Alexis Lim bags his biggest live score at the APT Manila Main Event

Filipino player Alexis Lim is the newest APT Main Event champion after defeating Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Huy at the heads up round to claim the APT Manila 2016 championship title and the first place purse of PHP766,000, his biggest ever live tournament score.

The day began with the Final 8 players returning to the APT Poker Room in the Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel and Casino. Entering with an overwhelming chip lead were two players, Ireland’s Gary Thompson and Korea’s SJ Kim. Between the two, Kim was the more decorated live tournament player with various cashes and side event trophies won in his career. While both ran well in the previous qualifying days, the final table would prove to be a much tougher challenge.

The first one to hit the rail was China’s Linglin Zeng in 8^th place. Zeng entered the Final 8 with the shortest stack and as the saying goes, “go big or go bust”, and bust she did on the second hand of the day. Immediately after, two short stacks went head to head, Vietnam’s Tien Quyet Pham and Peru’s Yohn Paredes. Pham lost the bet and he spiraled down to two big blinds while Paredes rose in the ranks. Pham was eliminated in 7^th place. Lim got in the game, eliminating Korea’s Sung Ho Kim in 6^th place.

It was at five-handed where the game took a big 360. With everyone grinding the tables hard, in a surprise turn of events, Thompson was eliminated in 5^th place followed by Paredes in 4^th place, both of them at the hands of eventual runner-up Huy. At three-handed, SJ Kim couldn’t handle the heat and Lim took all of his chips to enter the heads up round against Huy.

The final battle for the title saw Huy escalate into a dominating chip lead but Lim pounced back using Huy’s aggression to his full advantage. Lim finished off Huy in dramatic fashion with quads over full house.

Final 8 Payouts

1^st Alexis Lim – Philippines – P766,000

2^nd Nguyen Hoang Huy – Vietnam – P473,000

3^rd SJ Kim – Korea – P346,000

4^th Yohn Paredes – Peru – P268,000

5^th Gary Thompson – Ireland – P232,000

6^th Sung Ho Kim – Korea – P202,000

7^th Tien Quyet Pham – Vietnam – P177,000

8^th Linglin Zeng – China – P157,000

Article by Triccia David

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