Main Event
Day 1b Completed
2017 Poker King Cup Macau
Main Event
Day: 1b
Wei Guoliang Tops Day 1B Poker King Cup Macau Main Event
Level 11
: 600/1,200, 200 ante
The second of the Poker King Cup Macau Main Event’s three starting flights is now in the books. A total of 131 players anted up the HK$15,000+$1,500 buy-in to bring the total number of entrants for the two starting flights so far up to 200, with Day 1C still left to play.
The action was non-stop from start to finish with several players battling it out for the chip lead as the day progressed, but it was China’s Wei Guoliang who emerged on top, finishing the day with 179,100. While this saw Guoliang top the 1B leaderboard the overall lead still belongs to Day 1A front runner Alex Lee from Singapore, closely followed by the USA’s Benjamin Hamnett, with Guoliang now rounding out the top three.
The Chinese player started the day slowly and only made his run for the top in the last four levels, pressuring Taiwanese poker pro An Lin in a hand to win without showdown and pad out his stack still further.
Other sizable stacks included China’s Liang Xu (155,400) and Hong Kong’s Raiden Kan (145,500) with Liu Lifu (138,100) and Haoyu ‘Rain’ Hu (137,200), also both from China, rounding out the top five.
Other notables to make the cut included Guo Dong who also finished in the six-figure club with a stack of 115,800, though this was his second attempt as the Chinese player failed to make it through Sunday’s Day 1A.
Dong was one of the more active players of the day, along with Hu, and the two of them played a vast number of hands, most of which went swimmingly judging by the size of their stacks. High Rollers Canlin Chen and Weizhou Zha were two more who fared well, finishing the day with 98,600 and 93,200 respectively.
Of course, poker being a zero sum game, that meant some players fared slightly less well with China’s Xixiang Luo failing to make the cut for the second day in a row.
Hong Kong’s Park Yu ‘Sparrow’ Cheung and Macau’s Sam Cheong endured a rollercoaster ride of a day, though Cheong had the best of it compared to Cheung. Down to his last 5,000 in chips midway through the day, Cheong dug deep into his bag of tournament tricks to finish the day with 89,200 while Cheung’s tournament went in the opposite direction.
The Hong Kong player should have finished the day on over 50,000 in chips but a brutal cooler against Li Zujie on the last hand of the day saw both players get all the chips in pre-flop with pocket kings.
Cheung had the two black kings and Zujie the red ones, resulting in a roulette-like result when red hit the board hard – with the community cards running out four hearts to give Zujie the flush and a stack of 51,700 while Cheung finished the day on 24,200. The only solace for Chueng is the fact that he made it through to Day 2, something he did not manage on Day 1A.
In total 58 of the 131-strong field made the cut to guarantee their Day 2 seat and the third and final starting flight kicks off at 1pm on Monday 22 May and will follow the same format as both other Day 1’s with eleven 40-minute levels on the schedule and will conclude a little after 9pm so join us then.
End of Day 1B Chip Count (full)
Level 11
: 600/1,200, 200 ante
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
179,100 | |
|
|
155,400 | 128,400 |
|
145,500 | 18,500 |
|
138,100 | 4,100 |
|
|
137,200 | -3,800 |
|
115,800 | 34,800 |
|
|
113,900 | 28,900 |
|
113,200 | 3,200 |
|
109,500 | 109,500 |
|
98,600 | -13,400 |
|
93,200 | 77,200 |
|
89,200 | 9,200 |
|
82,900 | 82,900 |
|
82,000 | 82,000 |
|
|
79,700 | 79,700 |
|
|
78,500 | 38,300 |
|
|
73,200 | |
|
|
71,800 | 71,800 |
|
|
68,000 | 68,000 |
|
|
67,500 | 38,500 |
|
|
66,300 | 66,300 |
|
|
66,000 | 12,000 |
|
65,600 | 65,600 |
|
65,300 | 65,300 |
|
65,200 | -9,300 |
Poker King Cup Macau 2017 Day 1B Finished
Level 11
: 600/1,200, 200 ante
The second of the three starting flights of the Poker King Cup Macau is now in the books. Once chip leader Wei Guoliang drew the card for the number of last hands – with five being the magic number – there was a last-gasp burst of action and a number of players departed in a flurry of cards and chips.
There were still 59 players in contention when the clock was paused but that is almost certainly not the number of players who made it through the day with the carnage that followed. We are not even sure if Guoliang is even the chip leader anymore, but he bagged up 179,100. There will be a full write up to follow so watch this space…
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
179,100 | -15,900 |
Xu Wins Three-way, Huge Cooler for Cheung to Close Day
Level 11
: 600/1,200, 200 ante
While there were several more crazy hands that occurred while we were watching the following dramas unfold (we know because we could hear lots of shouting) but we could not get them all. We did save the best for last, however.
There was a flurry of cards, chips and a great deal of excited shouting as we made our way over to Huidong Gu’s table, and while the Macanese player was not involved in the hand he was certainly enjoying his front row seat.
Three players were on their feet with their hands face-up on the felt and there were cards and chips scattered all over the table. The only player we recognised in the hand was He Xu, which was extremely fortunate as he actually won, and his two opponents stalked off scowling so hard after the dust settled that we did not have the heart to ask them who they were – after all, busting right at the close of the day is not really that much fun…
All the chips had gone in pre-flop and Xu had both other players covered and was holding 
, the first of Xu’s unfortunate opponents had 
and the other had 
and the dealer had just spread the 
flop, which was what all the shouting was about as Xu had gone from favourite to underdog extremely quickly.
