Main Event

From hijack Jun Ma opens 120,000, button Jun Sooyun calls. The board goes on to spread J♥ 5♥ 7♠ Q♥ 2♠ , Ma bets on every street 120,000, 180,000, 370,000, and 450,000, Sooyun calls to the turn then folds on the river bet.

Cutoff Jun Ma opens, Hye Seok Park defends the big blind, both see a flop 3♥ K♣ A♦ . Park proceeds to check-call 100,000 then 300,000 on the turn J♥ . On the river 9♠ , Park checks again, Ma shoves, Park tanks then calls for his tournament life. Ma turns over Q♦ 8♦ bluff, Park ships it with K♦ Q♣ second pair.

Three way all in preflop Ham Dong Myung A♣ Q♥ , Jun Ma K♠ Q♠ , Alex Puchalski K♦ K♣ . An ace finds the board 3♠ 7♣ 5♠ A♦ 9♦ to send Puchalski out of the running and Ham soaring to over a million.

Players are back from the first break of the day. New level underway. 132 players remaining. Here are the chip leaders:

Utg+2 opens hijack Xu Zhenbo and big blind Jun Ma call for a three way to the flop Q♥ 5♦ T♣ . Utg+2 c-bets 25,000, and is called by both. On the turn K♥ , action is checked to Xu who fires 55,000, Ma check-raises 135,000, utg+2 folds, Xu shoves, Ma calls for his tournament life.

Xu Zhenbo - K♦ 8♦ Jun Ma J♥ 9♠ straight

The river is A♦ , double up for Jun Ma.

Utg Le Dong Zhou opens 875,000, cutoff Jun Ma calls, flop is 9♥ 7♠ 7♦ . Zhou checks, Ma shoves, Zhou commits his remaining 5,000. Ma flips over A♥ T♣ , Zhou with Q♠ T♦ , turn K♣ and river 8♦ are no help to Zhou.

Kim Tae Hyoeng wraps up Day 1B as chip leader, Won Chul Bae at his tail, 52 players advance

After twelve hours of play, Main Event Day 1B closed with Korea’s leading the 52 ITM qualifiers. Kim was a grinding force throughout the day claiming pot after pot with rarely a showdown. He dragged in one of the last pots at his table to just edge over fellow countryman Won Chul Bae for the day’s top spot.

Also advancing was 2024 USOP Taiwan Main Event champion Sam Chen Yu Hung with a decent 24 bb stack. He became the first USOP champion to qualify with Nguyen Ngoc Dai and The Naing both missing the mark today.

Main Event Day 1B was another record setter with 416 entries on record, marking it the largest Day 1B flight in USOP history. Combined with Day 1A, the cumulative entries is now 782 bringing the pot to around VN₫ 20 Billion.

Among the faces in the crowd today were WSOP bracelet holders Abhinav Iyer, Siyang Phua, Aayush Arya however they were unable to go the day’s distance. Also falling were notables Nam Hyung Kim, Pham Tien Dung, Dao Minh Phu, Gab Yong Kim, Edward Yam, Manish Lakhotia, and Ian Lee to mention a few. Luckily, there are still two more flights to run, both taking place on Saturday, March 30, 2024.

Date: March 29, 2024 Buy in: VN₫ 30,000,000 (~USD 1,235) Guarantee: VN₫ 15,000,000,000 (~USD 614,500) Day 1B: 416 entries (314 unique) ITM: 52 players Chips in play: 16,640,000