Main Event
Day 1A Completed
Main Event
Day 1A Completed
The first of two starting flights for the PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour Manila Main Event attracted a field of 260 entries, which was a significant number considering it was the exact total for last year's entire event.
"I was always confident that we would exceed last year's field size but to do it in a single day is remarkable," said APPT President Danny McDonagh. "400 players was my Main Event prediction before the poker festival began but now I'm hopeful it will be closer to 500."
Things are certainly different here in 2015 as the tournament has moved from the tight spaces of the Metro Card Club across town to the opulent confines of the City of Dreams, a fully integrated resort and casino complex which opened in Manila late last year.
While the event had a small, local feel to it in 2014, all indications from the Day 1a player list is that APPT Manila has gone International with dozens of countries and several continents represented.
Through nine levels of play a total of 75 survived and will return to play Day 2 Saturday with aspirations of making Sunday's final table.
PokerStars Team Pro Bryan Huang is one of them. He picked up aces to pick up a big pot halfway through the day and climb the counts. Then, as the day wore on, he won a flip with queens over big slick to climb to the top of them. Meanwhile, Manila's own Jessie Leonarez flirted with the lead several times, cracking aces to move his stack into the six-figure range and keeping his foot on the gas throughout.
A late run from Norwegian Rolf Galasen saw him bag over 200,000, making him one of only two players to push past that mark. He flopped the nut straight, knocking one player out midway through the day, then picked up a ton of premium hands in the last few levels of the night. All this despite having to deal with Huang and fellow PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin at his table for most of the day, while also trying to win a bet made at the bar the night before that he could get away with removing his shirt for an orbit without any trouble from security. He went on to win that bet.
However, it was Sweden's Douglas Olsson who bagged the biggest stack at the end of nine levels. He used a ton of pressure and well-time aggression to chip up early, busted one player with big slick over to get among the leaders midday, and bagged 207,500 in the end thanks to a late level surge.
Other notables advancing to Day 2 include Lin (74,900), Red Dragon champion Terry Fan (111,000), Sam Razavi (50,500), Winfred Yu (19,800) and reigning Asia Player of the Year Pete Chen (21,500). Of course not everyone did so well. Team PokerStars Pros Aditya Agarwal and Kosei Ichinose were sent to the rail as were Roger Spets and local favorite Wally Sombero.
Top 10 Day 1a Chip Counts
Place | Player | Country | Count |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Douglas Olsson | Sweden | 207,500 |
2 | Rolf Galasen | Norway | 203,800 |
3 | Bryan Huang | Singapore | 172,900 |
4 | Dongkyu Kim | Korea | 171,900 |
5 | Jessie Leonarez | Philippines | 135,800 |
6 | Vivian Im | Korea | 132,900 |
7 | Iori Yogo | Japan | 132,900 |
8 | Thomas Lee | Canada | 129,500 |
9 | Sam Ng | Malaysia | 122,200 |
10 | Edwin Hui | Canada | 120,400 |
While this group will have to wait until Saturday for more action, the APPT Manila Main Event will continue Friday with Day 1b kicking off at 14:30 local time in the Philippines. Of course, the PokerNews Live Reporting Team will be on hand to bring you all the action from start to finish, right here in this space.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Douglas Olsson | 207,500 | |
Rolf Galasen
|
203,800 | |
Bryan Huang | 172,900 | |
Dongkyu Kim
|
171,900 | |
Jessie Leonarez | 135,800 | |
Vivian Im | 132,900 | |
Iori Yogo | 132,900 | 47,900 |
Thomas Lee | 129,500 | 14,500 |
Sam Ng
|
122,200 | -2,800 |
