HomeThe Asian Poker Tour is back at Resorts World Manila hosting its latest poker festival, the APT Philippines 2017 II. The much-awaited event kicked off its festivities with the APT-RWM Opening Event USD 40K Guaranteed attracting 186 entries in total – 87 in Flight A and 99 in Flight B. With each buy-in at USD 275, the high turnout pumped up the prize pool well over the advertised guarantee to a sweet USD 45,100. At the close of day, there were only 55 players remaining with Korea’s Sang Ho Cho as the overall chip leader.
Opening Event Overall Chip Leader, Sang Ho Cho
According to several reports, Sang Ho Cho was one of the luckiest players at the table. While many only hoped to see pocket aces at least once, Cho picked up five pocket aces and won the pot every single time. During one of those fiery rockets, he whammied two players simultaneously with one player holding pocket kings and the other with ace-queen. Cho topped Flight B with 169,100 in chips, the largest of the combined flights.
Finishing the day second-in-chips was another Flight B player, Japan’s Yoshiro Inoshita. Unlike Cho, Inoshita got a rise in chips during the last level of the night. Inoshita railed a player with his pocket kings over pocket queens to bag up a very healthy 129,100 in chips.
The only other player to cross the six-digit marker was USA’s Marcel McGray, the Flight A chip leader. If there were a bad beat jackpot awarded, McGray would have seen it shelled out, though not exactly to his pocket. McGray delivered the sickest bad beat of the day, eliminating a player by pulling off a one-outer. On a turn board of 7-8-7-K, both McGray and his opponent had their chips in the middle. Mcgray with 7-4 trips and the other with K-K full house. From there, you can pretty much guess what came on the river, yup, the last 7 for quads to McGray. He closed his heat with 101,400 in chips which makes him the third highest player on the rung.
Flight A Chip Leader, Marcel McGray
Other players advancing to the final day with the leaders were Kwon Eun Ho, Terry Gonzaga, Jeon Seung Soo, John Clyde Steeven Tan, Emmanuel Segismundo, and Tetsuya Tsuchikawa to mention a few. Tsuchikawa currently leads the 2017 APT Player of Year race.
Opener Final Day
The final day of the opening event kicks off on Thursday September 14 at 1pm. Only 27 players out of the 55 runners will see a payout with one of them taking home the juicy USD 11,280 first prize. The final 8 players will be featured on the RFID table which will be broadcasted live – with a 30 minute delay – in the APT Twitch channel.
Thursday September 14: Events on the floor
In addition to the Opening Event final day, there will be one side event for everyone to feast on, the No Limit Hold’em event kicking off at 3pm. Buy-in is USD 330.
Event details
Starting stack: 10,000
Opening blinds: 25-50
Level duration: 30 minutes
Late registration / re-entry: closes at the start of round 7
Later in the evening, we will have another event joining in, the Main Event Mega Satellite. With the USD 1,650 buy-in APT Main Event coming up on Sunday September 17, players can attempt for a seat at a lower cost via the satellites with the first one running at 7pm. Buy-in is USD 185. One seat awarded per ten players. There are only three satellites leading up to the main.
Full APT Philippines 2017 II schedule.