Main Event
Day 1a Completed
2017 PokerStars Festival Manila
Main Event
Day: 1a
Event Info
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
2017 PokerStars Festival Manila
Buy-in
55,000 PHP
Prize Pool
28,809,000 PHP
Entries
594
Level
28
Blinds
40,000 / 80,000
Ante
10,000
Zak Leads Action-packed PokerStars Festival Manila Day 1A Main Event
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
Day 1A of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event saw 113 players pony up the PHP55,000 entry fee, but with the format offering unlimited re-entry 19 players chose to rail against fate and re-enter to bring the total number of entries up to 132.
The man leading the charge is the Philippines’ Elan Zak who bagged up an impressive 234,000 in chips – 27,800 more than next closest rival Hoa Thinh Nguyen who finished play with 206,200.
Zak powered into the top three spots midway through level eight and took it in turns to swap places with Vietnam’s Hoa Thinh Nguyen when the action began to heat up as the day’s play drew to a close.
While Nguyen held the lead for the majority of the last three levels Zak enjoyed a late run of form, rivering Broadway holding ace-king off suit in a hand against Australia’s Kenneth Buck to pad out his ample stack still further, though Buck managed to survive the day with a stack of 61,800.
Zak edged in front of Nguyen with just 15 minutes showing on the tournament clock at the end of level 12, granting him the honor of drawing the last number of hands to be played.
There was a last gasp burst of action as soon as the last six hands were announced and a number of players departed in a flurry of cards and chips with India’sKunal Patni and Aditya Sushant taking some brutal beats to bust right at the close of play.
Patni lost the majority of his chips after flopping the nut straight on a double diamond board in a huge cooler of a hand against Canada’s Thomas Lee, who had flopped bottom pair and a flush draw, which came in on the river to leave Patni crippled and push Lee over the six-figure mark.
Lee sent Patni to the rail the very next hand, alongside the unfortunateJohnson Tan in a double elimination that saw Lee, holding king-jack offsuit, attempt to push a short-stacked Tan out of the hand.
Tan made the call for his tournament life holding the dominated queen-jack and while Patni’s seven-four suited was drawing live, both Tan and Lee paired their jack on the flop and Lee’s king kicker played when the board bricked out for Tan. Lee finished the day with a very respectable 156,100, putting him in the top ten percent of the field.
Sushant followed Patni to the rail shortly afterward when his ace-queen offsuit was out-flopped by the speculative king-six suited ofChi Thinh Nguyen. Unfortunately for Sushant, the Vietnamese player flopped top pair on a king-high board, improving to two pairs on the turn to leave the Indian drawing dead.
While Sushant still had some chips remaining these also went the way of Nguyen not long afterward when the pair clashed in another hand. Nguyen moved all-in pre-flop once more, this time with ace-nine suited and Sushant called off the last of his chips with ten-seven suited.
Both players missed the board by miles meaning Nguyen’s ace-high was enough to win the hand and climb into third place on the leaderboard with a stack of 192,900 – just 13,300 less than fellow countryman Hoa Thinh Nguyen.
Other notables to make the cut included Pete Chen (165,300), Sparrow Cheung (120,200) and Alan Lau (42,600). With Cheung currently leading the Asia Player of the Year leaderboard, Lau in second place and Chen in third place that makes the APOY race an extremely tight one should any of the three players make the hallowed money spots when play resumes for Day 2 on Sunday 6 August.
It took Chen three bullets to lock up his Day 2 seat but the Taiwanese player is certainly in a decent spot as the fifth largest stack. Several other players were not so fortunate with Denmark’s Michael Falcon, Australia’s Vijay Narula and Israel’s Tom Or-Paz all firing three times and failing to go the distance.
A total of 38 players successfully circumnavigated the tournament minefield and will be returning to join Day 1B and 1C survivors when Day 2 begins at 2pm on 6 August.
