HomeDay 2 of the Asian Poker Tour Finale 2015 Main Event has been bagged and tagged with 22 players out of the 71 returnees surviving another tough battle at the felt. Ending the night with the largest stack was Filipino player Andrew Gaw with 410,500 chips.
Main Event Day 2 Chip Leader, Andrew Gaw
In the early stages of the day, Gaw earned himself a big double up against UK’s Ben Martin. Both players engaged in a series of pre-flop raises that eventually led to them getting all their chips past the betting line. Gaw won the hand with pocket aces against Martin’s ace-king. From then on, Gaw dominated the table. He collected more chips in a hand against fellow countryman pro John Tech with his A♣ J♥ top pair besting Tech’s 7♠ 5♥ mid pair. By dinner break, Gaw was the chip leader, and continued to amass more chips with successful grinds for the rest of the day.
Running second in chips was Jeremy Giam Jian Hui from Singapore with 339,500 chips. Giam eliminated quite a number of players throughout the day, including Japan’s Iori Yogo. During the hand, Iogo moved all in on top of Giam’s raise and after getting a count, Giam called. Yogo had A♠ K♣ and Giam had 10♣ 10♠. Yogo failed to improve on the board. As the monster-stack at his table, Giam often raised, challenging players who went up against him.
China’s Guofu Chen landed the third spot in the chip rank with 296,500 chips at bagging. Chen amassed a big stack when he connected with a full house with his 4♣ 4♦ against a player’s trip eights. At one of the final hands of the night, Chen took a gamble with his 8♠ 9♠ by tank-calling all his chips against Kota Nakano’s shove. The board was 8♥ 3♦ 10♦ 7♦. It was a fantastic call with Nakano holding K♣ Q♣. The river of 3♥ awarded him a massive double up to bring his stack up in the ranks at bagging.
Among those who survived the day with the leaders were Korea’s Lim Yo Hwan with 207,000 chips India’s Kunal Patni with 190,500 chips, Vietnam’s William Kang with 176,500 chips, and Japan’s Nakano with 187,000 chips despite doubling up Chen just before the night ended. Also slipping in the survivors list was Korea’s Jae Chul Chang, one of the leaders at the start of the day. Chang finished with a low stack of 39,500. Filipino player Joven Huerto did better than Chang, coming in the day ranked third in chips, he bagged up just slightly over what he started with, 108,000, just shy of average stack.
With 49 players sent to the rail at day 2, some of them were highly recognized players such as APT Asian Series Cebu 2015 main event champion John Tech, Korea’s Sim Jae Kyung, Japan’s Azusa Maeda and Kosei Ichinose, and Canada’s Linh Tran. For Tran, he lost a big pot early in the day when his 7♣ 8♣ flush was drawing dead against Japan’s Naruyasu Ota’s full house. From there, he had difficulty recovering and was soon eliminated. One other casualty was Greek player Arunas Sapitavicius who was unable to repeat his great run at day 1a.
Congratulations to all the day 2 survivors! We will be back tomorrow at 1pm for the battle to reach the final table of 8. Tomorrow will also see four players hitting the rail without any pay as ITM begins at 18 players. For a good read on some of today’s action, head to the Live Reporting section of the website.