoang shoved with 
and Cho called with
. The event closed on a final board of 
.
Warm Up event payouts
Prize pool: P242,500 – Buyin: P5,500
1st – Tae Joon Cho – Korea – P82,400
2nd – Tony Khoang – Netherlands- P55,800
3rd – Sooil Kim – Korea – P36,400
4th – Richard Allen – P29,100
5th – Anacleto Quijano – Philippines – P21,800
6th – Niwesh Sharma – India – P17,000
Harold Ruaya wins the Pot Limit Omaha 1
Harold Ruaya picked up the first trophy for the Philippines after outlasting the 55-entry field of the Pot Limit Omaha 1 event. We caught the action starting at four-handed right when Ruaya was in a three-way all in showdown against Jim Beard and chip leader Taeho Lee with the flop 
already felted. Ruaya held 
, Beard 
, and Lee . The turn and river gave Ruaya a winning full house sending Beard to the rail and a stack boost that also earned him the chip leader status.
After the fall of Celestino Gaa in 3rd place, the heads up round between Lee and Ruaya saw both players grabbing for the lead. Once Ruaya edged Lee, he proceeded to ship it all in with 
straight on a complete board of 
.
Pot Limit Omaha payouts
Prize pool: P266,750 – Buyin: P5,500
1st – Harold Ruaya – P82,750
2nd – Taeho Lee – P58,700
3rd – Celestino Charles Gaa – P40,000
4th – Jim Beard – P29,300
5th – Anthony Abram – P21,300
6th – William McAuley – P18,700
7th – Darshan Sami – P16,000
More: APL Road Series Full Coverage
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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