Asian Poker Tour (APT) Philippines is in full swing at the Resort World Manila and the Indian contingents are off to a superb start with Team Thrill pro Kavish Kukreja winning the inaugural event for of $11,980 and the APT title. Kavish clinched his first overseas title win by outplaying a field of 264 runners. Team Spades pro Amit Jain bagged the 2nd title for the Indian squad winning the $440 NLH event for $13,980. Two Indian players – Sahil Agarwal and Apoorva Goel are in the race to the main event title while Amit Jain has made yet another final table in the $550 NLH2 event for $2330.
$2,200 Main Event Day 2
9 Indian players took seats on Day 2 of the APT Philippines main event which was played down to the money on Monday. In the end, only two Indians survived in the battle of title who return today at the Resort World Manila to vie for the coveted trophy as they are now assured of the cash prize. Sahil Agarwal is in the 6th position with 375,000 chips while Apoorva Goel is one of the short stacks in 22nd position with 33,000 chips. The top 27 players who are now in the money will start the final game today led by Vietnam’s Ha Duong with 755,000 chips.
$550 No Limit Holdem – Event 11
Amit Jain and Kavish Kukreja are on a fantastic run in this season of APT. After winning one title each, both the Indian pros are running deep in this NLH event. Both the players have made it to the final table of this event with big stacks. Amit is 3rd in chips with 91K and Kavish has 83K. The final table game started today and Amit finished in 7th place taking home $2,330.
WeLoveSport.com Deep Stack Turbo – Event 10
Cai Xiujuan of Singapore won this $165 APT event sponsored by “We Love Sport” on Monday.
$440 Pot Limit Omaha – Event 9
The native pro Lester Edoc took down the PLO title. The PLO champion proposed his long-time girlfriend Ferlyn Cabaling who won the Ladies Event a few days ago saying “Will You Marry Me?” Ferlyn accepted saying Yes and that made the prettiest double-up of APT Philippines.
$2,200 Main Event Flights – Day 1A, Day 1B, Day 1C
The Main Event of APT Philippines started with the first flight (Day 1A) on Friday, 17th April and the last flight (Day 1C) on Sunday. The three opening flights drew 211 entries out of which 123 players survived to join the Day 2 action which starts today. A prize pool of $409,300 is up for grab with a lion’s share of $102,600 reserved for the champion. Most of the Indian contingents played the last flight (Day 1C) on Sunday and 9 of them made it to the Day 2 of the Main Event. Apoorva Goel is the only Indian player to have qualified for Day 2 action from Day 1B. The Indian squad is led by Sahil Agarwal who stands 13th on the overall list with 71,775 chips. Team Spades pro Aditya Sushant is closely following in the 17th spot with 67,075 chips.
Day 1A saw a field of 60 runners out of which 39 survived for the Day 2 led by Kenneth Khoo of Singapore.
Day 1B saw a field of 67 runners out of which 28 survived for the Day 2 led by Ryan Hong of Australia.
Day 1C saw a field of 94 runners out of which 56 survived for the Day 2 led by Korea’s Kwang Sic Kim.
When the Day 2 action rolls out today, 123 players will seats to play down to the money or when 27 players remain. Ryan Hong will start as the overall chip leader with 169,550 chips.
Indian poker community once again will unite today to rail the 9 players out there in the race to the title. Here are the chip counts of Indian players who will take seat on Day 2 today:
| Sahil Agarwal | 71,775 |
| Aditya Sushant | 67,075 |
| Jasven Saigal | 56,900 |
| Kunal Patni | 44,275 |
| Danish Shaikh | 30,125 |
| Apoorva Goel | 30,075 |
| Shravan Chhabria | 25,050 |
| Akash Malik | 13,850 |
| Haresh Kukreja | 11,650 |
$440 NLHE – Event 8
All the Indian pros played this key side event as day 1b of the Main event was going on. It was a repeat of Friday night for both Amit Jain and Sahil Aggarwal as both had deep runs in the event. While Sahil busted just short of the final table, Amit Jain gave another legendary performance to make it his second final table in as many evenings. He has 294,000 chips as Day 1 of the event ended and is in chip lead on the 8 handed final table. Tomorrow, he will have a tough task on hand as he faces Day 1 C of the Main event as well as tries to take down the title in Event 8.
And Amit has a clear focus on it, “Hopefully I will win the FT and then jump to the Main Event Day 1C. I hope I can gift a win to my wife as today is my wedding anniversary.”
The Day 2 of this NLH event saw Amit returning back in the hunt of the title. His chip lead converted into a monster stack which went on to be invincible in the end winning him the title. Amit took home $13,980 in the first place with the APT title.
