WPT Philippines: Main Event Crushes Original PHP 20M Guarantee, India’s Vikaash Shah Advances to Day 2

Vikaash Shah
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  • Arpit Jain February 15, 2020
  • 3 Minutes Read

The live poker scene in the Asian continent has been hit hard due to the deadly coronavirus outbreak. However, the 2020 World Poker Tour (WPT) Philippines has still managed to hold its ground. Already in its second week and just days away from wrapping up proceedings, the crème de la crème of the series, the Main Event PHP 12 Million GTD, kicked off proceedings on February 14.

The Coral Lounge at the luxurious Okada Manila was bustling with players, and a commendable field of 126 entries (109 uniques, 17 re-entries) were logged in on Day 1A of the Main Event. At the end of the day’s play, only 24 players survived, and leading them all was Korea’s Jaeho Kim (312,000), followed by Julien Weymouth (290,000) and Francesco Morales (252,000).

In stark contrast to previous editions, the majority of Indian players who are a common sight at such events were missing in action this time, most likely because of the coronavirus epidemic. Until now, only one score from an Indian has been reported at the series belonging to Chirag Tarunkumar Shah, who placed 10th in the Megastack NLH event for PHP 31,000 (~₹43,559). One more Indian was seen in action yesterday as Vikaash Shah (cover image) entered Day 1A of the Main Event, and he made the cut for Day 2 with 127,500 in chips.

Even though the complete coverage of Day 1B is not over yet, it seems that WPT’s decision to drop the guarantee of Main Event from PHP 20 Million to PHP 12 Million due to the coronavirus and the Filipino government’s travel ban, turned out to be an unnecessary precaution. After news came in that the travel ban had been lifted, the attendance at the series improved drastically, and at the time of writing this report, Day 1B had clocked in almost 200 entries. WPT Live Events specialist Danny McDonagh confirmed to PokerGuru that the Main Event has hit 325 entries, so the prize pool of the event has already crushed the original PHP 20 Million guarantee!

Day 2 is scheduled to commence on February 16 at 2 pm.

 

Main Event Day 1A

Day 1A of the Main Event attracted a total of 126 entries (109 uniques, 17 re-entries) who ponied up the PHP 75,000 buy-in, and the prize pool of the day amounted to PHP 8.25 Million.

After 14 levels of 40 minutes each, only 24 players managed to advance to Day 2 that will resume play along with Day 1B survivors on February 16.

Korea’s Jaeho Kim bagged the most massive stack of the day with 312,000 in the bag. Julien Weymouth held the next top stack with 290,000 in chips. Weymouth was the frontrunner to end the day in the chip lead, but he lost a healthy pot on the last hand of the night against India’s Vikaash Shah. Nevertheless, he still managed to carry forward the second-largest stack.

The hand in question was a 3-way raised pot, and on the flop, Shah bet 14,000, Sean Ragozzini folded and Weymouth check-called. The dealer burnt and turned the , which was checked around. The river completed the board. Shah fired a bet of 21,000, which prompted Weymouth to check-fold. With this pot, Shah bagged up 127,500 for the day.

Vikaash Shah
Vikaash Shah

 

Players who failed to make it across Day 1A include Hamish Crawshaw, Si Yang Phua, Linh Tran, Henrik Tollefsen, Richard Marquez, and Huu Dung Nguyen.

Some other notables who did manage to find a bag after the end of the day included Andre Berg (160,000), Motokatsu Uhara (138,000), Yeongpil Han (119,000), Kaname Akahori (74,500), Wilson Tolon (71,500), Zhining Chen (51,500), and Masahiro Kikiuchi (18,500)

Jaeho Kim
Jaeho Kim

 

Top 10 Chip Counts at the End of Day 1A

  1. Jaeho Kim – 312,000
  2. Julien Weymouth – 290,000
  3. Francesco Morales – 252,000
  4. Joshua Chargualaf – 249,000
  5. Markus Garberg – 247,500
  6. Kunwoo Kim – 239,000
  7. Simen Gulbrandsen – 199,500
  8. Sean Ragozzini – 194,000
  9. David Erquiaga – 189,500
  10. Daniel Sammarco – 181,000

 

Content and Images Courtesy: SoMuchPoker

Keep following PokerGuru for more updates from the WPT Philippines 2020!

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