Day 1B will kick off at 2pm on Friday 4 August so join us then as we see who else manages to make it though to Day 2 of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event.
End of Day 1A Chip Counts (full)
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
234,000
-200
|
-200 |
|
206,200 | |
|
192,900 | |
|
178,400 | |
|
165,300
-2,700
|
-2,700 |
|
||
|
156,300
84,300
|
84,300 |
|
156,100
100
|
100 |
|
|
148,000
59,000
|
59,000 |
|
141,400
28,400
|
28,400 |
|
137,800
53,800
|
53,800 |
|
136,200
-7,800
|
-7,800 |
|
125,500
92,500
|
92,500 |
|
125,000
95,000
|
95,000 |
|
121,000
-24,000
|
-24,000 |
|
120,200
8,200
|
8,200 |
|
115,400
8,400
|
8,400 |
|
97,500
-7,500
|
-7,500 |
|
93,300
63,300
|
63,300 |
|
86,900 | |
|
|
84,500 | |
|
|
82,000
52,000
|
52,000 |
|
|
80,400
50,400
|
50,400 |
|
|
78,100 | |
|
74,200 | |
|
|
66,800
-39,200
|
-39,200 |
End of Day Chip Counts
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
| Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| Elan Zak | Philippines | 234,000 |
| Hoa Thinh Nguyen | Vietnam | 206,200 |
| Chi Thinh Nguyen | Vietnam | 192,900 |
| Seung Yong Yi | Korea | 178,400 |
| Pete Chen | Taiwan | 165,300 |
| Aki Virtanen | Finland | 156,300 |
| Thomas Lee | Canada | 156,100 |
| Anna Bajas | Philippines | 149,600 |
| Wendell Garcia | Philippines | 148,000 |
| Raphael Gall | Germany | 141,400 |
| Junghwan Oh | Korea | 137,800 |
| Jesse Dylan Rosen | South Africa | 136,200 |
| Xingbiao Zhu | China | 125,500 |
| Hoang Anh Do | Vietnam | 125,000 |
| Yan da Tyronne Soh | Singapore | 124,000 |
| Ken Okada | Japan | 121,000 |
| Park Yu Cheung | Hong Kong | 120,200 |
| van Sang Nguyen | Vietnam | 115,400 |
| Ming Ken Thoo | Malaysia | 97,500 |
| Hoang Huy Tran | Vietnam | 93,300 |
| Tzu Chieh Lo | Taiwan | 86,900 |
| Niilo Heinikangas | Finland | 84,500 |
| Sok Meng Hun | Cambodia | 82,000 |
| Khanh Le Ngoc | Vietnam | 80,400 |
| Lai Heng Foo | Malaysia | 78,100 |
| Tsun Ming Chan | Hong Kong | 74,200 |
| Kwangyeop Choi | Korea | 66,800 |
| Kenneth Buck | Australia | 61,800 |
| Samad Razavi | UK | 57,200 |
| Jack En Ching Wu | Taiwan | 53,800 |
| Daniel Benor | Israel | 53,600 |
| Yii Shyang Lai | Malaysia | 53,500 |
| Jiunn Ng | Singapore | 50,200 |
| Jun Zhong Loo | Malaysia | 50,000 |
| Alan Lau | Hong Kong | 42,600 |
| Roger Spets | Sweden | 42,100 |
| Wai Kiat Lee | Malaysia | 26,300 |
| Tze Yen Wong | Malaysia | 15,400 |
Double for Razavi; Zak Leads
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
A short-stacked player moved all-in for the third time in a row but this time found a caller in the form of a Sam Razavi, who made the call from the button.
Razavai, holding 
, had the lead over his opponent’s speculative 
and also had him covered. The board ran out 
and Razavi stacked up t0 57,000 while his opponent headed for the rail.
All that excitement concludes Day 1A of the PokerStars Festival Manila and it appears that Elan Zak managed to hold on to his lead amidst all that carnage, bagging up an impressive 234,200 in chips.
