Alex Lee Leads Day 1A of Poker King Cup Macau Main Event
The first of the Poker King Cup Macau Main Event three starting flights saw 69 players ante-up the HK$15,000+1500 entry fee, with Singapore’s Alex Lee coming out on top after bagging up an impressive 191,500 in chips.
While Lee began the day slowly, poker is a marathon, not a sprint and the Singaporean chipped up at an unhurried pace before becoming involved in a big hand against Quan Zhou midway through level nine.
Zhou moved all-in over the top of a mid-position Lee raise holding pockets tens and the Singaporean made the call with pocket jacks, which held to send Zhou to the rail and shoot Lee into the top ten. Lee then leveraged his sizable stack to chip up further, pushing Gouki Yeung off a massive 100,000-chip pot on the last level of the day to power into pole position.
Joining Lee at the top was US player Benjamin Hamnett, who held the lead for the majority of the day after flopping trip sixes to win a huge three-way hand against China’s Jun Wang and Xinhao Xu to climb to 150,000. Hamnett further increased his stock by flopping trips again to bust the unfortunate Bobbie Suri, finishing the day on 180,900.
Hong Kong’s Arnold Chan was another who enjoyed a stellar day, turning quad aces against an unlucky opponent’s flopped second nut flush to reach the six-figure chip mark, finishing play with 123,800.
The UK’s Simon Burns (105,500) and China’s Zhao Ting Ting (96,800) round out the top five, with 34 of the 69 entrants successfully circumnavigating the tournament minefield to make Day 2.
Other notables to secure themselves a seat included China’s Yuan Li (84,200), Australia’s Geoff Mooney (72,000), ‘Juicy Sixiao Li (36,100) and APT 2016 Player of the Year Iori Yogo (10,800).
Play began at 1pm local time (GMT+7) with eleven 40-minute levels on the schedule, concluding a little after 9pm and will follow the same pattern tomorrow for Day 1B so join us then for more thrilling tournament action.