HomeFrom 88 players down to 24 at the end of Day 2! We will have a recap for you shortly. Our top three chip leaders are:
Michael Soyza 355,000
Jack En-Ching Wu 354,000
Kai Paulsen 335,500
Congratulations to all the survivors!
Zhang Jian was up in arms after Jack En-Ching Wu booted him out of the Main Event by hitting a two-outer on the river. Though technically, Wu did have Jian beat preflop when all the chips were shoved in.
Jian A♥ Q♦
Wu J♥ J♦
When the flop landed 3♥ Q♠ 7♥, Jian jumped ahead with a higher pair spiked. He even picked up a nut flush draw on the 4♥ turn. But as we’ve seen here today, many have been burned by the river and he did as well as it slammed down J♠ to improve Wu to three-of-a-kind and send Jian out of the running.
From the big blind seat, Anson Wong Fuk On joined in on a raised pot preflop initiated by utg Du Ming Tsai to make it four players to the flop Q♠ 2♥ 10♥. Action checked all the way to Naohito Tamaya. He bet 10k and got one caller in Wong. On the 8♥ turn, Wong took the reins and banged out 25k. This time it was Tamaya with the call. On the 8♦ river, both checked and Wong won with J♠ 9♠ straight. Tamaya had A-Q top pair.
The last level of the day kicked off with Andre Moracchini and Stephen Nathan all in with their short stacks. Nathan A♦ 3♦ and Moracchini 9♣ 9♦. The board threw blanks and Moracchini won the pot while Nathan exited the floor.
The next hand also went to Moracchini who was involved in the 4-way raised pot preflop that brought about a 10♠ A♠ 4♣ flop. Everyone checked to Moracchini, and he slid out an 11.5k bet. No callers.
Another player in the dust with Kenji Hata sent packing by Zhang Jian. It was an all in shove preflop with Hata A♣ K♣ and Jian J♠ J♥. The board ran a dramatic 10♦ J♣ 5♣ for a set to Jian and a nut flush draw to Hata. With the turn 9♠ and river 7♥, Hata missed and Jian hugged in the pot.
With Hata’s elimination, we are down to 27 players. The players are now being shuffled into the last three tables.
Many notable players have fallen on the wayside the past two rounds and another one has just joined them on the rail. Bobby Zhang was all in with Q♠ Q♦ and Yoshitaka Okawa was there to challenge with A♠ J♠. It was all good for Zhang up until the turn board of 8♣ 10♣ 4♥ 6♥ but with the river A♣, that was when he fell from the running.
Shiqiang Lin is running very well in this level, he opened it up with a double up through Kosei Ichinose and now has just picked up another sizable pot by eliminating Yohwan Lim aka Boxer. It was pretty much straight-forward with Lin raising to 5500, Boxer all in, and Lin with the quick call.
Boxer A♥ Q♣
Lin K♠ K♦
No gems came on the board for Boxer and he was ousted out of the running. Lin is closing in on the 300k mark.
Guo Dong, one of two past APT Main Event champions still in the running has just taken a hit to his stack. We didn’t catch his hand but we did see a huge pile being shipped to Wim Bos who had A-K with the royalty pairing up on the turn. Guo down to 27k and Bos up to 125k.
Not long after Kosei Ichinose shipped in all of Jian Wen’s chips, he lost a portion of it to Shiqiang Lin. Action was picked up on the turn board 5♦ 3♦ 2♠ Q♠ with just over 55k swimming in the middle. We could see Ichinose with a 22k and Lin with all his chips (amounting to 72.1k) pushed in front of him. Before Ichinose acted, he engaged in some light banter with Lin and from there, he decided to make the call.
Lin K♦ Q♥ top pair
Ichinose A♦ J♦ nut flush draw
The river Q♣ further sealed Lin’s victory and he doubled up to over 200k. Ichinose fell to roughly around 180k.