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After eight levels of play on Day 2, the inaugural African Poker Championship $1,000 Main Event has come to a conclusion at the Le Grande Casino in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. With late registration and re-entry still open for the first half of the day, the overall field size was boosted all the way to 256 entries and that surpassed the guarantee to create a prize pool of $215,040.
Initially, the plan may have very well been to at least reach the money but that was scrapped in the late evening and the action concluded with 39 players remaining. Only the top 32 spots will get paid at least $2,000 and the restart of final day on Sunday, October 4, 2026, was pushed one hour earlier to 10 a.m. local time due to the enormous average of 65 big blinds.
Leading the way with a monstrous stack of 1,957,000 is Panayiotis Giannakopoulos, who already won an event during the festival here in Tanzania. His father Costa Giannakopoulos also made it through with a top ten stack as well after scoring the penultimate knockout of the day to bag up 1,080,000.
The overnight top ten also includes South Africa's youngest WSOP bracelet winner Aidan Jacobs (1,404,000), Tome Dinh (1,269,000) and Day 1b chip leader Banks Solomons (1,070,000) with six of the top ten hailing from the land of the Springboks.
Top 10 Stacks After Day 2
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Panayiotis Giannakopoulos | Tanzania | 1,957,000 | 196 |
| 2 | Xianbin Li | China | 1,550,000 | 155 |
| 3 | Jonathan Hyman | South Africa | 1,474,000 | 174 |
| 4 | Tutu Russon | South Africa | 1,410,000 | 141 |
| 5 | Aidan Jacobs | South Africa | 1,404,000 | 140 |
| 6 | Tome Dinh | Viet Nam | 1,269,000 | 127 |
| 7 | Steven Radloff | South Africa | 1,163,000 | 116 |
| 8 | Costa Giannakopoulos | Tanzania | 1,080,000 | 108 |
| 9 | Banks Solomons | South Africa | 1,070,000 | 107 |
| 10 | Ryan James | South Africa | 1,015,000 | 102 |
A little bit further down the leaderboard are Marko Nortje (734,000), Cliton Taliwanth (540,000), Jaryd Jardien (507,000), $3,000 High Roller champion Mattia Festa (345,000), Wayne McGregor (299,000) and Patrice Ah-Nien (252,000).
Dan "Jungleman" Cates returned to the felt with his face painted as a lion and spent the early stages on the live stream table where he was eliminated.
Notable casualties without anything to show for included Imran Bhojani, Muaaz Gani, Ivan Govorov, Martin Schamaun, Max Deveson, and Gavin Sardini.
Day 1a chip leader Todd Hellyar was also among the casualties after he experienced a torrid start into the day, among others paying off the flopped quad aces of Brian Rettmann. Jonathan Hyman became one of the first players with a seven-figure stack soon after he won a big flip with pocket jacks against the ace-queen of Raphael Bsiri.
Nortje fell victim to the red-hot running Russon who made sixes full against his trips sevens before re-entering and spinning up a healthy stack. Sardini lost a big flip to Menesh Keshav and the re-entry after the dinner break was not crowned by success.
Perhaps the most spectacular hand of the day was a four-way all-in in which Dinh scored a triple knockout with aces full of kings. Soon after, Jacobs went intro the trenches to win a flip and oust French player Jean Pierre Sgiaravello, dubbed by his South African buddies as "how to win bracelets".
Before the end of the late registration, Panayiotis Giannakopoulos had scored a double knockout and his super aggressive playing style carried on from there, unfazed by being seated with the other big stacks to his left and right. Keshav saw his stack melt from seven figures and he then ran with queens into the kings of Giannakopoulos.
Towards the end of the night, the action slowed down and Pillay was a late casualty when he three-bet jammed pocket fives only to run into the pocket aces of Keegan Naidoo behind.
When level 17 concluded, only five tables remained and the players were informed that the restart was moved one hour earlier to 10 a.m. local time with a potentially very long day ahead to crown a champion. As usual, the PokerNews live reporting team will be back then to provide as many key hands as possible en route to determining the first ever African Poker Championship Main Event winner here in Tanzania.
