Amidst the thrilling poker action at the Resort World Manila in the APT Asian Poker Series Manila 2015, Indian flag is held high by Raghav Bansal who entered Day 3 of the Main Event. Out of 51 survivors from the Day 2 battle, Raghav ranks 2nd in chip count with a stack of 305,500. Yao Hui of China is leading the field with 342,500 chips. Giving Raghav company in the title hunt is Paawan Bansal who is among the shorter stack with 52,500 chips left.
Other Indians including Amit Ajwani, Adda52 Team Spades pro Kunal Patni and Srinivas Polishetty in the contest of the Main Event title busted on Day 2. Other notable pros in the hunt of APT title are Linh Tran (Vietnam) with 255,000, Kai Paulsen (Norway) with 233,000, Thomas Ward (New Zealand) with 188,000, John Tech (Philippines) with 176,000, SJ Kim (Korea) with 169,500, Bryan Huang (Singapore) with 166,000, Marc Rivera (Philippines) with 130,000, Simba (Korea) with 106,500, Kenneth Khoo (Singapore) with 96,000, and Roger Spets (Sweden) with 58,000.
The Day 3 battle resumes today at Level 17 – 2000/4000/500 with 51 players who will aim the 36 ITM spots. The game will be played down to the Final 8 who will return on Wednesday to battle out for the title. The champion will take home PHP 3,758,200 out of the total prize pool of PHP 15,215,400.
Here are the top 10 chip counts entering Day 3of the Main Event:
| 1. Yao Hui | 342,500 |
| 2. Raghan Bansal | 305,500 |
| 3. Le Ngoc Khanh | 295,500 |
| 4. Wendell Garcia | 289,500 |
| 5. Endres Steffen | 278,000 |
| 6. Linh Tran Valantiejus | 255,000 |
| 7. Martynas | 251,000 |
| 8 Nicholas Gorman | 235,000 |
| 9. Kai Paulsen | 233,000 |
| 10. I.F. Javalera | 220,000 |
In the side events of Asian Poker Series, Kunal Patni continued his terrific form at the Asian felt placing 4th in the PHP Event 8: 13,200 NLH 1 for PHP 128,300. Pavel Plotnikov of Lithuania took down this event outplaying 146 players for the top prize of PHP 388,300 (heads-up deal).
In the Event 9: Pot Limit Omaha Hi, Paawan Bansal finished runner-up after a heads-up deal which brought him PHP 150,000 in prize money. Joshua De Vera Cordova of USA won this event collecting PHP 207,300 in top prize.
Manuel Mascunana of Philippines triumphed the 160-players field in the Event 10: MegaSportsWorld Deep Stack Turbo bagging PHP 198,100.
Another Philippines local, Michael de Leon bagged the WeLoveSport Deep Stack Turbo event title taking home PHP 165,000 after beating a 133-player field.
Get all the latest updates from the Asian Poker Series on your social media Facebook, Twitter and Google+.