The $2,200 Main Event of APT Philippines II reached its final table of 8 players today. The player who stormed through Day 3 picking up large pots to secure the chip leader’s status was Japan’s Shinichiro Tone bagging up a monstrous stack of 2,105,000 chips. Only Indian remaining in top 8 is PokerBaazi pro Vikram Kumar with a stack of 362K.
Day 3 began with the shortest stack, Korea’s Ji Woon Kim, quickly doubling up but it was still not enough as he fell in 18th place just moments after with Korea’ Lim Yo Hwan delivering the bad news. Australia’s Justin Worth followed right behind him, eliminated in 17th place by Japan’s Aso Seitaro. The day’s entering chip leader, Guam’s Annie Bordallo, took down the next three players, Japan’s Tomoyasu Arai in 16th place, USA’s Steve Tegnelia in 15th place, and Korea’s Kimura Jong Yeol Lee in 14th place. Former APT Main Event champion Filipino pro Mike Takayama bit dust in 13th place giving Lim his second victim of the day, and Japan’s Takayuki Iwamoto falling in 12th place at the hands of Canada’s Linh Tran.
While it was looking like Bordallo may secure the runaway big stack again, matching her accomplishment in Day 2, it was at this stage that the winds shifted in Tone’s direction. It began with a massive stack claimed against UK’s Ben Martin, and impressively without a showdown. Tone must have had Martin’s number because shortly after, he eliminated him in 11th place cracking aces with his pocket fives.
With the ten remaining players merging for the unofficial final table, action slowed down significantly. Bordallo and Tone were the leaders with roughly the same stack of 1.4M chips. Short stacks Filipino Andrew Gaw and Edwin Marzan held their own, landing much needed double ups, but the one who claimed the largest pick up was Seitaro who took a gamble with a gut shot draw against Bordallo and banked it. He backed it up with another sizable pot, in a hand against Lim, to close in on a million chips.
And then it was Tone’s turn again to cause some havoc at the table. He went head-to-head against India’s Vikram Kumar, not once but twice, and shipped in beefy pots on both. His winning hands were trip jacks with J♠ 10♣, and a straight with 10♦ 10♠. After Gaw was sent to the rail in 10th place, Tone delivered the final blow of the day, eliminating Marzan in 9th place to bag up 2.105M chips at the end of Day 3.
Here are the Final Table chip count:
Shinichiro Tone – Japan – 2.105M
Aso Seitaro – Japan – 976k
Annie Bordallo – Guam – 900k
Linh Tran – Canada – 686k
Lim Yo Hwan – Korea – 427k
Vikram Kumar – India – 362k
Kim Enriquez – Philippines – 137k
Ki Nam Kim – Korea – 94k