HomeAfter a fast and furious Day 3, eight players remain in the APT Asian Poker Series Cebu 2015 Main Event at the All In Poker Sports Club in Waterfront Hotel & Casino in Cebu City, Philippines. A local pro in John Tech finished the day with the most haul with 1,276,000 in chips and he enters the final table of eight as the chip leader.
Tech, who’s making back-to-back final table appearances in an APT event in the Philippines after coming in second runner-up in the APT Resorts World Manila Poker Finale last December 2014, will be joined by two other Filipinos in the final eight; Martin Gonzales with 622,000 for 3rd overall and Jay Lubas with 204,000 for 6th place.
Three Europeans complete the first five; Dinesh Alt (Switzerland) with 940,000; Tuomos Urtti (Finland) with 454,00; and Alexey Gatsko (Russia), who was the chip leader entering Day 3, with 382,000. Joseph Kim (Korea) and Christian Haggart (Canada) did enough to survive the day and finished with 151,000 and 112,000, respectively.
(photo UL-LR: Tech, Alt, Gonzales, Urtti, Gatsko, Lubas, Kim, Haggart)
APT Asian Poker Series Cebu 2015 Main Event – Final Eight
Seat 1 – Jay Lubas (Philippines) – 204,000
Seat 2 – Joseph Kim (Korea) – 151,000
Seat 3 – Martin Gonzales (Philippines) – 622,000
Seat 4 – Dinesh Alt (Switzerland) – 940,000
Seat 5 – Christian Haggart (Canada) – 112,000
Seat 6 – John Tech (Philippines) – 1,276,000
Seat 7 – Tuomas Urtti (Finland) – 454,000
Seat 8 – Alexey Gatsko (Russia) – 382,000
As was expected— owing to a number of players already in danger zone of having 10 big blinds or less— the eliminations came early and often. 30 players returned to Day 3 but only 27 players placed in the money.
The Filipinos in left in the field and their supporters were expectedly ecstatic of the success so far. Although the last hand of the day involved a Filipino vs. Filipino, set vs. set affair. Tech had pocket nines on a board with nine and his Filipino opponent, Kim Enriquez also hit his set with pocket sevens. A set-up hand burst the bubble for the final table, which begins play at 1:30 PM on Wednesday (February 4th).
Another player who played consistently well in Day 3 was Alt, who started the day with 300,500 and more than tripled it up to 940,000 by the final table.
“I had pocket jacks and the other guy had pocket kings and he three-bet me (pre-flop) and I just called. And then the flop came and I hit the set. I just checked and he over-bet around 200,000 on a pot of 100,000 and I snap-called,” Alt shared after the day. “From there I started to run good.”
One player who will have some work to do to get to the APT title is Haggart, who enters the final day as the player with the shortest stack with just over 100K in chips. While Alt’s promised strategy is to stay aggressive, Haggart’s plan is simpler:
“Just see anything nice and get it in,” Haggart said.
The final eight players will be aiming for the main event purse of PHP 2,307,300, the lion’s share for the total prize pool of PHP 9,236,300. Here’s the list of winners, so far, for this main event:
APT Asian Poker Series Cebu 2015 Main Event – In The Money (In PHP):
9th – Kim Michael Enriquez (Philippines) – 231,000
10th – Charles Chua (Malaysia) – 189,000
11th – Jae Kyung Sim (Korea) – 175,000
12th – Soebakti Hartanto (Jakarta) – 175,000
13th – Ben Loo (Malaysia) – 143,000
14th – Paul Yu (Philippines) – 143,000
15th – Daniel Nash (USA) – 143,000
16th – Sung Jin Park (Korea) – 120,000
17th – Bryan Huang (Singapore) – 120,000
18th – Ichtiar Eripin (Indonesia) – 120,000
19th – Christopher Runas (Philippines) – 102,000
20th – Charalampos Lappas (Greece) – 102,000
21st – Yukio Kiyohara (Japan) – 102,000
22nd – Arvin Jason Palmero (Philippines) – 102,000
23rd – Mark Lloyd (Australia) – 102,000
24th – Yoichi Fujiya (Japan) – 102,000
25th – Frederick Romeo (Hong Kong) – 102,000
26th – Zhou Hongming (Singapore) – 102,000
27th – Junseop Gwak (Korea) – 102,000
Aside from the final table action, one side event, the 6-Handed tournament with PHP 11,000 buy-in is also scheduled on Wednesday at 1:00PM. For full details check Events and Schedule page. For upcoming APT tournaments in 2015, check the APT schedule.