HomeThe highly anticipated APT Championships Philippines 2017, the Asian Poker Tour’s biggest event of the year at Resorts World Manila, kicked off in thundering fashion with players pouring in for the APT-RWM Opening Event USD 50K Guaranteed. Players from all over the world were in attendance including many well-known pros and notable players.
Huge turnout for Day 1 of APT Championships Philippines 2017
In the aftermath, there were 318 total entries, each one contributing a buy-in of USD 275 for a much sweeter prize pool of USD 77,100 that well exceeded the guarantee. A combined total of 88 players survived the day with Flight A’s Murray Poole at the top as the overall chip leader. Below is a short review of the results.
Flight A results
Flight A and Overall Chip Leader, Murray Poole
Setting the tone for opening day was Flight A with a very healthy 149 entries. In the field were a significant number of pros and notable players however many would fall and take their chances on the second flight. Among the 39 survivors of this flight were JC Sayo, Jim Bonanno, Nick Gorman, Hajime Mogi, Emmanuel Segismundo, and past APT Main Event champions Katsuhiro Muto and Shinichiro Tone. The player who bagged up the most chips was also the event’s overall chip leader, New Zealand’s Murray Poole with 183,200, which was quite a big distance from his closest competitor.
Flight B results
Flight B Chip Leader, Nawal Jaftha
The second flight of the day turned up an even bigger field with 169 total entries. There were many railbirds from the first flight back at the felt with some of them having better success. Emerging as the flight’s chip leader out of the 49 remaining players was South Africa’s Nawal Jaftha with a stack of 124,100. Trailing close behind her was Filipino player Michael De Leon with 114,100 in chips. Among those who also finished with chips to bag were Feng Zhao, Ha Duong, Joven Huerto, Lim Yo Hwan, In Chul Sin, Julien Tran, and Yoichi Fujiya to mention a few.
There were of course many unsuccessful players on opening day; the list included Iori Yogo, Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, SJ Kim, Kai Paulsen, Mike Takayama, John Tech, Seung Soo Jeon, Hisashi Ogi, Kimura Lee Jong Yeol, Alexis Lim, Jessie Leonarez, Dhanesh Chainani, Danh Nguyen, and Michael Falcon.
The opening event will resume tomorrow at 1pm. Only 36 players will see a payout with first place pocketing a whopping USD 19,050. You can watch the Final 8 action broadcasted live in the APT Twitch channel with a 30 minute delay.