The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) National Event at the APPT Manila Series turned out to be a historic one with 829 entries, which took the prize pool to a whopping PHP 21,711,510 (INR 2.82 crore). A total of 34 players entered the final day of the event to battle it out for the top prize PHP 4,559,000 (around INR 58.78 Lac). For Indian challenger – Akshay Nasa, the win was just close as he finished 2nd for his career-best PHP 2,822,000 (INR 36.38 Lac) after a 2-hour heads-up with Marc Rivera who emerged the champion winning the top prize PHP 4,559,000 (around INR 58.78 Lac).
Nasa is one of the most consistent players on Indian’s poker landscape and has made several deep runs in the Asia Poker League (APL) Vietnam. Last year, he finished runner-up in the DPT 75K High Roller for INR 21.79 Lac. He is also the best Indian performer at the ongoing APPT Manila. His runner-up finish in APPT National is the second-best Indian score in the APPT Manila Series till date. Before this, Uday Bansal had won the PHP 55,000 Main Event for PHP 4,676,000 (INR 60.42 Lac) at the Poker Stars Manila Festival back in 2017, which had replaced the APPT Manila for a year.
In APPT National, Nasa entered the final day 4th in chips with 1,423,000. He ran well and extended his stack further to eventually reach the final table of the event. The final table began with Marc Rivera (3,415,000) as the chip leader followed by Yi Ye (3,115,000), Seojin Lee (2,930,000), William Ysmael (2,510,00) and Siyou Cao ( 2,190,000). Nasa started his final table journey sixth in chips holding 2,055,000. He chipped up nicely at the final table and reached the heads-up play with the eventual winner Rivera, who held 11,970,000 in chips against Nasa’s 8,775,000 stack in heads-up.
Both players battled it for around 2 hours. Nasa played hard and even took the chip lead for a while, but he could not go all the way and ended his journey finishing runner-up. The last hand of the tournament saw Nasa going all-in with Ad 3h and Rivera called with Ah 9h. The board ran out Kh 5c 9c 3d Ks. While the turn gave a little hope to Nasa but the river sealed the win for Rivera.
India’s Jasven Saigal also advanced to the final day but ended his run in 22nd place for PHP 130,000 (INR 1.67 Lac). The event saw six more Indians cashing out and they included Vinod Megalmani – 28th for PHP 96,000, Vidwath Shetty – (43rd for PHP 87,000), Amanpreet Singh – (49th for PHP 78,000), Abhinav Iyer – (52nd for PHP 78,000), Zarvan Tumboli – (71st for PHP 69,000) and the DPT February 2018 Edition High Roller Event champion Alok Birewar – ( 73rd for PHP 65,000).
Final Table Payouts (PHP):
- Marc Rivera – ₱4,559,000
- Akshay Nasa – ₱2,822,000
- CharalamposLappas – ₱1,737,000
- Seojin Lee – ₱1,257,000
- Siyou Cao – ₱847,000
- William Ysmael – ₱651,000
- Masahiro Yamada – ₱499,000
- Yi Ye – ₱434,000
- Soo Jo Kim – ₱370,510