Zak Leads Action-packed PokerStars Festival Manila Day 1A Main Event
Day 1A of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event saw 113 players pony up the PHP55,000 entry fee, but with the format offering unlimited re-entry 19 players chose to rail against fate and re-enter to bring the total number of entries up to 132.
The man leading the charge is the Philippines’ Elan Zak who bagged up an impressive 234,000 in chips – 27,800 more than next closest rival Hoa Thinh Nguyen who finished play with 206,200.
Zak powered into the top three spots midway through level eight and took it in turns to swap places with Vietnam’s Hoa Thinh Nguyen when the action began to heat up as the day’s play drew to a close.
While Nguyen held the lead for the majority of the last three levels Zak enjoyed a late run of form, rivering Broadway holding ace-king off suit in a hand against Australia’s Kenneth Buck to pad out his ample stack still further, though Buck managed to survive the day with a stack of 61,800.
Zak edged in front of Nguyen with just 15 minutes showing on the tournament clock at the end of level 12, granting him the honor of drawing the last number of hands to be played.
There was a last gasp burst of action as soon as the last six hands were announced and a number of players departed in a flurry of cards and chips with India’sKunal Patni and Aditya Sushant taking some brutal beats to bust right at the close of play.
Patni lost the majority of his chips after flopping the nut straight on a double diamond board in a huge cooler of a hand against Canada’s Thomas Lee, who had flopped bottom pair and a flush draw, which came in on the river to leave Patni crippled and push Lee over the six-figure mark.
Lee sent Patni to the rail the very next hand, alongside the unfortunateJohnson Tan in a double elimination that saw Lee, holding king-jack offsuit, attempt to push a short-stacked Tan out of the hand.
Tan made the call for his tournament life holding the dominated queen-jack and while Patni’s seven-four suited was drawing live, both Tan and Lee paired their jack on the flop and Lee’s king kicker played when the board bricked out for Tan. Lee finished the day with a very respectable 156,100, putting him in the top ten percent of the field.
Sushant followed Patni to the rail shortly afterward when his ace-queen offsuit was out-flopped by the speculative king-six suited ofChi Thinh Nguyen. Unfortunately for Sushant, the Vietnamese player flopped top pair on a king-high board, improving to two pairs on the turn to leave the Indian drawing dead.
While Sushant still had some chips remaining these also went the way of Nguyen not long afterward when the pair clashed in another hand. Nguyen moved all-in pre-flop once more, this time with ace-nine suited and Sushant called off the last of his chips with ten-seven suited.
Both players missed the board by miles meaning Nguyen’s ace-high was enough to win the hand and climb into third place on the leaderboard with a stack of 192,900 – just 13,300 less than fellow countryman Hoa Thinh Nguyen.
Other notables to make the cut included Pete Chen (165,300), Sparrow Cheung (120,200) and Alan Lau (42,600). With Cheung currently leading the Asia Player of the Year leaderboard, Lau in second place and Chen in third place that makes the APOY race an extremely tight one should any of the three players make the hallowed money spots when play resumes for Day 2 on Sunday 6 August.
It took Chen three bullets to lock up his Day 2 seat but the Taiwanese player is certainly in a decent spot as the fifth largest stack. Several other players were not so fortunate with Denmark’s Michael Falcon, Australia’s Vijay Narula and Israel’s Tom Or-Paz all firing three times and failing to go the distance.
A total of 38 players successfully circumnavigated the tournament minefield and will be returning to join Day 1B and 1C survivors when Day 2 begins at 2pm on 6 August.
Day 1B will kick off at 2pm on Friday 4 August so join us then as we see who else manages to make it though to Day 2 of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event.