HomeAfter eight hours of tournament play, Day 1A of the APT Vietnam Main Event at Ho Tram Resort Casino is now in the books with 22 out of the 47 entries surviving the day and moving on to Day 2. Leading the pack is David Steicke from Hong Kong with 97,800 chips, and trailing right behind him is Hendrik Appel from South Africa with 92,900 chips.
David Steicke and Hendrik Appel
It was quite a grueling first half of the Main Event, Steicke was in full throttle dealing some hard blows to the players at his table. Later, when Appel and Casey Kastle were moved over to join him, they brought along their massive stacks, taking the level of play to a much higher notch. There were raises and re-raises almost at every turn, and lots of calls from the big guns. It seemed that no one at the table was allowed to chip up nor enter any pot without a battle in their hands. Yet despite them all sitting together in one table, they often battled each other for pots, trying to outwit and outplay each other.
One of the biggest takedowns at that table was just after the dinner break when Steicke eliminated Lester Edoc. It began with Steicke winning a pot worth 7,600 against Edoc. A few hands later, they faced each other again, this time with Steicke cleaning out Edoc with his K♠ K♦ besting Edoc’s A♦ K♥. At this point, Steicke’s stack catapulted to around 88,000 and continued to grow before the end of the night making him the overall chip leader for Day 1A. Full story here.
In review of the day, it is worth mentioning that there were quite a number of crazy hands happening all around the room. The first casualty of the day was just twenty minutes into the first level with Peter Janghwan Kiem railing Anthony Joseph Hope with quads over a full house. Then there was Edoc crippling Karl Conroy with a sick set over set hand that both crushed and exhilarated both players. A couple of backdoor winning hands also left players in disbelief, most especially the hand between Tien Pham and Robert Birss. And during one of the final hands of the night, a controversy over showing one’s cards led to a lengthy discussion of the rules. You can read up on all that Day 1A action in our Live Reporting section.
Congratulations to all the qualifiers! Full list of chip counts can be viewed here.
The APT Vietnam Main Event will resume tomorrow for Day 1B. This is the last Day 1 flight. Cards start flying at 1PM. See you all tomorrow!