Eunho Kwon leads the CHAMPIONSHIPS EVENT; Mikael Andersson wins the NLH Single Day

The only starting day of the APT Finale Philippines 2018 – CHAMPIONSHIPS EVENT came and went at Resorts World Manila with 54 taking seats. That number is expected to grow in Day 2 (Tuesday, December 4) with registration open for one more hour. 

The Championships Event is the second featured tournament of the Asian Poker Tour. Alike the main, it comes with a PHP 10 Million (US$191,000) guaranteed prizepool. Buy-in is PHP 165,000 (~US$3,100). 

Today’s action saw players slowly trickle in. At the end of the scheduled eight rounds, only 33 survived with Korea’s Eunho Kwon bagging up the chip lead of 198,200. 

View Chip Counts

Eunho Kwon

Closing the day in second position was USA’s Rex Clinkscales with 175,800. To help him get there, Clinkscales railed William Ysmael during the last level with a higher full house. To complete the top three was Matt Ericson with 154,700. 

Many notable players made it through as well including past APT Championships Event winners:

Lim Yohwan – APT Philippines II 

Cao Ngoc Anh – APT Vietnam HCMC

Iori Yogo – APT Philippines Championships

These players will return tomorrow for Day 2. There are 2,700,000 total chips in play and average stack of 81,818. You can follow the action via our LIVE UPDATES. Prizepool, chip counts, and payouts can also be found there. 

Mikael Andersson wins the NLH Single Day

A strong field of 80 entries for the NLH Single Day ran side by side the Championships. With buy-in at PHP 16,500, a juicy pot of PHP 1,164,000 was generated. As the bubble neared, players fell quickly, among them were Valeriy Pak and Mike Takayama.

Valeriy Pak eliminated by Mikael Andersson

Mike Takayama

Seongsu Kong happily shipped Takayama’s chips

Takayama currently leads the APT Player of the Series race. His bust here means his points stay frozen at 825.63. He is 106.79 points ahead of second-ranked Mikiya Kudo and 159.74 ahead of Lim Yohwan. Neither players attended this event. 

The money was reached at the fall of Ranmi Iwakura. She was all in with 8 8 and had to fade Ming Ken Thoo‘s K Q. When the flop ran A 8 3, Iwakura improved to a set but with the next two cards running 6 9, Iwakura stormed off very upset with Thoo overtaking on a one card flush. 

Ranmi Iwakura bubbles

This left the last 14 players in the money. Kong was able to bring his stack as far as 6th place. Thoo went further, finishing in 3rd place. Mikael Andersson faced Yasutake Oka at heads up.

Oka amassed a big lead driving Andersson’s stack to below 10 bbs. Andersson challenged back and won two double ups to with the second one a full house over a straight. Oka had 3 6 and Andersson 3 5 on a board that completed to 5 5 3 4 2. The shoves were on the river. Andersson went on to win another pot with a flush over a bluff to close it out lifting up the trophy. Andersson earned PHP 311,400 for his victory. 

You can view the payouts and results in the Event Results page.