HomeIt was a big day of Main Event Day 1a action at the Asian Poker Tour Philippines 2016 with many well-known players taking to the felt at Resorts World Manila. By the end of late registration, there were 84 entries, each one ponying up the $3,300 buy-in. After eight hours of play, there were 55 remaining with previous APT Main Event champion, Germany’s Julius Malzanini, as the chip leader with 176,800 chips.
Julius Malzanini in action
Throughout the day, Malzanini’s table seemed to be filled with nonstop action. Malzanini won several pots, some of them against Filipino player Jun Javalera. In one hand his ace-jack landed two pair, then in another, his pocket jacks bested Javalera’s lower pair. His biggest scoop however occurred at the final hand of the night when he eliminated Javalera. According to player reports, both players were in a hand that saw a raise preflop. When the flop landed, there was an ace and a five on the board and a betting round ensued. On the turn, a queen landed inducing crazy action that led to both players all in. As their hole cards were revealed, Malzanini had pocket queens for a dominating set and Javalera had ace-five for two pair. The river was dealt and another five landed on the board improving both players to a full house with Malzanini holding the higher spread.
Joining Malzanini in the chip leader’s bracket were Hong Kong’s Raiden Kan with 171,000 chips, Canada’s Linh Tran with 147,600 chips, Ukraine’s Sergey Zasorin with 144,000, and rounding out the top five was Saipan’s Victorino Torres with 138,800 chips.
The list of survivors showed a solid presence of previous APT Main Event champions such as Vietnam’s Huy Pham, two-time champion Norway’s Henrik Tollefsen, Thailand’s Thong Botho, Hong Kong’s Kit Kwan Kwok, and Singapore’s Feng Zhao.
There were also APT circuit regulars who made the cut such as Denmark’s Michael Kim Falcon, USA’s Nick Blackburn, Singapore’s Bryan Huang, Korea’s SJ Kim, Australia’s Anthony Hope, and Japan’s Iori Yogo.
The eight hours of day 1a action produced a variety of great hands throughout the day. For a read on some of those moments plus the chip counts of the survivors, head to the Live Reporting section of the website.