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WPPT Seoul Day 1 report
Posted by: James Carter. - Sat, 2008-09-27 10:22
Day 1 of the APPT Seoul saw 165 players start in an event opened by 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer, with the traditional “Shuffle up and Deal”. The field included names like Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Hevad Chan, David Saab and JJ Liu. The “name” pros didn’t fare too well though, as most of them did not make it past the early stages of the tournament. Raymer busted out on the very last hand of the day at the hands of David Saab. Macau standout Charles Chua also found the way to the rail relatively early on when his pocket Ks fell to a caller’s A,Q to cripple him for good. He pushed the remainder of his stack in on Q,8 and flopped two pairs, but got called by an opponent (with 4,4) who landed another 4 on the turn. The 5 on the river helped nobody, and thus Chua was out of the books.
Overcoming his early struggles, David Saab scored a big double-up on JJ Liu in a dramatic hand. Having started the hand on J,J, Saab pushed all-in on a flop of 10,9,7 rainbow against Liu’s 10,9. Although Liu had briefly taken the lead in the hand, an 8 landed on the turn to make Saab’s straight and the river was of no help to Liu who got crippled out of shape on this hand. Hevad Chan had been doing all right for a while, until he took a couple of big hits which eventually led to his demise.
First, he made an excellent call by matching an all-in on what seemed like a semi-bluff. His Ah,Kh went up against an opponent’s Ad,10d on a flop of 2d,3d,9s but the river brought another diamond to make his opponent’s flush. That cost him a 17,000 pot, and the worst would be still to come.
His last 3,000 went all-in on a Qs, 8h, against an opponent’s K,K. The flop gave him hopes for a flush, as it came all spades, but neither the turn nor the river brought about another life-saving spade to bail him out.
Jan Van Dyk finished the day in the chip lead with 51,375, followed by David Saab in 2nd with 47,850. Bertrand Grospellier also survived to play on Day 2.
