Andy Andrejevic has had three six-figure scores in the last couple of months and he has brought that good form to Asia as, after seven levels of play, he nearly ended Day 1a of the 2015 PokerStars.net APPT Season 9 HK$100,000 ACOP Main Event as the chip leader on 136,200. However, he was pipped for the lead by Zhengye Yao, who on the very last hand of the night after he busted Jonathan Karamalikis.
Apparently, Karamalikis got his chips in on the turn with pocket queens versus Yao and his pocket tens. A magic ten appeared on the river though to make him a set to see him snatch the lead and send the Australian poker star to the rail in nasty fashion. Yao, whose iggest career achievement was a third-place finish in a side event at the Macau Poker Cup earlier this year worth HK$419,000 (~US$54,000), ended the day on 136,500 to lead by just 300 chips.
The early omens were good for Andrejevic after he busted defending champion Gabriel Le Jessoc. He flopped a straight versus Le Jessoc who got his chips with top pair and a flush draw only to brick the turn and river. He also knocked out another player around that time when he flopped a set and he also took a healthy pot off Ronald Yu late on after hitting another set.
Other players taking big stacks through to Day 2 include: Erik Seidel (130,400), Patrick Mahoney (79,900), Tony Yat Wai Cheng (100,300), Li Yuguang (115,200), Andrew Hinrichsen (86,000) and Ryan Yum (105,100). The full list can be seen below.
Players who hit the rail along with Karamalikis include PokerStars' Naoya Kihara and Chen An Lin; Mustapha Kanit, Vladimir Troyanovskiy, Fedor Holz, Tore Lukashaugen and Stephen Chidwick.
Kihara would hand his chips to former Macau Poker Cup winner Yuguang Li after Kihara's ace-king for top pair, top kicker was unable to better Li's flopped two pair.
A total of 63 players made it through from the 110 starters and they'll be back at 2 p.m. on Wednesday for Day 2. Tomorrow is all about Day 1b and cards will be in the air at 3 p.m. local time for another seven levels of play. The field will be a lot bigger and packed full of stars so be sure to join the PokerNews reporting team back here then.
While you wait, check out this video with a tour on all things Cotai:
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Zhengye Yao
![[user76079]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
flop. Kihara continued for 4,200 and was called before he checked the 
turn. Li bet 7,000 and Naoya called. The river was the 
and Li set Kihara in for his remaining chips. The PokerStars Team Online player tanked for a while before calling off with ace-king. It was no good though as Li opened 
for a flopped two pair.
