Asia Poker News: May 2010

Monday, May 31, 2010

After seven levels of poker during Day 1B of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau main event, two Hong Kong residents find themselves at the top of the chip count leaderboard.

A total of 84 players came to play for the day but after seven levels of play, only 36 would make it to the next round.

Leading the way after the second Day 1 flight at the Grand Lisboa is Henrik Gwinner, a Danish pro who now considers Hong Kong his home. Using a silent but methodical approach throughout the day, he slowly accumulated chips before making a huge push near the end of the day after he woke up with aces against an opponent’s pocket jacks. He holds 140,700 in chips heading into Day 2.

Next in line in the chip counts is none other than David Steicke, a familiar face in Asian poker events. Steicke, who was the high-roller champion at the last Asian Poker Tour Macau, was involved in a multitude of big pots all throughout the day. He enters Day 2 with a stack of 124,950.

Some popular pros were in the field for Day 1B but could not hang on to make it to Day 2. The Poker Pack’s J.C. Tran, for instance, never got comfortable and finally had his diminishing stack taken away by another player before the fourth level of play. John “the Razor” Phan and Terrence Chan, two widely respected poker players, also made their exits before the day was over.

Day 1C is expected to be busy as the rest of the field descends onto the Grand Lisboa. Some familiar names who will be playing during the last Day 1 flight are Nam Le, PokerStars pro Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, and popular Aussie player Tony Hachem.

This year’s APPT Macau will be held from May 18-23 at the Grand Lisboa’s PokerStars Macau poker room. Buy-in is set at HK $40,000. For more information about the APPT, visit its official web site by clicking here.

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Day 1A of APPT Macau Concludes with Chieng in the Lead

The first Day 1 flight of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT) Macau event at the Grand Lisboa concluded yesterday with 43 players returning for Day 2.

The chip leader is Chinese player Alexandre Chieng, who enjoyed a late surge en route to a stack of 113,100. Trailing him is Michael Durrer, who bagged up 94,475 in chips at the end of the night.

A total of 88 players registered for Day 1A, including PokerStars Team Asia Pros Celina Lin, Bryan Huang, and Raymond Wu. While Huang would not survive the day, Wu found himself near the top as he finished third in chips for day with 87,475.

Despite being stuck with players such as Nathaniel Seet and Darren Yoon on his table, Wu kept grinding away and finally landed a big pot in the last level. In one of the last hands of the night, Wu three-bet an opening raise, and both he and Vladimir Geshkenbein put 5,500 chips into the pot before the {K-Hearts}{7-Spades}{5-Diamonds} flop.

Wu bet out 6,500 before calling a Geshkenbein raise to 14,000. The {6-Hearts} drew checks from both players on the turn, and the {j-Hearts} filled out the board on the river. When Wu checked again, Geshkenbein fired out a final bet of 15,000 and Wu quickly called.

Geshkenbein tabled {k-Diamonds}{q-Spades}for top pair. Wu promptly showed his {8-Clubs}{4-Hearts}, and his straight earned him the big pot and third place for the day.

Several other notable players, including Marcel Luske, Kai Paulsen, and Julian Powell, will also be in contention when the survivors of the three Day 1s merge on Friday.

This year’s APPT Macau will be held from May 18-23 at PokerStars Macau. Buy-in is set at HK $40,000. For more information about the APPT, visit its official web site by clicking here.

Start playing on PokerStars now!

Join Asia PokerNews on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!