When the smoke cleared after Day 3 of the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Philippines 2013 Main Event, it was Nam Le who was the runaway chip leader after a dominating performance all throughout the day. Seven others also survived completing the 8-handed Final Table for the $2,700 buy-in Main Event here at the Resorts World Manila.
Le’s rise to the top actually started in Day 2 when he finished with 294,500 in chips– #2 in the overall standings. Le did not let up in Day 3 and nearly quadrupled that number to finish with 1,116,000 in chips going into the Final Table.
Be it early, middle or late in Day 3, it felt like Le was everywhere and getting involved in every big pot and even eliminating players along the way. Le’s bust-out list includes Sam Razavi, online pro Daniel Kelly and Day 2 chip leader Andrew Gaw.
Le’s 10♠ 10♥ dodged over cards and beat Razavi’s J♣ Q♣ to boot out the 2012 APT Player of the Year. Against Daniel Kelly, Le tried to scare off his opponent postflop 4♠ 7♦ 9♠ with K♥ 8♥. Kelly with A♦ Q♣ would call however, only to fall to a runner-runner J♣ 10♥ that completed Le’s straight.
And versus Gaw, Le simply played marvelous in two key hands that brought him to the million-mark chip count in the latter levels. In the first hand, Le bet on all streets with K♣ Q♣ on a board of 7♣ K♠ J♠ K♦ 6♣ and gained maximum profit as Gaw called all the way and lost. In the 2nd hand, Gaw was the aggressor. Didn’t matter for Le who called bets on the flop Q♦ 6♥ A♦, turn 5♦ then bet big on the river 8♥ where he completed the flush with 10♦ 7♦. To read all of Le’s exploits in Day 3, go to our live reporting page.
Le will face a lot of worthy challengers in the 8-handed Final Table including China’s Miller Zhang (2nd in chips with 924,000) and Japan’s Sekiya Yosuke (3rd – 675,000).
Final Table – Chip Counts
1. Nam Le (USA) – 1,160,000
2. Miller Zhang (China) – 924,000
3. Sekiya Yosuke (Japan) – 675,000
4. Thang Truong (Australia) – 467,000
5. Khac Trung Tran (Australia) – 332,000
6. Tam Truong (Australia) – 202,000
7. Homan Housiar (Canada) – 177,000
8. Anthony Gabitan (Philippines) – 163,000
27 players placed in the money in this main event with 18 winners getting their payouts in Day 3. The champion will get the lion’s share of $124,000 from a total prize pool of $497,120 from 205 entries. View all the main event winners and payouts in our in the money page.
Meanwhile, in the pair of side events, Mike Takayama won the Deep Stack Turbo Event for $4,080 and Alistair Duff ruled the Heads-Up Event winning $7,630.
The Final Table of the Main Event is set at 1:30PM Wednesday. One last side event is also scheduled the 6-Handed Event at 1PM. For full results of APT Philippines 2013 events, go to this page.