HomeA big field of 185 entries turned up for Day 1B of the APT Poker Room Manila Inaugural Tournament at the Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel & Casino. Combining that with the previous day’s 141 entrants, the grand total of 326 entries generated a cool double up in the guaranteed PHP200,000 pot, bringing the total cash prize pool up to a fantastic PHP423,800.
APT Poker Room Inaugural Event Day 1B Chip Leader, Sam Razavi
Out of the 46 players who survived the day, it was the reigning APT POY champion, Samad Razavi who claimed the chip lead with an overwhelming 201,200 chips. Razavi is the only player who crossed the 200K chip mark and will undoubtedly be returning in full throttle for Day 2 as the overall chip leader.
Having a chat with Razavi on of his rise and strategy for the day, he shared, “I was really hoping to end the day as the chip leader and I thought it was good enough when I was sitting with nearly 180K chips, but then I lost a few pots and dropped to around 140K. Then I won a pot with my Ace Queen under the gun against someone who shoved with over 60K and I snapped and it held. He had Ace Jack.”
For a good part of the last two levels we were keeping a close eye on two other players with big stacked qualifiers as well, namely Rey Concepcion and Rosalina Pagsuyuin. Some of those not so fortunate to qualify into the next round were Lester Edoc, Emmanuel Imperial, Richard Marquez, Martin Corpuz, and eliminated at the last few hands of the night was Vic De Guzman.
As the qualifiers link up with the Day 1A survivors, a total of 88 players will be returning to the poker green for Day 2 on Sunday, March 1, at 4pm. After calculating the breakdown of the prize pool distribution, in the money begins with 36 players, with first place earning PHP104,500 + $2,200 Main Event seat to the Asian Poker Tour Philippines 2015.
Congratulations to all the qualifiers!