Nikita Luther maintains the chip lead at Main Event Day 2

Last call of the APT Vietnam 2018 – MAIN EVENT – drew in another 27 to Pro Poker Club to pump up the overall total entries to 498. This created quite a juicy prize pool of VND 9,661,200,000 of which 83 players will eventually earn a piece. After seven hours of competition, the money wasn’t reached with 85 remaining at bagging time. Maintaining the leader’s status was 2018 WSOP bracelet winner, Indian pro Nikita Luther with 954,000. Full CHIP COUNTS here.

Nikita Luther, chip leader

Luther entered Day 2 as the overall chip leader from the combined starting heats and was seen steadily chipping up throughout the day. She kept up a solid lead until a monster pot went down at Table 11 where fellow compatriot Vivek Rughani knocked out big-stacked Soo Jo Kim. Rughani had a run of premium hands with his pocket kings delivering a bad beat to Kim’s pocket aces. Rughani catapulted to the forefront and even crossed the million marker before dropping back down. He still bagged up a commanding stack of 737,000 putting him in third rank. 

Vivek Rughani

In between the two Indian players was Vietnam’s own Tran Thai Ha. Ha shipped in all of Amanpreet Singh’s stack late in the day with pocket jacks winning over ace-king to drove his stack to second position amassing 832,000 in chips. 

Tran Thai Ha

The only player left hunting down another APT championship title was Vietnam’s Huu Dung Nguyen. Having busted on the last hand at Day 1C, he was one of today’s entries. He closed the day with 297,000. 

Huu Dung Nguyen

The day was filled with plenty of excitement. You can read up on some of the hands we caught in the LIVE UPDATES. 

Several big stacks that also successfully battled through the masses and  remained high in the count were Duy Ho, Phua Tzai Wei, Mei San Ang, Nick Gorman, Eu Shen, Anthony Bui, and  Min Dan.

For Malaysia’s Natalie Teh, she too had a fantastic run, going from just above starting stack to sixth in the rung with 621,000. Taiwan’s Cheli Lin was even lower than starting stack upon entering the day then closed with 271,000 slightly below average stack. 

However for several notable pros and APT major titleholders, their day would end in this heat. Among them were Victor Chong, Wenling Gao, Henrik Tollefsen, Linh Tran, Dhaval Mudgal, Sumit Sapra, Dylan Wilkerson, Marvin Rettenmaier, Julian Tran, Le Ngoc Khanh, Iori Yogo, Ying Lin Chua, Lester Edoc, and defending champion Dang Xuan Canh. 

Remaining players will return on Wednesday, October 10, at 1pm for the next stage in the race to the title. Two players will leave empty-handed with 83 spots paid. View PRIZEPOOL here. It will be another thrilling day as they play down to the Final 8. We will continue to bring you the action via our Live Updates.

Day 1A recap
Day 1B recap
Day 1C recap
Day 2 starting chip counts