Wei Guoliang Tops Day 1B Poker King Cup Macau Main Event
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.
and Kan continuation bet 5,000, which Hu called.
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.
river card to pair the board.
and his guess about Gu’s hand was spot on as the Macanese player turned over 
and it was off to the races.
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.
Guoliang had led out for a pot sized bet of 11,000 and Lin was in the tank.
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.
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.
flop gave Cheung some additional outs to go with his two overcards, but he didn’t need them as the 
hit the turn. Zhao checked it over to Hu, who took a stab for 2,400 and Peng eyed him up suspiciously. Peng was probably thinking the same as us – surely Hu would have bet the flop with a flush draw – and made the call.
for a rivered top pair. When it rains it pours…
turn, which brought a check from Dong. Yueming reached for chips and bet out 4,500. It appeared that Dong was just playing possum and he swiftly check-raised to 11,500 in total, bring a speedy fold from Yueming who dropped to 20,000 after the hand, while Dong climbed to 47,500.
landed on the turn.
river saw Sun attempt to get creative as he first checked the action over to Jiang, who loaded up the third barrel and shot out a 3,500 river bet. Sun now chose to check-raise to 12,800 in total to send Jiang deep into the think tank, where he remained for a good minute or so.
