One of the most popular poker festivals in the Asian poker world, the Asian Poker Tour (APT) Philippines is currently underway at the Resorts World Manila and will run till September 22, 2019. This is the second edition of the APT 2019 and has already crowned several winners. The latest tournament to conclude was its PHP 55,000 Main Event. Running from September 13-17, the marquee event drew a record turnout of 515 entries from 3 starting flights. After five days of intense battles, Peru’s Yohn Paredes emerged as the champion to win PHP 4,369,000 (INR 59.75 Lac) after a heads-up deal with Korea’s Sim Jae Kyung who earned PHP 4,270,000 for his runner-up finish.
From Team India, Akshay Nasa and Jaideep Sajwan entered the APT Main Event and both of them made it to Day 2. While Nasa who had finished runner-up for PHP 786,000 ( INR 10.81 Lac) in the PHP 86,000 High Rollers Single Day 1 of the ongoing series exited the tournament empty-handed, Sajwan managed to finish ITM. He earned PHP 104,700 (INR 1.43 Lac) for his 49th place finish.
The massive field of 515 entries in the PHP 10 Million (INR 1.36 Crores) guaranteed Main Event created a record prizepool of PHP 24.97 Million, which was eventually shared by the top 52 players. Only 66 players returned for Day 2 play in the hope to win the coveted title. Eliminations were quick on Day 2 and the bubble was reached early on the day in Gavin Flynn who finished 53rd in the event.
The eliminations continued and some notables to fall on the day were Lester Edoc (10th for PHP 450,100), Yin Zhang (12th for PHP 375,100), David Wang (13th for PHP 312,600), Li Heng (18th for PHP 260,500) and Xiaosheng Zheng who became the last bust-out of the day, finishing 9th for PHP 540,200). Canada’s Arvhin Malinab (4,070,000) ended as the chip leader among the final 8 players and he was followed by Japanese players Tetsuya Enoki (2,725,000) and Kosuke Tajima (2,225,000).
Final Day Action
The final 8 players returned for the final day yesterday to battle it out for the Main Event title. It took almost 10 hours for a champion to emerge on the final day. The eventual champion Paredes began the day as the shortest stack but he made his way to the top by eliminating four players from the FT.
Paredes scored his first elimination when he busted the French player Hubert Spiess (6th place). His next victim was Japan’s Tetsuya Enoki (5th place) whose KQ failed to crack pocket aces of Paredes. Up next, he busted Arvhin Malinab (3rd place) who had entered the FT as the chip leader. Malinab had run his J7 into KQ of Paredes who spiked a queen on the board to eliminate Malinab in 3rd place.
Despite railing Malinab in 3rd place, Paredes entered the heads-up with a stack of 5.720 Million against Sim Jae Kyung’s 7.155 Million. The heads-up did not last too long and was over within 28 hands. On the final hand, Sim pitted his Qh 8s against Paredes’ Kh Jc. The board ran Jh 8h 3h 6h 6s. While both players got flush, Paredes won his-ever APT title for PHP 4,369,000 with a better flush.
Final Table Payouts (PHP)
- Yohn Paredes – PHP 4,369,000*
- Sim Jae Kyung – PHP 4,270,000*
- Arvhin Malinab – PHP 2,403,200
- Kosuke Tajima – PHP 1,735,800
- Tetsuya Enoki – PHP 1,298,100
- Hubert Spiess – PHP 1,001,900
- Tou Ta Wei – PHP 795,600
- Khoo Kah Hock – PHP 648,200