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Across the first two starting days of the inaugural African Poker Championship Tanzania Main Event, the $1,100 buy-in has attracted a total of 98 entries and 39 players have qualified for Day 2 so far at the Le Grande Casino in Dar Es Salaam. It is the debut festival of the new live poker series founded by Monster Jam Poker Tour (MJPT) creator Marc Joseph from South Africa and the crown jewel on the schedule comes with a $200,000 guarantee.
Many of the participants have been hailing from Joseph's native South Africa and the chip leader across the two flights so far is Banks Solomons, who was among the early casualties on Day 1a only to come back with a vengeance and run it up to 645,000 on yesterday's Day 1b. That is nearly six and a half times the starting stack of 100,000 in a flight that was headlined by enormous preflop and post flop clashes.
Top 10 OVerall Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Day 2 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Banks Solomons | South Africa | 645,000 | 258 |
| 2 | Mattia Festa | Italy | 580,500 | 232 |
| 3 | Patrice Ah-Nien | Mauritius | 570,500 | 228 |
| 4 | Imran Bhojani | South Africa | 545,000 | 218 |
| 5 | Todd Hellyar | Australia | 513,000 | 205 |
| 6 | Raphael Bsiri | France | 479,000 | 192 |
| 7 | Ivan Govorov | Russian Federation | 357,000 | 143 |
| 8 | Shaun Govender | South Africa | 345,500 | 138 |
| 9 | Xianbin Li | China | 332,000 | 133 |
| 10 | Biru Asefa | Ethiopia | 322,500 | 129 |
Whether or not anyone will be able to accumulate even more chips remains to be seen for Day 1c, which is slated to start at 2 p.m. local time here in Tanzania. A total of eight levels of 60 minutes each are scheduled with a break every two levels and a 60-minute dinner break after the fourth level. The action will conclude before midnight and re-entries are allowed throughout the entire duration of the flight.
In fact, the late registration will be open for the first five levels of Day 2 on Saturday, October 3, 2026 when the flagship tournament will be racing towards the money bubble and beyond as of noon local time.
For all those wishing to enter the $1,000 buy-in at a bargain, there was already a target satellite as of noon local time and single table flips are also available upon demand - which has been quite popular these last two days. At 7 p.m. local time, a $300 Turbo Side Event will take place and the Rumble with the Jungleman cash game is slated to kick off at midnight on the live stream table featuring none other than Dan Cates.
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The PokerNews live reporting team is right here in Tanzania to report from all of the action until a Main Event champion has been crowned on Sunday, October 4, 2026.
