HomeThe APT Philippines 2015 Main Event started play on Friday with Day 1A of the highlight tournament of the nine-day poker festivities at the Resorts World Manila (RWM) in Pasay City, Philippines.
After eight levels of play, Kenneth Khoo of Singapore leads the way of the 39 survivors who successfully travailed the 60-man field for the opening day of the main event with a $2,200 buy-in. Khoo’s good performance completed a great day for team Singapore even as Norbert Koh won the Head Hunter side event earlier on Friday.
Main Event Day 1A Chip Leader, Kenneth Kooh
The Singaporean, whose sole ITM finish in this tour was a 13th place effort in the APT Asian Series Cebu 2013 Main Event, broke away from the pack with two levels to go in the day, thanks to a set-up hand that involved his bullets against an opponent’s cowboys.
In that key hand, Khoo was in a pre-flop raise and re-raising battle against APT regular Linh Tran, who just couldn’t get away from his kings. The pair eventually had all of their chips to the middle and Khoo’s aces held after a board of 4♣ 8♦ 10♣ 2♠ A♦. Khoo was the first to break the century mark in chips with the win against Tran and was the only player to cross that mark at the end of Day 1A.
Armed with a big stack, Khoo will try once again to survive Day 2 and perhaps perform even better than he did in Cebu two years ago when he had a $2,626 payday.
Khoo was the most successful with 113,875 in chips but others played well enough as well to join him as the chip leaders after Day 1A. Choong Kon Kim of Korea is in second place with 87,650 while Jason Powers of the United States is in near-third with 85,500. Ha Duong (63,800) of Vietnam; Japan’s Hajime Mogi (63,775), Tetsuya Tsuchikawa (61,650) and Yoshihisa Kanzaki (51,325); Jimmy Johan (60,600) of Indonesia; Judic Kim (50,575) of Korea and Christophe Gross (50,400) of Germany complete the top 10 on opening day. Click here to view complete Day 1A Chip Counts.
Other notable pros who survived the day are; John King (44,100) and Andrew Nguyen (22,300) of the United States; Randy Boone (35,950) of Canada; Lester Edoc (34,400) of the Philippines; Eemil Tuominen (26,000) of Finland; Victor Chong (19,425) of Malaysia; Henrick Tollefsen (12,875) of Norway; and three-time APT Player of the Year Sam Razavi, who barely survived with 6,725.
Head Hunter $100 Bounty Event Champion, Norbert Koh
Meanwhile, Koh went home with $12,880 for his championship effort in the bounty-flavored tournament beating a field of 175 runners.
Poker action continues Saturday (April 18th) at 1:00 PM with Day 1B of the main event plus the No Limit Hold’em side event with $440 buy-in. Check Event Schedule page for more details.