Yesterday’s intense race saw 75 players return to the Grand Ballroom of NagaWorld Phnom Penh for Day 2 of the Main Event, each one hoping for a piece of the bloated $494,991 pot and a seat to the finals. After nine hours of play, the chase ended with all the nine spots spoken for and Taiwan’s Yu Chung “Nevan” Chang bagging a commanding stack. Chang rose from just an 8 BB stack to 125 BB in three levels.
The race to the first ever Asia Pacific Poker Tour Cambodia Main Event title begins today at 1pm. The champion will claim the coveted PokerStars shard trophy and $96,028. Cards in the air at 1pm. Read up all the past action and today’s race via the Live Updates.
| Player | Chips | BB |
| Yu Chung Chang | 3,115,000 | 125 |
| Markus Garberg | 2,420,000 | 97 |
| Alexander Puchalski | 1,700,000 | 68 |
| Akshay Kapoor | 1,485,000 | 59 |
| Christopher Backhouse | 990,000 | 40 |
| Huy Phan | 565,000 | 23 |
| Quoc Dinh Nguyen | 530,000 | 21 |
| Renniel Galvez | 340,000 | 14 |
| Michael Soyza | 165,000 | 7 |
Among the players in the final 9 lineup is well known Malaysian pro Michael Soyza, the only player seeking a second APPT Main Event title. Out of Soyza’s long list of poker achievements, one of them is a victory at the APPT Korea 2018 Main Event. Soyza has a steep climb ahead if he plans to catch the leader, which is very manageable as we’ve seen at the series Mini High Roller rising from 6 BB to winning it.
Another player to watch is Norway’s Markus Garberg who finally reached the final table after coming close at two APPT Manila Main Event runs with a 12th place finish in 2016 and 17th place in 2018.
Remaining payouts
| 1st | $96,028 |
| 2nd | $60,884 |
| 3rd | $44,005 |
| 4th | $35,590 |
| 5th | $28,165 |
| 6th | $21,681 |
| 7th | $16,137 |
| 8th | $11,682 |
| 9th | $9,454 |
Main Event Day 2 review
The Main Event opened on November 10 and after three starters it drew 378 entries to exceed the guarantee for a richer $494,991 prize pool. Day 2 sped off with 75 players and a flurry of busts that included Day 1C race leader Yu Qi Zhao’s fall on a three way with the day’s entering chip leader Nam Hyung Kim shipping it. Kim eventually became the first player to breach a million in chips.
Two rounds in, it was bubble time with Alexander Puchalski first to be at risk. which ended in a double up that kickstarted his rise to the final table. Sweden’s Sofia Lovgren also survived her shove then proceeded to clean out short stacked Guodong Shi on the bubble.
With the money intact, the remaining players raced for a final 9 seat. Soyza and Puchalksi were rising fast. Soyza delivered a double knockout that saw the end of Singapore’s Bryan Huang and Day 1B chip leader Russia’s Valeriy Pak. Chang earned his first double up with pocket Fives surviving overcards.
Down to the final two tables with 12 remaining, India’s Akshay Kapoor stole the lead with several big pots that started with a double up off Kim with pocket Kings dominating pocket Queens. Kapoor went on to rail Zdravko Duvnjak (12th) and Lovgren (11th) who shoved on a bluff that failed.
Just before the day wrapped up, Chang banked a mammoth pot with a full house against Soyza to catapult way up top. A couple of hands after, Kim shoved with Ace-Queen and lost the flip to Kapoor’s pocket Sixes. For the first time this series, Kim missed the final table.
Payouts 10th to 55th
| 10th | Nam Hyung Kim | $7,821 |
| 11th | Sofia Lovgren-Fullmer | $7,821 |
| 12th | Zdravko Duvnjak | $6,782 |
| 13th | Hoa Thinh Nguyen | $6,782 |
| 14th | Jiazhi Zhong | $5,989 |
| 15th | Jean Robert Autran | $5,989 |
| 16th | Ido Aboudi | $5,395 |
| 17th | Dhanesh Chainani | $5,395 |
| 18th | Natalie Teh | $4,900 |
| 19th | Jonas Magdalinski | $4,900 |
| 20th | Paul Newey | $4,900 |
| 21st | Chhay Lem Lim | $4,405 |
| 22nd | Jianguo Zhou | $4,405 |
| 23rd | Valeriy Pak | $4,405 |
| 24th | Bryan Huang | $3,911 |
| 25th | Mohamad Abbouchi | $3,911 |
| 26th | Mai Bien | $3,911 |
| 27th | Phuong Ngoc Nguyen | $3,911 |
| 28th | Zhao Feng | $3,416 |
| 29th | Jonathan Sanborn | $3,416 |
| 30th | Benjamin Sai | $3,416 |
| 31st | Yong Chen | $3,416 |
| 32nd | Omair Javed | $2,921 |
| 33rd | Vincent Huang | $2,921 |
| 34th | Chik Fatt Chan | $2,921 |
| 35th | Brett Pullen | $2,921 |
| 36th | Tzai Wei Phua | $2,921 |
| 37th | Suparerk Totsaponisad | $2,921 |
| 38th | Finn Penderak | $2,921 |
| 39th | Oliver Schulze | $2,921 |
| 40th | Cao Ngoc Anh | $2,425 |
| 41st | Lars Madsen | $2,425 |
| 42nd | Masamichi Hayashi | $2,425 |
| 43rd | Vu Thai Bao | $2,425 |
| 44th | Robert Schiffbauer | $2,425 |
| 45th | Collin Ho | $2,425 |
| 467th | Renato Villanueva Jr | $2,425 |
| 47th | Ori Haim Elul | $2,425 |
| 48th | Ho Xiao Wang | $2,425 |
| 49th | David Erquiaga | $2,425 |
| 50th | Zachary Duce | $2,425 |
| 51st | Hamish Crawshaw | $2,425 |
| 52nd | Daniel Smiljkovik | $2,425 |
| 53rd | Florencio Campomanes | $2,425 |
| 54th | Keita Minami | $2,425 |
| 55th | Duy Tung Nguyen | $2,425 |
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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