HomeThe Asian Poker Tour Experience Manila 2016 strolled by at the APT Poker Room in Waterfront Manila Pavilion Casino and Hotel with Day 1a of the Main Event as the main course. Among those in attendance today were several APT regulars and previous APT Main Event champions. By the end of the scheduled eight rounds of one-hour blinds, some of them made it through the day and some got the boot.
Main Event Day 1A Chip Leader, Gyeong Byeong Lee
Day 1a started slow with twelve players coming in early to avail of the Main Event Bubble Protection. Shortly after, players began to trickle in and by the end of late registration /re-entry, there were 50 entries in the books with each one ponying up the P55,000 entry fee. Out of the 25 remaining players at the end of the day, it was Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee who bagged up the largest stack of 128,450 chips. Lee railed several players throughout the day including APT regular Denmark’s Michael Kim Falcon.
Coming in second-in-chips, though not too close to Lee, was Malaysia’s Sim Kok Wai with 99,050 chips. Wai picked up a nice pile of chips after eliminating another familiar face at the APT, Filipino player Terry Gonzaga with his pocket kings against Gonzaga’s missed flush draw. Taking the third position in the chip ladder was Korea’s Jong Min “Sanchez” Lim with 87,075 chips. Lim was awarded a big pot after he tank-called a player’s five-bet shove preflop and won with his pocket jacks against pocket tens.
Other players who survived the day were Canada’s Linh Tran, Japan’s Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, Germany’s Julian Hasse, and two-time APT champion Norway’s Henrik Tollefsen.
Unfortunately, there were a good number of notable players who also fell today such as Japan’s Iori Yogo, Singapore’s Lim Yah Loon, Korea’s SJ Kim, and China’s Guofu Chen. As for Japan’s Jun Funabashi who is doing well at the festival, having already cashed three times, his run today was stopped when his flush draw failed to produce a winning hand.
Tomorrow will host Day 1b of the Main Event at 1pm. For today’s survivors, Day 2 of the Main Event resumes on Thursday, May 19, 2016 at 1pm.