The next biggest stack looked to be Hoa Thinh Nguyen, who bagged up 206,200 with Thinh Nguyen Chi rounding out the top three with around 190,000.
However, these are rough estimates only – there will be full chip counts and the end of day wrap to follow so watch this space.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
234,200
4,200
|
4,200 |
|
|
206,200
6,200
|
6,200 |
|
|
190,000 |
Sushant Busts to Chi
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
Aditya Sushant was sitting on a decent sized stack but took a big hit at the hands of Thinh Nguyen Chi.
Chi opened the action with a raise, Sushant re-raised and Chi quickly moved all-in and was just as quickly called by Sushant.
Thinh Nguyen Chi: 
Aditya Sushant: 
Unfortunately for Sushant the flop fell 
to give Chi top pair, which improved to two pair when the 
hit the turn to leave the Indian player drawing dead. A meaningless 
river saw Sushant drop to around 40,000 while Chi climbed to 150,000.
The two battled again shortly afterward with Chi moving all-in with 
and Sushant making the call with 
.
The board ran out 
and Sushant hit the rail while Chi stacked up to around 190,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
190,000 | |
|
Busted | |
|
||
Carnage at the Close
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
As is usually the case there was a flurry of last gasp action after the last six hands were announced.
Pete Chen, Sparrow Cheung and another unfortunate opponent got all the chips in three-way pre-flop with Chen holding 
, Cheung holding 
and their unfortunate opponent holding 
.
The board ran out 
and Chen and Cheung divved up the pot, with Chen finishing on 168,000 and Cheung on 112,000 while their opponent headed for the rail.
Kunal Patni took a huge hit shortly afterward at the hands of Thomas Lee with the two players getting it all on a flop of 
.
Kunal Patni: 
Thomas Lee: 
While Patni had flopped the straight Lee, who was the at risk player, was drawing extremely live with a diamond draw. The 
turn gave Patni a flush draw also, but unfortunately for the Indian the river was the 
to give Lee the double. Lee climbed to 104,700 while Patni was left with just 4,400.
Patni was all-in from under-the-gun the very next hand with tablemate Johnson Tan giving the Indian some protection with a middle position raise to 10,000 leaving himself 15,600 behind.
However, Lee gave Tan no respect for his raise and re-shoved from the small blind with Tan quickly calling off the rest of his chips.
Kunal Patni:
Johnson Tan:
Thomas Lee: 
Lee held the lead in the hand and the flop fell [x] to keep him in front and the rest of the hand bricked out for both Patni and Tan meaning Lee finished the day with a double elimination and a stack of 156,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
168,000
63,000
|
63,000 |
|
|
||
|
|
156,000
72,400
|
72,400 |
|
|
112,000
12,000
|
12,000 |
|
Busted | |
|
|
Busted | |
Last Six Hands
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
The clock has paused with 15 minutes remaining on level 12 and current chip leader Elan Zak (230,000) drew for the remaining number of hands to be played with six being the magic number.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
230,000
60,000
|
60,000 |
Last Level of the Day; Chen Break Kings
Level 12
: 1,000/2,000, 300 ante
The 47 remaining Day 1A Main Event players are now on the last level of the day and Pete Chen scored yet another timely double right at the start of the level.
Van Sang Nguyen, sitting in the cutoff, made it 5,000 to go and Pete Chen re-raised to 12,500 on the button. The small blind folded, the big blind moved all-in for 16,000, Van Sang Nguyen folded and Chen called.
Chen was holding pocket jacks, which were behind to his opponent’s pocket kings. Chen spiked top set on the flop. The turn saw the former APOY improve to a full house and the river saw Chen climb to 105,000 while his unfortunate opponent headed for the exit.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
105,000
35,000
|
35,000 |
|
|
||
Level: 12
Blinds: 1,000/2,000
Ante: 300