HomeDay 1A of the APT Manila 2017 highlight tournament, the PHP 38,500 Main Event, saw 34 players take to the tables at the Winford Hotel & Casino. After the scheduled 8 rounds of regulation play, exactly half the field remained with UK’s Neil Raine claiming the leader’s seat. Raine bagged up 272,600 in chips. Recap below.
Main Event Day 1A Chip Leader, Neil Raine
Day 1A kicked off with everyone backed by a deep 50,000 starting stack which was 250 times the opening big blind. As the day wore on, stack sizes began to determine who dominated the felt. Entering round 4, the reigning champion, New Caledonia’s Andre Moracchini – Main Event winner of APT Noumea 2017 – split from the rest of the pack with his towers of chips. This is similar to what we saw from him at yesterday’s PLO Hi-Lo event where he finished in 2nd place.
By round 7, others began to catch up starting with Japan’s Ken Okada who edged Moracchini by a small margin. However at the end of the level, it was another Japanese player who took over, Yukiko Ogasawara. Ogasawara held on to her lead until it was usurped during one of the final hands of the day by Neil Raine.
The hand that did it happened at a separate table with Raine and two other players staring down a flop of 10♦ 8♦ 5♥. After action saw bets laid out, Raine pushed covering both of his opponents stacks. One player folded while USA’s Marcel McGray opted otherwise and called for his tournament life.
Raine 8♠ 5♣ two pair
McGray A♥ 10♥ top pair
The turn 4♣ and river Q♣ were no help to McGray and Raine shipped it to close the day as the commanding chip leader.
Top 5 chip leaders of Day 1A
Neil Raine – UK – 272,600
Yukiko Ogasawara – Japan – 185,700
Andre Moracchini – New Caledonia – 128,300
Ken Okada – Japan – 119,600
Kohei Kawanishi – Japan – 119,600
Other players that made it through were Korea’s Joon Won “James” Lee, winner of the Main Event Warm Up, Switzerland’s Alain Walder, and Japan’s Yoichi Uesugi.
Day 1A’s 17 survivors will return on Saturday, November 11 for Day 2. They will be joined by qualifiers from the upcoming Day 1B. For those that fell today, Day 1B is your last chance to get back in the running for the APT’s championship title.
A well-deserved victory for Yoo Kyung Hoon at the PLO Hi One Day event
Korea’s Yoo Kyung Hoon made it look easy at the PLO Hi One Day event owning the 24-player field and eliminating six players in the Final 8 round to capture the event trophy and the PHP 52,100 first place purse. Final 8 recap below.
Pot Limit Omaha Hi Champion, Kyunghoon Yoo
Coming into the Final 8, players were moved to the RFID feature table with Yoo way ahead of the rest in chips. After he delivered the first elimination, he claimed half of the chips in play then increased further by booting out the next three players including Japan’s Kosei Ichinose as the bubble.
Wiith the money now guaranteed, the four-handed round saw Guam’s Paul Seong Woo Pak burn Japan’s Tetsuya Tsuchikawa in 4th place. Tsuchikawa three-bet all in preflop and Pak called. Tsuchikawa had A♥ K♥ K♣ 8♦ and Pak Q♦ J♣ 5♦ 3♣. The board ran 8♠ 2♣ 4♦ 6♠ 2♥ for a winning straight to Pak.
At three-handed, Pak won multiple pots and managed to take the lead away from Yoo however it didn’t last. Yoo eliminated Svyatoslav Dvornikov in 3rd to enter the heads up round nearly 2:1 in chips.
Despite the advantage, Yoo had difficulty putting Pak away. Pak wanted the trophy just as much and put up a strong bid for it. Several hands into the heads up, Pak won the majority and took a very slight lead. Not long after, both players had all of it in the middle on the river of a board showing J♦ 8♣ 10♠ 4♦ 4♥. When the hole cards turned over, Pak’s 9♥ 8♦ 7♣ 4♣ straight was no good against Yoo’s K♦ 10♦ 10♣ 7♥ full house. This left Pak with less than a small blind and was forced to toss it in on the next hand. Yoo won that too and claimed the trophy for his well-deserved victory. With this win, Yoo earned a qualification berth to the Game of Champions.
The PLO Hi One Day event attracted 24 players and at PHP 5,500 a pop, the prize pool amounted to PHP 121,200.
Payouts
1st Kyunghoon Yoo – Korea – PHP 52,100
2nd Paul Seong Woo Pak – Guam – PHP 32,700
3rd Svyatoslav Dvornikov – Russia – PHP 20,600
4th Tetsuya Tsuchikawa – Japan – PHP 15,800
Catch the Final 8 action on APT Twitch channel. Also enjoy daily highlights of the ongoing festival in the APT YouTube station.
Events on Friday, November 10
Main Event Day 1B – Buy-in PHP 38,500 at 1pm
No Limit Hold’em One Day Event – Buy-in PHP 5,500 at 2pm
Ante Only Turbo – Buy-in PHP 4,400 at 6pm