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APT Philippines Day 2 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2009-02-01 19:02
Day 2 of the APT Philippines (Asian Poker Tour) Main Event was all about Full Tilt player Steven Yea and his 122,700 deep stack, which all the others were aiming for. The player closest to Yea’s chip count leading stack at the beginning of Day 2 was Nam Le who had 88,000 chips in front of him.
Out of the 262 players who registered for the tourney, only 69 were still present at the beginning of Day 2. Play on Day 2 was scheduled to last until the final table was set. With the last cash position set for 27th, everyone knew it was do or die time.
As soon as the action started, several players were forced to head to the rail. Among them was David Rheem who started on 30k and still had around that much when he tangled with Japan’s Norihito Suzuki in a hand which would eventually spell his doom. The board read 5d, 4c, Ad, Kc, 2c when Rheem decided to take advantage of the texture and of Norihito’s check which betrayed weakness, and bluff him out of the hand. The 14,000 chips he posted on the bluff essentially pot committed him and when Suzuki shoved all-in in response it became obvious that he in fact held the flush Rheem was trying to represent. Suzuki showed Ac, 8c for the nut flush and Rheem was done.
David Saab started the day on a healthy stack of 84,000 chips, but son hit rock bottom. He first gave up half his stack to Kin Tae Hyung, then he bled some more to Lester Edoo, and gradually reached the point of no return. He shoved his last chips in against Cicurel Didier on a K,5 vs A,4 match-up. All the board did was to nail down Didier’s lead with another A on the flop, sending Saab to the rail as well.
Reveling in the comfort offered by his large stack, Steven Yea kept adding to it methodically, first at the expense of Robert Carlsson, then at that of Bryan Huang.
He was only overtaken once by Susumu Toge in the chip count, but bounced back by the end of the day, and went to the final table in the chip lead with 754,000 chips.
Neil Arce, Susumu Toge, Liz Lieu, Casey Kastle, and Cicurel Didier also made it to the final table.
