2014 Asia Poker Tour (APT) Poker Finale Main Event has reached its Final Table of 8 players after 25 thrilling levels of play today. All 8 players will return tomorrow at Resort World Manila to battle it out for the whopping 1st place prize of over PHP 3 million. Huy Pham of Vietnam will have an edge over the other 7 contenders as he leads in chip count with 1,218,000 chips. Eric Sia of Phiippines is closely following him with 1,158,000 chips while the Canadian pro Linh Tran is giving stiff competition to both of them with 1,031,000 chips in his name.
APT Finale Main Event drew a sizeable field of 289 runners which got reduced to only 36 players at the end of Day 2 when the American player Martin Corpuz bubbled in the last hand of the day. The poker action resumed today afternoon with Mike Takayama in the chip lead with 529,000 chips. However, Mike failed to capitalize on his chip lead and got eliminated in 25th place taking home PHP 116,000. This way, he lost his chance to register back-to-back win in APT after he won the APT Asian Series Manila Main Event back in September this year.
Starting the day’s play with mere 61,000 chips which was roughly 10 big blinds, Huy Pham got the biggest boost to his chip count when he beat Singapore’s Norbert Koh in 21st level of play. Norbert was holding pocket jacks against pocket kings of Pham and board run neutral which busted Norbert. He continued his aggressive run on the felt throughout the game today eliminating several opponents and thus reached accumulated a huge chip stack.
Eric Sia playing strategically surpassed his rivals and he was getting strong hole cards throughout the day which was an added advantage. 28 players have already cashed in from the massive prize pool of PHP 12million. When the play resumes at Resort World Manila tomorrow, the remaining 8 will battle out their minds with finest of poker tactics in the hunt of 1st prize which stands PHP 3,185,000. It would be interesting to watch whether the big stack players dominate the game to win the coveted trophy or any short stack player takes a big leap.
Here is how final table looks like:
| Position (as per chips) | Player | Country | Chip Count |
| 1 | Huy Pham | Vietnam | 1,218,000 |
| 2 | Eric Sia | Phiippines | 1,158,000 |
| 3 | Linh Tran | Canada | 1,031,000 |
| 4 | Chow Mun Fei | Malaysia | 613,000 |
| 5 | Tetsuya Tsuchikawa | Japan | 548,000 |
| 6 | Michael Mariakis | Australia | 543,000 |
| 7 | John Tech | Philippines | 384,000 |
| 8 | Azusa Maeda | Japan | 287,000 |
Stay tuned to OPN for all the updates and results of 2014 Asia Poker Tour Finale.