However, the timely appearance of the 
gave He top pair and the lead in the hand and with no spade, nine or ace making an unwelcome appearance on the river Xu busted both unfortunate opponents and finished the day with 73,200.
There was another huge roar from across the card room and we arrived in time to see Sparrow Cheung and Li Zu Jie involved in a pre-flop all-in confrontation.
Sparrow Cheung: 
Li Zu Jie:
Jie was the at-risk player and while this sort of confrontation usually results in a chop that was not the case here and we caught the action on the turn with the board reading 
.
Cheung did not look too happy with the way things had turned out, almost as if he could tell what was going to happen next. You guessed it, the river was a heart, the to be exact, which brought a fist pump and ecstatic cry of ‘Yes!’ from Jie and a huge groan from Cheung. Jie finished on 53,000 and while Cheung did not bust, he did not have all that many chips left either. There will be full chip counts to follow shortly, but all that action concludes the day.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
73,200 | 73,200 |
|
|
53,000 | 53,000 |
Kan and Hu Tangle Before Last Five-Hands Carnage
Level 11
: 600/1,200, 200 ante
In a hand that started not long after we had just finished reporting on the Huidong Gu vs Bao Jun epic around 10-minutes into the last level of the day, there was another marathon hand that developed between Raiden Kan and Rain Hu.
We were lurking by chip leader Wei Guoliang’s table trying to decide if he was still in fact chip leader when the following hand played out.
Malaysia’s Raiden Kan opened the action with a raise to 2,500 from middle position, with the neighboring Rain Hu the only caller. The flop fell 
and Kan continuation bet 5,000, which Hu called.
The 
turn saw Kan Hollywood, which took around 3 minutes or so, during which time the tournament director came over and asked Wei Guoliang to draw for the last number of hands. Guoliang picked out the 
meaning the magic number was five.
Back to the hand in question, Kan eventually decided to check the action over to Hu, who obligingly bet 8,000 reasonably promptly. Kan tanked some more before counting out a sizable amount of blue 5k chips and slid them over the betting line for a check raise of 24,000 in total.
Hu seemed a little taken aback at this and sat back in his chair while thinking over his decision, but eventually elected to make the call and the dealer peeled off the river card to pair the board.
Kan counted out chips and bet 48,000, leaving himself 40,000 behind and Hu thought long and hard about his decision. Some of the other tables had already finished their last five hands by this point the hand took so long to play out.
After an ice age, Hu anti-climatically decided to fold, leaving Kan to scoop the pot and climb to 127,000 while Hu dropped to 141,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
141,000 | |
|
|
127,000 |
Level: 11
Blinds: 600/1,200
Ante: 200
Jun Doubles Through Gu
Level 10
: 500/1,000, 100 ante
We caught a huge hand to end level 10 and bring us into the last level of the day with China’s Bao Jun and Macau’s Huidong Gu doing battle in a hand that started five minutes before the end of level 10 and finished five minutes into level 11 after all the thinking and bantering that went on.
Pre-flop it was Jun who was the initial aggressor, opening to 2,700 from middle position. Gu, sitting to Jun’s direct left, peeked down at his cards and immediately announced ‘raise’ making it 8,100 to go.
Action folded back around to Jun who reached for chips, but they were for raising with and he three-bet to 18,200 only to see Gu instantly jam the rest of his sizable stack (he started with around 122,000) into the center of the table.
Jun rocked back in his chair and the two started jabbering away in Mandarin, and while we don’t speak it, poker is the same in any language and Jun was quizzing Gu intently about what he had, guessing that it was probably ace-king and he said as much.
The call was for Jun’s tournament life but he chose to make it, turning over 
and his guess about Gu’s hand was spot on as the Macanese player turned over 
and it was off to the races.
The board ran out 
and Jun nearly had a heart attack when he saw paint on the river thinking it was a king, but fortunately for the Chinese player it was the 
to grant him a timely double, and all that action concluded the level.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
98,600 | 98,600 |
|
|
74,500 | -68,000 |
Guoliang Extends Lead
Level 10
: 500/1,000, 100 ante
We caught current top dog Wei Guoliang involved in a blind on blind battle with Taiwan’s An Lin. With the flop of 
Guoliang had led out for a pot sized bet of 11,000 and Lin was in the tank.
Eventually, Lin made the call and the dealer turned over the 
turn, bringing in the possible diamond flush. Guoliang kept up the pressure and fired a second barrel, this time for 13,000 and Lin gave him a skeptical stare down before making the call.
The landed on the river and Guoliang plonked a stack of blue 5k chips into the middle of the table totaling a bet of 50,000. Being as he only has 25,000 behind this put Lin all-in and he looked less than pleased at this.
Eventually, Lin grudgingly mucked and Guoliang raked in the pot. It’s hard to tell exactly how many chips he has now as the Chinese player has them all stacked up in four giant towers, but we are going to guestimate that it is close to 200,000.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
195,000 | 47,000 |
|
|
25,000 | -36,000 |
Notable Stacks Going into Last Two Levels
Level 10
: 500/1,000, 100 ante
With the start of level 10 the 75 remaining Day 1B entrants have just this level and one more before play concludes for the day so here's how the field is stacking up:
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
|
148,000 | 92,800 |
|
|
142,500 | 39,500 |
|
|
134,000 | 39,000 |
|
|
123,000 | 13,000 |
|
|
119,200 | 200 |
|
|
112,000 | 112,000 |
|
|
110,000 | |
|
|
98,000 | |
|
|
81,000 | 29,000 |
|
|
80,000 | -20,000 |
|
|
61,000 | 14,300 |
|
54,800 | -8,400 |
|
|
54,000 | 2,500 |
|
38,600 | 12,050 |
|
37,000 | 37,000 |