WPT Cambodia : 212 players enter the Kickoff event, Keith Ong chip leader
The first ever World Poker Tour in the capital city of Cambodia,Phnom Penh, has begun today. An exciting 18-event festival at Nagaworldis on its way and it started with two flights of the $440 Kickoff tournament and a satellite into the $1,100 Main Event.
Kickoff Event attracts 212 entries
A total of 212 entries battled it out in two flights of the WPT Cambodia Kickoff event today, creating a $82,256 prize pool.
Day 1A started at 1pm and came to a conclusion at 9.30pm. 14 players remain from the 108 entries in this flight. Keith Ong finishes flight 1A as the chipleader with 485,000 chips and is also the chipleader going into Day 2.
Day 1B attracted 104 entries and at the end of play at midnight only 13 remained. Michael Norman Wood ended up on top of Day 1B with 324,000.
Play ended for both flights when they reached the money with all players securing a min cash of $615.
Notables in the field
Some familiar faces could be found at the felt today. Amongst others there were Linh Tran, second in the Vietnam All Time Money list, WPT Philippines Nationals 2016 Champion Ying Ling Chua, runner-up of the APT Philippines II 2019 Jae Kyung “Simba” Sim and Dhanesh Vijaykumar Chainani, one of Singapore’s most consistent players.
Team India
With high taxes and limited options in their home country, Indian players have started traveling to most of the poker events hosted in South Asia. Some of them are still in action in the last events of APT Vietnam and are expected to join WPT Cambodia in the coming days. However, a few top Indian pros could already be found in action today.
WSOP champion Abhinav Iyer tried is luck in the Kickoff event, but didn’t make the cut. His compatriotes Rajneesh Katoch,Raju Jaruplavath and Paawan Bansal were more fortunate and will return tomorrow for Day 2.
WPT Kickoff Day 2 chip counts
| 1 | Ong Xun Keith | 485,000 |
| 2 | Michael Norman Wood | 324,000 |
| 3 | Trung Hieu Tran | 288,000 |
| 4 | Rajneesh Katoch | 238,000 |
| 5 | Kok Weng Beh | 235,000 |
| 6 | Raju Jaruplavath | 211,000 |
| 7 | Corbin Benjamin White | 209,000 |
| 8 | Steffen Endres | 192,000 |
| 9 | Lai Heng Foo | 173,000 |
| 10 | Bin Mohammad Muhei | 161,000 |
| 11 | Tan Kok Fye Darian | 159,000 |
| 12 | Mengyin Zhang | 152,000 |
| 13 | Marc Anthony Joseph | 152,000 |
| 14 | Quanlin Wang | 143,000 |
| 15 | Jakub Kotas | 142,000 |
| 16 | Nick Roscoe Blackburn | 120,000 |
| 17 | Chun Kiat Tan | 119,000 |
| 18 | Anthony Do | 106,000 |
| 19 | Kok Wai Sim | 103,000 |
| 20 | Yunsheng Sun | 87,000 |
| 21 | Tadashi Ogawa | 84,000 |
| 22 | Ngoc Khanh Le | 81,000 |
| 23 | Christopher James Shebat | 77,000 |
| 24 | Chi-Ming Yang | 67,000 |
| 25 | Paawan Bansal | 58,000 |
| 26 | Zhiren Quan | 48,000 |
| 27 | Gyula Ryan Revai | 30,000 |
Tomorrow
The Kickoff event will resume with Day 2 at 1pm and will play until a winner is crowned. The first World Poker Tour Cambodia side event champion will take home $19.983.
At 1.30pm a Main Event Warm-Up event is scheduled. This is a single flight, 2-day event with a $1,000 buy-in and one re-entry.
Sunday will also feature another $150 Main Event satellite and Flight 1 of the $300 Nagaworld Cup.
Cash Games
Up to 9 cash game tables were busy throughout the day and night with limits from $1/$3 to $5/$10. Amidst the action in the cash games we spotted the legend Men “The Master” Nguyen.
Bigger cash games are expected to take place in the coming days.
