HomeDay 2 of the highlighted APT Championships event resumed earlier today with 104 players returning to the APT Championships Philippines 2017 felt at Resorts World Manila. The goal was to survive another rounds of sixty minutes each. By the end of the night, many notable players couldn’t handle the heat and were booted from the field. For Korea’s Kim Gab Yong, he entered the day running second in chips and continued his impressive run to finish at the top with a massive 1,082,000 in chips. He was the only player to cross the seven-digit chip mark.
Chip leader entering Day 3 of APT Championships
Yong’s rise to the top came in two huge sweeps. The first big pot was a double elimination with Singapore’s Corine Shi and Filipino Lester Edoc biting the bullet. In a three way all in showdown at the turn 5♣ 8♥ 10♥ 8♣ J♠, Shi had A♠ 10♥, Edoc with K♦ 8♦, and Yong with a dominating A♠ 8♠.
The hand that catapulted him to the top and far from the rest of the field was after the elimination of Feng Zhao. Yong was all in on a turn board of 5♥ Q♦ 4♣ K♥ holding 5♦ 5♣ set way ahead of Zhao’s 4♦ 4♠ set. The river 5♠ gave him quads to rub in the blow even further. Yong rose to over a million in chips.
Coming in second rank is Vietnam’s Tien Quyet Pham who had many winning pots including a big double up against Japan’s Seitaro Aso. The hand saw Seitaro shove with 3♥ 4♥ trips on a turn board of 3♣ J♦ 3♠ 10♦ and Pham with the snap call holding 10♥ 10♠ full house. He ended the day with 631,000 in chips. Rounding out the top three is Malaysia’s Ying Lin Chua with 539,000 in chips. We were unable to track some of Chua’s winning hands today however he will be in our immediate radar in Day 3.
Day 2 was a difficult one for a couple of the big stacks and many of the pros. Korea’s SJ Kim, the day’s entering chip leader took multiple beatings to his stack and couldn’t recover. He fell at the hands of compatriot Kang Hyun Woo who finished the day with 153,000 in chips. Filipino Victor Miranda, the Day 1A chip leader, also had it rough and bowed out early in the day. Other notable pros also running out were Linh Tran, Bryan Huang, Casey Kastle, and latest APT Main Event champion Mike Takayama.
Among those making it through with the leaders were past APT Main Event champions Iori Yogo, In Chul Sin, and Hisashi Ogi, and opening event winner Huu Dung Nguyen to mention a few.
You can read up on some of the thrilling action of Day 2 along with the chip counts in the Live Reporting page.
The APT Championships will resume tomorrow, Saturday, May 6th at 1pm. They will play down to the Final 8. The money will start flowing at 27 players.