Edwin Hui | 120,400 | 25,400 |
Hai Ha Tran
|
117,300 | |
Terry Fan | 111,000 | 111,000 |
Yi Zhou
|
107,400 | 107,400 |
Iona Finkenrath | 107,200 | 81,200 |
Takashi Kurosaki
|
105,500 | 105,500 |
Jiaxiu Wang | 101,200 | 101,200 |
Sam Srinivas Polishetty | 99,200 | 99,200 |
Romit Advani | 96,300 | 96,300 |
Shih Ciao Wang | 91,700 | 91,700 |
Jiaxing Wang | 89,400 | 89,400 |
Roger Spets | 88,600 | 88,600 |
Azusa Maeda | 86,800 | |
Kazuhiro Shirasawa | 84,800 | -53,700 |
Ching Wei Chen | 83,500 | 83,500 |
Andrei Dementev | 76,700 | 76,700 |
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Douglas Olsson | 207,500 | 52,500 |
Rolf Galasen
|
203,800 | 25,800 |
Bryan Huang | 172,900 | -7,100 |
Dongkyu Kim
|
171,900 | 86,900 |
Jessie Leonarez | 135,800 | -4,200 |
Vivian Im | 132,900 | 57,900 |
Hai Ha Tran
|
117,300 | 17,300 |
Azusa Maeda | 86,800 | 16,800 |
Celina Lin | 74,900 | -10,100 |
Hao Tian | 72,000 | 47,000 |
Dennis Wilke | 72,000 | 6,000 |
Sam Razavi | 50,500 | -54,500 |
Pete Chen | 21,500 | -500 |
Winfred Yu | 19,800 | -25,200 |
In the second-last hand of the day, Sam Ng min-raised to 2,400 and was called by two players, apparently he had not even looked at his cards and was surprised to go three-way to the flop. His bet of 15,000 received two folds and he turned over , giggling.
Then the last hand came and Ng just open-shoved for more than 60,000 from middle position. The player in the small blind called for a few chips less and tabled the . Ng's and he turned a straight on to start dancing around like a Rumpelstilzchen. Players pointed out that a diamond would change the outcome on the river still, but it was the brick instead.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Sam Ng
|
125,000 | 67,000 |
Current chip leader Rolf Galasen was asked to draw a card and he picked a six to make sure that six more hands in total will be played before all remaining participants with chips in front of them get to put them into a bag and write their name on it.
Winfred Yu moved all in to claim the blinds and antes. One hand later, Hao Tian tried to knock out Quang Duong, but failed with his as Duong's made a full house on the board. Besides that, there was no seat open for the past 10 minutes and the clocks will be stopped soon.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Quang Duong
|
25,000 | -40,000 |
Hao Tian | 25,000 | 8,000 |
Another short stack succumbed to the aggression of Douglas Olsson and got the remainder of his stack in with the . The Swede made the call with and locked up more chips thanks to a board of .
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Douglas Olsson | 155,000 | 86,000 |
"I was gonna bust him, I was gonna move all in blind and he was gonna call blind. I had the " PokerStars Team Pro Celina Lin said when we walked by and Thomas Ward had just doubled up with the on a board of . The New Zealander smirked: "I am not sure I want this hand on PokerNews."
It turned out that Rolf Galasen raised the button with and called the shove to end up second best in the hand.
"Hey, you got start stack again," Calesen said with the charming Norwegian accent after it was all over. "Was that a needle?" Ward fired back and counted his stack. "I got 24." Lin kept laughing in between the two.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Rolf Galasen
|
178,000 | -17,000 |
Celina Lin | 85,000 | 10,000 |
Thomas Ward | 24,000 | -13,000 |
On a heads-up flop of with heaps of chips in the pot, more than 35,000 by the looks of it, Yingzi Wang bet 8,000. Hai Ha Tran gave it some thought before announcing a raise and clicked it to only 17,500. The Vietnamese was asked one of the standard top five questions in tournament poker: "If I fold, will you show?"
Tran showed no reaction or answer at all and enforced a fold to recover some earlier losses. The seat of his opponent was soon after vacated.
Player | Chips | Progress |
---|---|---|
Hai Ha Tran
|
100,000 | 10,000 |