Farrell Tops Close-Knit Battle for the Lead on Day 1b
The second of four starting days for the inaugural WPT Prime Thailand Exhibition Championship Event attracted an even bigger field of 663 entries at UOB LIVE yesterday and 154 players returned to their seats on the sixth floor of the Emsphere Mall to try and secure their spot in the money for the 37,000 Thai Baht buy-in equivalent. It had brought the total for the first-ever legal live poker tournament on Thai soil to four figures already and made sure that the prize pool guarantee was surpassed with another two starting days to follow.
At noon local time, the action recommenced and it wouldn't take long for the eliminations to pile up in the flagship tournament hosted in cooperation between PokerTalk Thailand and WPTGlobal. Nearly half of the field had to leave empty-handed with the top 83 finishers set to advance and secure the precious Thai flag for their The Hendon Mob profile.
When the dust had settled, it was a close-knit race for the Day 1b chip lead and the UK's Ciaran Farrell snatched the lead from China's Haoran Sun at the very end with 888,000 in chips. Sun followed in second place with 869,000 while Che-Lun Liu accumulated 860,000, which was good enough for third place.
Top 10 Chip Counts After Day 1b
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ciaran Farrell | United Kingdom | 888,000 | 44 |
| 2 | Haoran Sun | China | 869,000 | 43 |
| 3 | Che-Lun Liu | Taiwan | 860,000 | 43 |
| 4 | Philippe Clerc | Switzerland | 810,000 | 41 |
| 5 | Jianwei Lin | China | 788,000 | 39 |
| 6 | Sebastian Mornhinweg | Germany | 787,000 | 39 |
| 7 | Chi Wei Lo | Taiwan | 734,000 | 37 |
| 8 | Chengcai Pan | China | 667,000 | 33 |
| 9 | Feng Xu | China | 667,000 | 33 |
| 10 | Jugal Java | India | 638,000 | 32 |
In the final stages of the second flight, Liu and Sun clashed in a large pot when the former flopped a set of nines against the top pair of Sun to scoop one of the largest pots of Day 1b. However, Sun bounced back at the very end by bursting the money bubble when he turned trips eights and had Jong Hyun Song from South Korea drawing dead because two players had folded the other aces already.
Other notables with big stacks from Day 1b include Philippe Clerc (810,000), former EPT Barcelona Main Event finalist Jianwei Lin (788,000), Jugal Java (638,000), Jiajun Liu (512,000), Shaoming Li (343,000), Raiden Kan (291,000), Clement Cure (265,000) and Pierre Mothes (265,000).
Not as fortunate were the likes of Mikael Andersson, Michael Falcon, Neng Zhao, Jonty O'Brien, and Jaryd Jardien as they all bowed out without securing one of the travel fund prizes just yet. All of them have another two flights to make up for their shortcoming thus far with Day 1c and 1d taking place throughout the Sunday evening.