The Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Manila poker tournament series kicked off on 4th August at the PokerStars LIVE poker room in City of Dreams – Manila, Philippines. A total of 5 Platinum Passes (worth $30,000 each) are to be awarded during the series and the one has already been awarded to Tsolmon-Erdene Ochir, who beat 844 entries to win APPT Kickoff for PHP 1,541,000 (~INR 20 Lac).
APPT Kickoff saw 6 Indians cashing out with Alok Birewar making the deepest run finishing 27th for PHP 54,000. Other Indians who made money included Pranav Khandalkar – (34th for PHP 47,500), Dhaval Mudgal – (40th PHP 43,000), Zarvan Tumboli – (60th for PHP 37,000), Aditya Sushant – (74th for PHP 32,500) and Kartik Ved – (85th for PHP 32,500). A few Indians made money in other smaller events as well. Amit Nautiyal cashed for PHP 8,000 for finishing 15th in APPT Manila Event #3: Knockout, while Zarvan Tumboli finished 11th for PHP 21,200 in Event #7: Turbo Deepstack.
The next big event on the APPT Manila 2018 schedule was the APPT National with a buy-in of PHP 30,000. The big – value event drew a massive field with a total of 829 entries across the two starting flights. This crushed the specified guarantee of PHP 5 Million and took the prize pool to a whopping PHP 21,711,510 (INR 2.82 crore, out of which a PHP 4,559,000 (INR 59.25 Lac) plus a Platinum Pass is reserved for the winner. The event set a new record in Philippines tournament history.
By Day 1A and 1B end, 230 survivors moved into Day 2. Interestingly for India’s poker community, there were 18 Indians among the survivors entering Day 2 of the event. Three of Indians are holding pretty decent stacks. Abhinav Iyer is in the lead with 162,000 in chips and he is followed by Akshay Nasa (158,200) and Vidwath Shetty (155,900). Here are the stacks of other Indians making Day 2:
Alok Birewar – 121,400
Kartik Ved – 120,900
Dhaval Mudgal – 106,000
Jasven Saigal – 95,500
Kanishka Samant – 94,400
Vivek Rughani – 94,000
Ashish Ahuja – 88,200
Zarvan Tumboli – 86,000
Amanpreet Singh – 84,200
Ramandeep Singh – 68,100
Aditya Sushant – 60,600
Vinayak Malani – 59,000
Jaydeep Dawer – 77,600
Pranav Khandalkar – 36,500
Sahil Chutani – 124,100
While it is Abhinav Iyer leading Indians, the overall chip leader is Vietnam’s Ngoc Anh Cao holding 329,900 in chips. He recently won the APT Vietnam Championships Event at Ho Chi Minh.
As mentioned, the massive field in this event generated a whopping PHP 21,711,510, which has to be divided among the top 99 players with a min-cash of PHP 61,000. Our Indian players will be aiming for higher payouts. We congratulate our players for making Day 2 and wish them all the best ahead!