Elated on his first APT title in Manila, Amit said, “What an awesome moment and day! It’s definitely right up there in my top 5 poker moments. Thanks to the almighty for this win”.
Open Face Chinese – Event 7
It was the turn of India’s best Open Face Chinese Player to take charge as Amit Jain final tabled his first ever OFC tourney. He along with Sahil Aggarwal ended this OFC event in 5th and 4th place respectively finishing in the money. Bobby Zhang of Australia won the title with $1,540 in the top prize.
Head Hunter $100/Bounty event
$440 Head Hunter event of APT Philippines was played down to Final 8 on Thursday. Hajime Mogi (339,000) of Japan will be leading the final table game when it starts on Friday. Two Indian players – Shravan Chabria and Kunal Patni had a good run in the bounty event. Although they couldn’t make it to the final table, both of them finished in the money. Shravan finished in 13th place while Kunal collected 8 bounties and $930 in cash before getting eliminated in the 18th place. In the final hands, Kunal was playing for a flush-draw from Small Blind (SB) with pockets and 2 spades on the flop. The opponent went all-in from the mid-position which Kunal called. Turn and River didn’t help Kunal while the opponent won the pot with a pair. On Day 2 of the head hunter event, Norbert Koh from Singapore triumphed the final table game to win the title.
Ladies of Poker
20 poker divas took seats to vie for the Ladies of Poker APT title on Thursday and it was the native player Ferlyn Cabaling taking down the title in the end. Ferlyn took home $1,940 with the title while Giselle Raloto bagged $1,160 in the runner-up place. This came the 4th ladies title for Ferlyn after winning it at APT Asian Series Manila 2011 and 2012 and the APT Philippines 2013.
$50K GTD Opening Event
The $275 opening event of APT Philippines attracted 111 players in Flight A and another 153 joined in the Flight B on Tuesday, 14th April. The survivors from Day 1 took seats to battle out for the title on Wednesday. Dhaval Mudgal, the champion Kavish, Apoorva Goel and Sahil Agarwal were the notable Indian in the field on Day 2. While everybody kept falling in the race to the title, Kavish chipped up smartly and became one of the strongest contenders on the final table.
Meanwhile, Team Spades pro Kunal Patni started an update thread in a facebook group where the whole Indian community railed for Kavish. Kavish struck a 3-way deal with Jeremiah Cruz of USA and the swiss player Flavio Ulman. In the end, Kavish came out with flying colors beating the American player in the heads-up game.
Elated on his first overseas title, Kavish said, “Really happy about the win. It’s one of the biggest moments of my poker career. Also, I would like to congratulate the rest of my team for a deep run in the same event.”
Here are the top finishers of $50K GTD Opening Event:
Winner: Kavish Kukreja (India) – $11,980
2nd place: Jeremiah Cruz (USA) – $10,000
3rd place: Flavio Ulman (Switzerland) – $9,570
4th place: Ian Brion (Philippines) – $4,480
5th place: Benz Sebastian (Germany) – $3,650
Ante Up for Charity
Running parallel to the opening event on Tuesday was the $180 Ante Up for Charity event wherein one-third of the accumulated prize pool was donated for a noble cause through the Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation to help build a house for a Typhoon Haiyan devastated family. The Filipino beauty Regie Ann De Los Reyes won this tournament. A sum of $3,367 made up with the share of prize-pool and a donation from Asian Poker Tour was donated to the Gawad Kalinga Community Development Foundation.
NLH Multi Re-Buy + 1 Add-On
The first event played on Wednesday in APT Philippines was the low buy-in No Limit Holdem tournament with an option of 1 re-buy and 1 add-on. $110 NLH event drew a sizeable field and the Russian player Svyatoslav Dvornikov was crowned the champion by the end of the day’s play. Svyatoslav took home $6,330 with the APT title.
Here are the top finishers of NLH event:
Winner: Svyatoslav Dvornikov (Russia) – $6,330
2nd place: Lester Edoc (Philippines) – $3,870
3rd place: Kenji Kurashina (Japan) – $2,800
4th place: Julius Aldave (Hawaii) – $2,150
5th place: Jae Chang (Korea) – $3,650
High Rollers
$4,300 high rollers was the 2nd event played on Wednesday which found the Austrian player Manuel Blaschke taking down the title with day’s biggest prize of $31,000. Jeonghan Lee of Korea took home $18,600 for the second place and APT regular Linh Tran finished third for $12,480.
Here are the top finishers of High Rollers event:
Winner: Manuel Blaschke (Austria) – $31,000
2nd place: Jeonghan Lee (Korea) – $18,600
3rd place: Linh Tran (Canada) – $12,480