HomePASAY CITY, Philippines – Out of the 267 aspirants that began the session, only 59 advanced to Day 3 of the Asian Poker Tour (APT) 2022 Philippines Main Event with the two chip-leaders practically neck and neck as Day 2 concluded at the Grand Wing Casino, Newport World Resorts here.
Christopher Mateo of the Philippines–who started the day fourth overall–has navigated his way to the top of the leaderboard with 577,000 in chips.
The 2019 APT Manila Main Event winner, however, is barely holding off the charge of fellow Filipino Moses Saquing as the APT Championships titlist from earlier this year made a late surge and ended up in second a mere 4,000 back at 573,000.
Singapore’s Guan Jian Hui sits at third place with 547,000.
Mateo, known as “Big Time” in the local poker community, has cashed four times on the tour and his win in 2019 still represents his biggest cash to date worth PhP4,376,000 (US$83,842).
The winner of this edition receives PhP4,915,000 (US$85,916) so Mateo will have his sights locked on this reward. However, the competition is far from ITM which is at 48 players.
Day 3 is on Monday (November 21) with cards in the air at exactly 1:00PM (UCT+8).
Hernan Villa, the reigning champion from just last September, was shown the door just minutes into the Freeze-Out portion of the tournament and not long after Dave “Spade” Erquiaga–his Heads-Up opponent then–also followed suit. Mike Takayama–who at one point was leading in the Player of the Series (POS) race, also exited about a level later.
There are a handful of former Main Event titlists still in the mix such as Filipinos Czardy Rivera, Alexis Lim and John Tech as well as Henrik Tollefsen of Norway who has actually two Main Event wins.
The remaining combatants will play down to the Final 8 players which indicates a late finish to Day 3.
Another featured table stream happens tomorrow and can be watched on the APT YouTube and Twitch channel.
| Player | Pos. | Table | Seat | Chips | Country |
| MATEO, CHRISTOPHER | 1 | 35 | 2 | 577,000 | PHI |
| SAQUING, MOSES | 2 | 30 | 6 | 573,000 | PHI |
| GIAM JIAN HUI | 3 | 32 | 6 | 547,000 | SGP |
| SANEHIRA, YOSUKE | 4 | 29 | 5 | 459,000 | JPN |
| POETRA, ALFIE | 5 | 34 | 7 | 449,000 | INA |
| ROSETE, MAXWELL | 6 | 34 | 5 | 409,500 | PHI |
| MEFODICHEV, VLADIMIR | 7 | 31 | 6 | 394,500 | RUS |
| KIM HYO GYUM | 8 | 29 | 1 | 388,500 | KOR |
| PARDALES, JOEY | 9 | 31 | 8 | 375,500 | PHI |
| JUNG SEUNGMOOK | 10 | 28 | 5 | 333,000 | KOR |
| SHAW, BRENT | 11 | 31 | 1 | 293,000 | CAN |
| TALAMAYAN, JOSEPH | 12 | 30 | 1 | 287,000 | PHI |
| GARCIA, JONALD | 13 | 32 | 8 | 283,000 | PHI |
| KAJIWARA, HIROKI | 14 | 34 | 8 | 272,500 | JPN |
| ORUNOV, AZIM | 15 | 30 | 4 | 265,000 | UAE |
| BUDAI, DZMITRY | 16 | 31 | 2 | 250,500 | BLR |
| BLOMLIE, MIKAL | 17 | 35 | 5 | 246,500 | NOR |
| AMANO, HARUO | 18 | 31 | 4 | 237,500 | JPN |
| BORTFELD, KEVIN | 19 | 33 | 2 | 210,600 | USA |
| TAKAGI, TOMOYUKI | 20 | 28 | 7 | 204,000 | JPN |
| MARCOS, CZAR IAN | 21 | 30 | 5 | 203,500 | PHI |
| ARAMAKI, KENTARO | 22 | 29 | 4 | 200,100 | JPN |
| SAKO, YUKI | 23 | 35 | 1 | 187,000 | JPN |
| YOO GYEONG TAE | 24 | 32 | 3 | 182,500 | KOR |
| KUA, ZED | 25 | 30 | 8 | 176,500 | MAS |
| DUCE, ZACHARY | 26 | 32 | 7 | 167,500 | AUS |
| LEUNG YIU YEUNG | 27 | 33 | 8 | 165,500 | HKG |
| MASATOSHI, JUMPEI | 28 | 28 | 2 | 165,000 | JPN |
| RIVERA, CZARDY | 29 | 28 | 8 | 159,000 | PHI |
| LI LOK CHING | 30 | 29 | 3 | 156,000 | AUS |
| WANG ZHIYU | 31 | 32 | 5 | 156,000 | CHN |
| QUIRAS, JERSON | 32 | 35 | 8 | 155,000 | PHI |
| MOON KYOUNGIN | 33 | 33 | 3 | 152,500 | KOR |
| EOM SUNGHYUN | 34 | 28 | 1 | 152,000 | KOR |
| CIKLAMINI, PATRICK | 35 | 33 | 1 | 141,000 | SVK |
| KONSTANTINOS, MISAILIDIS | 36 | 34 | 2 | 140,000 | GRE |
| KOH, BENEDICT | 37 | 29 | 6 | 138,000 | SGP |
| PATALINGHUG, IVY | 38 | 34 | 3 | 129,000 | PHI |
| KIM JUNHEE | 39 | 33 | 7 | 128,500 | KOR |
| ASAKA, KOJI | 40 | 29 | 8 | 127,000 | JPN |
| LEONCIO, JAN JASON | 41 | 34 | 1 | 125,000 | PHI |
| YOO SUNHO | 42 | 30 | 3 | 124,500 | KOR |
| VASAY, JOEMARK | 43 | 32 | 1 | 120,000 | PHI |
| KYUNG SIM JAE | 44 | 31 | 7 | 119,000 | KOR |
| WONG, VINCENT | 45 | 35 | 6 | 106,000 | SGP |
| KHORRAMSHAHI, MANSOUR | 46 | 35 | 3 | 105,500 | IRI |
| CHETCUTI, VINNIE | 47 | 29 | 2 | 104,000 | AUS |
| TOLLEFSEN, HENRIK | 48 | 35 | 7 | 100,500 | NOR |
| LAGATUZ, JEORGE | 49 | 34 | 6 | 100,000 | PHU |
| KIEM, PETER | 50 | 28 | 3 | 99,000 | USA |
| CHEN, YU | 51 | 30 | 2 | 93,500 | CHN |
| LIM, ROBIN | 52 | 33 | 5 | 91,500 | SGP |
| MOLINA, GILBERT | 53 | 29 | 7 | 88,000 | PHI |
| ELUL, ORI HAIM | 54 | 32 | 4 | 82,500 | ISR |
| TECH, JOHN | 55 | 33 | 4 | 69,500 | PHI |
| LIM, ALEXIS W | 56 | 28 | 6 | 67,500 | PHI |
| GARBERG, MARKUS | 57 | 30 | 7 | 51,000 | NOR |
| CHUA SHAN HUI | 58 | 31 | 3 | 46,000 | SGP |
| AUGANBAYEV, DANIYAR | 59 | 28 | 4 | 37,000 | KAZ |