Friday, 29th March 2024 09:36
Home / Uncategorized / PokerStars Festival Manila: Yang the one to chase on Day 1C

It’s a record-breaking day here in the Philippines as Day 1C of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event concludes. Another 285 entries were fired this afternoon which takes our total tally up to 594 – that makes this field the biggest field in an event over PHP30,000 that the country has ever seen!

These 594 entries eclipsed the previous record of 585 set during APPT Season 9 back in 2015, and together they generated a prize pool of PHP28.8 million ($572,000). Ultimately it will be 87 lucky players who end up in the money and PHP5.5 million ($109,240) going to the eventual champion.

The man with the best chance of claiming that hefty sum at the moment is end-of-day chip leader Woohyuk Yang. He seized the lead at the closing stages of Level 9 when he stacked Mazyar Misaghian. Yang flopped two pair against Misaghian’s straight draw, and by the river with the draw bricking out, Misaghian opted to move in on a bluff. Yang picked it off and rocketed to the top of the counts before finally finishing play with 417,400.

Yang has just $2,999 in live cashes to his name but with his showing tonight he’s in a great position to potentially change that in the next few days.

PSF Manila Day 1C chip leader Woohyuk Yang.jpg

Woohyuk Yang

There were a host of notables who joined Yang on the felt today as the 12 45-minute levels played out. Antii Halme, Kunal Patni, Iori Yogo, Sathesh Muthu, Aditya Sushant, Hermann Lee, Dhaval Mudgal, Flo Campomanes and High Roller champion Peter Plater were all among the action. And as is always the way, some spun up stacks while others failed to hold on throughout the day.

Sam Polishetty may have won the PHP5,600 Limit Hold’em event at this festival but today he was reminded that poker isn’t all titles and trophies. He was struck down in the final level of the night after a three-way all in and a rollercoaster runout.

Polishetty got the last of it in with A♣ 8♥ but was in rough shape against A♥ K♣ and A♠ K♥ . Everyone paired up when the case ace landed on the A♦ J♥ 7♠ flop, and while Polishetty managed to peel off an 8♦ on the turn, the K♦ river saw his tournament dream come abruptly crashing down.

PSF Manila Sam Polishetty.jpg

Sam Polishetty

While Polishetty met his demise late in the day, 87 hopefuls found a bag and will be back again for Day 2 tomorrow. They’ll be combined with the 38 survivors from Day 1A and 43 from Day 1B for a remaining player count of 167.

We’ll be back from 2pm tomorrow to do it all over again as the field will thin further and we’ll get closer to crowning an inaugural PokerStars Manila champion. Be sure to join us for all the action from right here in the Philippines!

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