Thijs Hilberts Leads 36 Finalists After Day 2 of the 2019 APPT Manila Main Event
Day 2 of the 2019 PokerStars Asia Pacific Poker Tour Manila Main Event is over, and when everything was done, it was a European name that led the counts. Thijs Hilberts hails from the Netherlands, and managed to bag 2,460,000 chips at the end of the day, earning the badge of the chip leader for Day 2.
Hilberts had a great day, where he seemed as if he was only going up after each level. He started Day 2 with 75,500 in chips, and in the second level of the Day 2 he was already up to 260,000. To achieve that, he hit a full house in a battle of the blinds, and he got paid on the river. When the bubble burst, Hilberts was up to 810,000 in chips, and in the final level he skyrocketed to almost 2.5 million in chips. In one of the last hands he busted Anant Purohit, with ace-king against queen-jack, when a jack hit the flop, but an ace came on the river to give him the pot.
The second place of the chip counts belongs to Hirotaka Nakanishi who amassed 1,840,000 in chips. In order to collect this amount of chips, he busted Day 1b's chip leader, Tautvydas Jonikas, with king-queen versus king-ten, in a preflop all in. Nakanishi reached to more than 2.4 million chips at some point, but lost a couple of pots in the end, and bagged 1,840,000.
Out of the two Day 1 chip leaders, Jingzhi Wang had a better day that her Lithuanian counterpart, since she bagged 940,000, to almost double her start-of-Day-2 stack. However, her day wasn't all smiles and wins, since she was down to less than 300,000 at some point. But the fact is that she will carry her stack to the final day, and it is the outcome that matters.
The day started with 319 players taking their seats in the PokerStars LIVE poker room, here in Okada Manila. The first goal of the field was to reach the payouts, and with 135 players getting paid, it meant that almost 200 of them would leave empty-handed. The flurry of eliminations started early, and some names that busted before the money were Alexis Gillot, Max Curtis, Edgar Eui Kim, and former APPT Main Event champions Huidong Gu, and Sparrow Cheung.
Hand-for-hand play started with 136 players left in the field, and it took five hands for the bubble to burst. The unlucky player was Lester Ian Pinto, who not only busted in the bubble, but also had to suffer a brutal beat, in order to leave the event with empty pockets. He was all in with ace-king against Wenlong Song's ace-jack, and a jack hit the river to sent all the remaining players into the payouts.
The action continued to be rapid, with eliminations following one after the other, and some of the players who busted in the money were Lee Wang Yong (127th - ₱129,000), Joven Huerto (98th - ₱154,500), Frederick Hernandez (88th - ₱154,500, Eran Shaham (63rd - ₱181,000), Czardy Rivera (58th - ₱181,000), and Xiaosheng Zheng (55th - 181,000).
Linh Tran was the only former APPT Main Event champion, that managed to get in the money, but he was eliminated in 92nd place for ₱154,500. He got his chips in good, with ace-king of diamonds in a board with queen-jack-three and two diamonds, but he was up against aces and never managed to get there.
When the clock was paused, and the last hands of the day were completed, there were 36 players left in the field. They will all return tomorrow for Day 3, which will be the last day of the Main Event, and the APPT Manila festival, in total. Day 3 will start at 1:00 p.m. local time, and the starting level will be Level 24: 15,000/30,000 with a 30,000 big blind ante. The 36 players have already secured a payout of ₱257,500, but they will all have their eyes in the first place prize of ₱13,042,000.
The PokerNews live reporting team will be on hand, to bring you all the action from the conclusion of the Main Event in 2019 APPT Manila.
Day 3 Seating Draw
| Name | Country | Table | Seat | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xixiang Luo | China | 1 | 1 | 1,070,000 | 36 |
| Duc Trung Vu | Vietnam | 1 | 2 | 945,000 | 32 |
| Duy Tung Nguyen | Vietnam | 1 | 3 | 265,000 | 9 |
| Hao Chen | China | 1 | 4 | 985,000 | 33 |
| Yota Mitsui | Japan | 1 | 5 | 510,000 | 17 |
| Yaanning Wu | China | 1 | 7 | 880,000 | 29 |
| Thijs Hilberts | Netherlands | 1 | 8 | 2,460,000 | 82 |
| Mansour Khorramshahi | Iran | 2 | 1 | 525,000 | 18 |
| Marius Zalpys | Lithuania | 2 | 2 | 395,000 | 13 |
| Daji Chen | China | 2 | 3 | 870,000 | 29 |
| Bin Zhao | China | 2 | 4 | 865,000 | 29 |
| Yvo Molin | UK | 2 | 6 | 1,225,000 | 41 |
| Raymond Caabay | UK | 2 | 7 | 1,245,000 | 42 |
| Patricio Caalim | Philippines | 2 | 8 | 685,000 | 23 |
| Yikun Feng | China | 3 | 1 | 740,000 | 25 |
| Yong Hui Tan | Singapore | 3 | 2 | 1,125,000 | 38 |
| Guangcheng Chen | China | 3 | 3 | 815,000 | 27 |
| Jixue Yin | China | 3 | 4 | 1,195,000 | 40 |
| Mohamad Noordin | Singapore | 3 | 5 | 850,000 | 28 |
| Anthony Gabitan | Philippines | 3 | 7 | 660,000 | 22 |
| Sahil Chuttani | India | 3 | 8 | 1,020,000 | 34 |
| Hirotaka Nakanishi | Japan | 4 | 2 | 1,870,000 | 62 |
| Xinyu Wang | China | 4 | 3 | 880,000 | 29 |
| Mike Takayama | Philippines | 4 | 4 | 1,440,000 | 48 |
| Yap Sen Wong | Hong Kong | 4 | 5 | 935,000 | 31 |
| Kelvin Andrew Yu | Philippines | 4 | 6 | 990,000 | 33 |
| Yu Nozaki | Japan | 4 | 7 | 845,000 | 28 |
| Renjie Ye | Singapore | 4 | 8 | 805,000 | 27 |
| Rong Shan Li | China | 5 | 1 | 875,000 | 29 |
| Daniel Lawrence | USA | 5 | 2 | 675,000 | 23 |
| Tetsuro Tomita | Japan | 5 | 3 | 510,000 | 17 |
| Marcus Liow | Malaysia | 5 | 4 | 985,000 | 33 |
| Kei Shinagawa | Japan | 5 | 5 | 620,000 | 21 |
| Florencio Campomanes | Philippines | 5 | 6 | 1,490,000 | 50 |
| Tianhong Su | China | 5 | 7 | 600,000 | 20 |
| Jingzhi Wang | China | 5 | 8 | 940,000 | 31 |