When Day 2 began just over eight hours ago, 92 players sat down at the tables, some making a late arrival, and all hoping to make it through to the final day of the APPT Seoul Main Event. However, when all was said and done, only 24 of those players actually bagged up chips and kept themselves in contention for the â‚©185,000,000 (~US$175,000) top prize.
The second day of action was always going to be the day that we made it into the money, but we perhaps never thought we would only get to the bubble late in the final level of the night. Hand-for-hand play lasted around half an hour before Sid Kim was the unlucky player to go home in a meaningless 29th place.
Kim’s final hand, and the hand that would see 28 players rejoice in having secured a â‚©4,800,000 min-cash, began when Kim opened it up to 10,000 from under the gun. Yen Cheng Huang was the lone caller from the big blind and with that, the dealer spread out a 10♣ 4♥ 8â™ flop. Kim moved his remaining short stack in the middle here holding 5♦ 5â™ and Huang made the call with J♥ 10â™ . The 3♥ turn and the 7♥ river didn’t aide in Kim’s cause as he made his way out of the tournament area.
Once the bubble had burst the in-the-money eliminations were fast and furious and by the time the clutch moments of the tournament were in the books, exactly four players had hit the rail with some money for their time, while the 24 remaining players went home to rest up for the final day of APPT Seoul.
Throughout much of the early stages of Day 2 it was the Japanese contingent of players who were faring the strongest, with players like Akira “Clutch Hero” Ohyama, Takao Kazuto and Masato Yokosawa all looking like making a deep run.
Unfortunately it wasn’t the same story for arguably the most famous Japanese poker pro as PokerStars Team Online Naoyo Kihara was eliminated when he was short stacked and all in preflop holding Jâ™ 8â™ and couldn’t improve against Daniel Belov’s 7♦ 7♥ .
As we headed toward the culinary adventures of the dinner break, one player started to stand at from the pack and that was Jeff Holbrook. It was a massive hand with a flop that read Q-5-4 that began Holbrook’s escapades into the land of the big stacks. Holbrook held pocket fives and would triple up against two opponents, one who held pocket fours and another with A-Q. By the time all the crazy action of the final level was over, Holbrook had sealed his fate and will now begin the final day as the overall chip leader with a stack of 579,000.
Holbrook is a professional trumpet player originally from the USA who currently lives here in South Korea. His wife is very pregnant right now and so if she goes into labour on the final day of action, Holbrook will have to deal with “Sophie’s Choice.”
Some of the players who will be joining Holbrook as part of the final three tables of eight include Sam Cohen (417,000), John Marshall (321,000), former APPT Seoul runner-up Chane Kampanatsanyakorn (281,000), Winfred Yu (244,000) and Kelvin “aces_up4108” Beattie (120,000). You can check all the end-of-day chip counts and the final seating draws in the live reporting feed on the APPT8 Seoul page.
Be sure to join us from 12:00 p.m. tomorrow as one player stands out from the rest and becomes the latest champion of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour!
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