The Asia Player of the Year rankings have been updated, and as of now K.C. Wong is in second place. Before the rankings were updated, Wong was at the top of the leaderboard.
Wong is still alive in the Main Event and the player who is currently above him, Alan King Lun Lau already busted on Day 1a, so before the tournament is over Wong could reclaim the #1 spot. However, the #4 player on the list, Yuguang Li, finished Day 1a with a healthy 115,000 stack and might have something to say before it's over.
The APOY race will end when the ACOP ends on Sunday, with two events left after the Main Event for players to earn points.
Team Asia PokerStars Pro Celina Lin couldn't get much going today. She has been playing a shorter stack most of the day and scraping together chips where she could. After several hours things were finally looking up when she doubled up with queens against .
However, within an hour of posting that tweet, Lin was on her way to the rail. K.C. Wong, who is currently #2 in the APOY rankings, raised from the hijack 1,100 and Lin defended her big blind. The flop was and Lin checked to Wong.
Wong bet 1,700 and Lin raised all in for 12,400. After some thinking, Wong called the all in. Wong showed for bottom pair and a flush draw and Lin showed for two pair.
The turn sealed the end of Lin's day when it came the . The river was the and that was it for Lin.
He opened to 1,000 from mid position and was called by Ivan Luca in the next seat before Dong Zhao squeezed to 3,000 in the big blind. Lim doubled checked his holding, stacked up his 9,300 chips into one small tower, and slid them across the line. Luca folded but Zhao made a quick call.
Zhao:
Lim:
The board ran . Lim was already leaving, without saying a word, before the river came down.
The action folded to the player in the small blind who min-raised to 1,000. Isaac Haxton called from the big blind.
The flop came and the raiser c-bet the flop for 1,200, Haxton called. The turn was the and both players checked. The river was the and the raiser bet 2,300.
Haxton called and the raiser reluctantly showed . Haxton showed and won the pot with trip queens.
When two players in the blinds have pocket tens and ace-king, you'd expect a lot of preflop raising but Bryn Kenney and his opponent showed level heads just now.
Kenney raised to 1,100 and his opponent called to see a flop where the American continued for 1,200. The big blind raised to 3,100 and Kenney called to turn where both players checked. The river was the and Kenney led for 1,200 and opened when called. His opponent had got there though with and raked in the pot.
Aaron Lim raised to 900 and Ivan Luca reraised to 2,500 preflop. Lim called and the two players were heads up to the flop. Lim checked and Luca bet 3,400. Lim called. Lim check-called the turn as well for 7,100. The river was the and Lim checked for a third time. Luca wasted no time before going all in for his remaining 14,100 chips. Lim tanked for somewhere around two minutes before calling. Luca turned over for two pair. Lim mucked his hand, but because he had called Luca's all in bet, the dealer had to turn over his hand and showed .