HomeIt was a celebratory day at the Asian Poker Tour’s eighth leg of the year, the APT Poker Weekend Series Manila 2016 happening at the APT Poker Room hub in the Waterfront Manila Pavilion Hotel & Casino. The day’s events saw two players become the first happy trophy winners of the festival, namely Filipino Jonald Garcia and Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee.
Jonald Garcia wins Welcome Event P1M Guaranteed
Welcome Event Champion, Jonald Garcia
The Welcome Event P1M Guaranteed resumed today with 49 players out of the 184 entries returning to the felt. Entering with the largest stack was Singaporean Hermann Lee followed by Filipino Lito Quijano and Vietnamese Hieu Le on the next two top spots. Out of the three, it was Lee who would find the day to be much more challenging than yesterday’s success as he bowed out before the money stage. Le and Quijano secured a profit but not nearly as large as the PhP267,700 first place purse awarded to Filipino Jonald Garcia.
Garcia’s rise to victory came in the late stages of the game. At five-handed, the table was dominated by Japan’s Iori Yogo who held a sizable lead in chips over all his opponents. When Filipino Renato Villanueva Jr and Renniel Galvez were eliminated, the momentum seemed to shift with Yogo’s stack swinging. The flip-flopping ended when Garcia doubled up through Yogo, and then several hands after, sent him packing in 3rd place. At the heads up round Garcia was up against Korea’s Seung Min Kim and it didn’t take long for him to raise the trophy with his two pair holding strong against Kim’s missed flush draw.
Gyeong Byeong Lee wins No Limit Hold’em 1
No Limit Hold’em 1 Champion, Gyeong Byeong Lee
Korea’s Gyeong Byeong Lee outlasted a field of 50 players to win the first place cash of PhP291,000 and the event trophy. Lee had a difficult hurdle to overcome, namely Filipino player Rodolfo Feliciano. At the final 8 players, Feliciano built up a massive stack and held on to it even after Lee eliminated Vietnam’s Thanh Ha Duong in 3rd place. The big switch up happened when Lee called Feliciano’s all in and earned a huge double up with a full house. With Lee now holding the dominating lead, he defeated Feliciano with his Q♥ 6♣ straight on a board of 10♥ 9♦ K♠ J♥ A♥.
Payouts
1st Gyeong Byeong Lee – Korea – P291,000
2nd Rodolfo Feliciano – Philippines – P181,900
3rd Thanh Ha Duong – Vietnam – P109,100
4th Du Ming Tsai – China – P80,000
5th Takeshi Sasaki – Japan – P65,500
High Rollers recap
The High Rollers event saw many well-known pros and APT regulars take to the felt. After late registration was announced, there were 43 entries for a healthy prize pool of PhP2,090,000. Scheduled as a two-day event, the field was cut down to 14 players at the time of bagging. The top three stacks at the end of the day were owned by Markus Garberg with 284,300, Canada’s Linh Tran with 214,100 chips, and Canada’s Pham Van Binh with 170,500 chips. Other pros who survived were Singapore’s Lim Yah Loon, Filipino Lester Edoc, Korea’s Lim Yo Hwan, Norway’s Henrik Tollefsen, Japan’s Tetsuya Tsuchikawa, and Korea’s Seung Soo Jeon. The High Rollers event will resume at 2pm tomorrow, Thursday, August 11, 2016.