HomeThe Asian Poker Tour (APT) season continues Tuesday with the opening of the APT Philippines 2015, the third stop of the APT this year, at Resorts World Manila (RWM) in Pasay City, Philippines. The nine-day poker festival is scheduled from April 14th to 22nd, 2015.
Arturo Basa, Director – Gaming Operations of RWM with the APT girls on opening ceremony
Last year’s APT Philippines Main Event saw Singapore’s Feng Zhao win over a field of 208 runners. With an increased starting stack of 25,000 in chips for the main event this year, players will have more chances of showing off their skills on the felt and duplicate Zhao’s title run.
The APT Philippines 2015 Main Event will have three starting days; Day 1A on Friday (April 17th); Day 1B on Saturday (April 18th); and Day 1C on Sunday (April 19th). Day 2, Day 3 and the eight-handed Final Table are set from Monday to Wednesday (April 20th to 22nd), respectively.
Aside from the highlight tournament, 15 side events are also set plus multiple satellite tournaments for the main event including the always-fun and always-wild One-Hand Satellite tourneys.
Multiple changes in tournament format and structure was first adapted last January in the APT Asian Series Cebu 2015 and the reaction from players were generally positive as they enjoyed the innovations of the tour. With the changes and innovations to be applied in this stop once again, APT tournament director Lloyd Fontillas is excited about the next nine days.
“I made some very dramatic changes to all events, especially this stop that players are buzzing about. The best changes is that this will be the first time in APT history where we are going to run the Main Event with a 25,000 starting stack,” Fontillas said. “For this event expect to see many familiar faces. Especially the Top 30 players gunning for the $10,000 top spot for the 2015 APT Player of the Year (APT POY).
On tap Tuesday are a couple of tournaments to kick-off the poker festivities at RWM. The $50K GTD Opening Event with $275 buy-in is scheduled to start at 1:00 PM for Flight A and at 6:00 for Flight B. The surviving players for the guaranteed opening tournament will return Wednesday for a second and final day.
Another tournament, the Ante Up for Charity event with $180 buy-in is set at 7:00 PM with a part of the prize pool going to the Gawad Kalinga, a charitable institution which aims to construct a house for a Typhoon Haiyan devastated family.
For those not making the opening day, they can look forward to other side events scheduled this week. Two new side events are now included in this stop including the Monster Stack ($770 buy-in) event with a starting stack of 30,000 in chips and the $21,000 Guaranteed 6 Handed – 10 Man Stop ($220 buy-in) event which declares winners when ten players are set. Come-backing side events include the High Rollers ($4,300 buy-in), the popular Ladies of Poker ($220 buy-in) and Head Hunter ($440 buy-in) and the newest poker craze, Open Face Chinese Pineapple ($275) events all scattered throughout the upcoming week.
For more details of the schedule and structures of the tournaments this week, check the APT Philippines 2015 Events Page.