WPT Cambodia Championship Day 1A soars past USD 1M, Punnat Punsri bags the chip lead
Five years ago in 2019, the World Poker Tour made its debut in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, marking the start of what would eventually evolve into the brand’s most significant event in the Asian region – the first WPT Main Tour in Southeast Asia.
On January 25, 2024, the inaugural WPT Cambodia Championship, in partnership with Connaissance Management, kicked off at world class NagaWorld Integrated Resorts featuring a 1 Million USD guarantee. Mid-way through Day 1A, the player count surged to 313 entries to instantly breach the guarantee. The momentum continued and the heat closed at a fiery total of 373 entries for a prize pool of USD 1,193,973. With Day 1B yet to play out, confidence is high that the pot will soar past USD 2 Million.
At the end of 11 levels, it was bagging time. Thailand’s top player and back-to-back GPI POY National champion Punnat Punsri topped the counts with 528,500 (176 bb). Punsri was already one of the big stacks during the last break of the day when he took the lead on a player’s six-bet shove with Ace-rag falling to Punsri’s pocket Kings.
First time outside of home turf, Viet Nam’s Trung Ha Nguyen aka Hasagi was also seen rising up the ranks during the last level of play to take second rank with 489,000 (163 bb).
To round out the top three was India’s Amit Kaushik who had been consistently running deep at numerous events the past week. Kaushik has two cashes under his belt, 12th at the Championship Warm Up and 3rd at the Megastack Action Clock. He grinded up to 403,000 (134 bb). Another shaker at Day 1A was Denmark’s Michael Falcon, racking up four starting stacks very early in the day and maintained to close in the top 10 with 329,000 (110 bb).
Other players down the rung were WPT Champions Club members Japan’s Masato Yokosawa (111 bb) and USA’s Tony Dunst (72 bb).
Top 10 in chips
| 1 | Punnat Punsri | Thailand | 528,500 |
| 2 | Trung Ha Nguyen | Viet Nam | 489,000 |
| 3 | Amit Kaushik | India | 403,000 |
| 4 | Vitalii Polikarpov | Russian Federation | 366,000 |
| 5 | William Lius | Indonesia | 351,000 |
| 6 | Hwang Wei Choong | Malaysia | 348,500 |
| 7 | Masato Yokosawa | Japan | 334,000 |
| 8 | Michael Kim Falcon | Denmark | 329,000 |
| 9 | Sriharsha Doddapaneni | India | 295,000 |
| 10 | Avi Cohen | Israel | 293,000 |
WPT Live Updates – Day 1A
Day 1A – chip counts
Other links:
WPT Cambodia – Daily updates
WPT Cambodia – News Coverage and Results
WPT Cambodia – Player of the Festival standings
WPT Cambodia – Player Guide
WPT Cambodia – Photos
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