APT Philippines 2010

Li You Nan, who won the FHM MSW Head Hunter side event last night, just tripled his stack after waking up with kings.

Pre-flop, big stack Vic de Guzman raised and got a flat call from Li. A short stack then shoved all-in with his remaining chips and action went back to Vic, who made the call. To everybody's surprise, Li declared he was all-in as well! Vic thought about it for a while before declaring "call", and we were in for a three-way:

Vic:
Li:
Opponent:

Li was way ahead with pocket kings and the board blanked out for all three players to give him a virtual triple-up and eliminating the short stack.

Vic, meanwhile, is now down to about 9,000.

On a flop of , a player bet out 1,000 into a pot of a little over 2,000 and Elton Tsang, with only 2,700 behind, went all-in.

The player made the quick call and the cards were tabled:

Elton:
Opponent:

Elton was ahead with the overpair and the straight draw and would need to dodge a couple of cards to make it out of the hand alive.

The turn and river were good for Elton as the blanked with running queens, giving him the double-up and a stack of about 8,000.

On a board of , a player bet out 1,800 and action was folded over to Alan Escano, who splashed in a raise to a total of 4,000. The initial bettor tanked for a while and made the call.

River:

Alan counted out his chips before finally stacking everything and putting his last 4,500 or so in the middle. This time, the player did not need to tank as it took just a few seconds for him to muck his hand and give the pot up to Alan.

Pre-flop, Bryan Huang made a raise to 350 and got two callers. Action went over to the button, who then decided to re-raise to 1,500.

Bryan quickly responded, making it 5,000 total in chips. The other players got out of the way and the button, after thinking for a while, decided to make the fold.

"I know you're a pro, so I'm not messing with you," he said as he folded pocket jacks face up.

Pre-flop, the UTG player on defending APT Philippines champion Neil Arce's table made a standard raise and got callers from Neil and the low-jack.

Flop:

After a scary flop with three hearts, the UTG player bet out 500 and both his opponents made the call.

When the turn brought the , it was more of the same as the UTG player bet out 650 and both players flat called yet again.

The three then proceeded to check down the river card of and all three players revealed that they had hit the heart flush:

UTG:
Neil:
LJ:

Fortunately for Neil, he had hit the biggest flush with the ace of hearts, pushing the pot his way.

He is now up to about 10,000 in chips again.

We are now up to a total of 94 registrants as many late players continue to file in.

Internationally known players we've spotted so far: Isaac Galazan, PokerStars Team Asia Pro Bryan Huang, APPT Cebu champion Dong-bin Han, Macau Poker Cup champ Kenichi Takarabe, Asian Poker King champ Elton Tsang, and Charles "Mr. Macau" Chua.

Don Carmona, who made the final table at the APT Philippines event in 2008, is already out of contention.

After losing most of his stack in an earlier confrontation, Don got his last 600 all-in against Isaac Galazan and Dong-bin Han.

He managed to stay alive with a chop after he showed down against Isaac's and Dong-bin's on a board of .

Just as we turned our heads to check on his stack, it appeared that he had already got his chips all-in again and was on the losing end this time as he was already headed out the door.

The current player count for the day is 83 so far. There are many recognizable players in the field today, including defending champion Neil Arce.

Aside from Arce, the local poker community is well represented as Filipinos we've seen so far include Wally Sombero, Tonypet Albano, Ramil Tandoc, Vic de Guzman, Don Carmona, Mark Amparo, Richard Marquez, Vic Catalan, FPT's Alan Escano, Ed Marcelo, Erik Mana, Alex Pagulayan, and Rinah Garcia.