4 Minutes Read
After Young Gun Abhinav Iyer’s Main Event win, Team India seems geared up to take down yet another popular event at the 2019 Asian Poker Tour (APT) Vietnam, i.e. the Championships Event.
As the proceedings for Day 2 came to a close, three Indian pros marched on to Day 3 with workable stacks. While Romit Advani holds the largest stack amongst the three with 218,000, Kunal Patni build up a healthy count of 176,000, even as Madhav Gupta carries the shortest stack of 133,000.
Nine Indian challengers had qualified for Day 2 from the two starting flights, with Nishant Sharma and Aditya Sushant joining in late before the start of play on Day 2. Following eight levels of rigorous play only Advani, Patni and Gupta remain in contention.
Indian-origin player Ajitpal Singh bagged the biggest Day 2 stack of 915,000, along with Lim Yohwan (856,000) and Stephen Schumacher (845,000), who make up the top three stacks coming into Day 3.
The first few levels of Day 3 will be crucial for the 34 hopefuls who will face the first big hurdle of crossing the money line with only 25 players set to make it in the money!
Late registration for the Championships Event was open for the first hour of Day 2. The 109 players who returned to the felts were joined by an additional 26 late entries on Day 2, taking the total number of entries to 248 for the event and collecting a prize pool of VND 8,419,600,000 (₹2,57,93,160). Only the top 25 players are assured payouts, with the eventual champion set to walk home VND 2,040,542,000 (₹62,51,131) richer.
Among the 26 Day 2 entries were India’s Nishant Sharma and Aditya Sushant.
In one of the early levels of the day, Sharma lost a huge chunk of his chips to Steve Yea. With the board open , Yea took down the pot with for a nut flush, considerably reducing Sharma’s stack. The man who created history at the WSOP last summer, failed to recreate the magic and busted out soon thereafter.
Sushant’s run at the event came to an end at the hands of China’s He Hao during level 15. The WSOP 2017 bracelet winner pitted his against Hao’s which improved to a top pair on the runout .
APT Vietnam Main Event winner Abhinav Iyer was off to a steady start and by level 10 had even managed to win a pot against Norbert Koh. However, he too was unable to make the cut for Day 3.
Vinod Megalmani, Eka Vedantham, Shravan Chhabria and Dhaval Mudgal also failed to advance to Day 3.
The three Indians who survived the Day 2 onslaught were Romit Advani, Kunal Patni and Madhav Gupta.
Advani had begun Day 2 with a commendable stack of 153,200 and after eight levels of play bagged 218,000 in chips. Just before the last hand of the day, Advani doubled up through Patni. Action began with Patni raising to 13,000 with and Advani shoved for 106,000 holding . The community cards revealed and Advani rivered a pair of aces to win the pot.
All wasn’t lost for Patni either as he was able to win a small pot against Hao on the last hand of the day, to bag a respectable 176,000.
Gupta who had started with 100,400, saw his stack swell to 133,000 by the time the bags were brought out.
Singapore’s Ajitpal Singh is leading the 34 remaining runners at the end of Day 2 with a huge stack of 915,000. Singh won multiple big pots throughout the day and towards the end of the day he demolished Soo Jo Kim‘s stack, decreasing the latter’s count to 378,000.
While Korea’s Lim Yohwan (856,000) and USA’s Stephen Schumacher (845,000) rounded up the top three stacks for Day 2, other notable stacks include Gu Huidong (419,000), Ryusuke Kasawaki (354,000), Nguyen Chi Thinh (350,000) and Tuan Monaco (350,000).
1. Ajitpal Singh – 915,000
2. Lim Yo Hwan – 856,000
3. Stephen Schumacher – 845,000
4. Kwon Eunho – 657,000
5. Le Ngoc Khanh – 630,000
6. Laven Popov – 610,000
7. He Hao – 600,000
8. Nam Nguyen – 540,000
9. Chi Chung Ho – 486,000
10. Dragon Chinh – 425,000
The Championships Event will boil down to its final eight players when play resumes later today.
Images & Content courtesy: Asian Poker Tour
Keep following PokerGuru for more updates from 2019 APT Kickoff Vietnam!