Chun-Yu Wu

The TWD 45,000 + 5,000 APT Main Event kicked off today and saw the largest-ever opening flight in the APT's 15-year history with 437 entries (338 unique) battling it out to progress to Day 2. A total of 187 players made it through the initial flight with both Namhyung Kim and Chun-Yu Wu sharing identical chip stacks at the top of the leaderboard.

Kim and Wu topped the leaderboard after ten 60-minute levels in a rare situation where both players bagged up exactly 305,200 chips each. South Korea's Kim already has an APT title to his name when he took down a Single Day High Roller event in Hanoi just three months ago for ₫349,200,000 ($14,876).

Japan's Naoki Matsumoto takes through 268,600 and remains near the top of the pack as he has done throughout the day. Matsumoto won a big pot to eliminate Hsian Yun Yang when he flopped a set of tens against the pocket aces of Yang.

Namhyung Kim

Yohwan Lim bagged 152,300 in his pursuit of another APT crown. Lim has ten APT titles to his name including two victories in APT Championship events in Manila and Ho Chi Minh.

Popular poker personality Kitty Kuo found a bag for Day 2 bringing 105,000 chips through with her. Kuo plays in some of the biggest games around the world as is here in her hometown playing the Main Event.

Other notables to make it through were Orathai Nasathaen (230,100), Zarvan Tumboli (204,100), Julien Rouxel (165,400), Abraham Ceesvin (152,100), Kenneth Hsiung (143,800), Farhad Aghayev (112,000), Nishant Sharma (97,000), Kun-Han Lee (77,600), Yashiro Naoki (72,300), and John Perry (60,500).

Here are the top ten stacks of Day 1A.

Join us for Flight B tomorrow which will have slightly faster 45-minute levels and gets underway at 12pm local time.

This live report is bought to you by lifeofpoker.com.

Players are counting their chips before bagging them up to take forward to Day 2.

Provisionally, it looks like there are 189 survivors from Day 1A but that will be confirmed in the next post.

Renman Kassam got 27,000 in pre-flop against Tak Chung Yan.

Yan A J Kassam T 2

Kassam must love Doyle Brunson.

However, the board didn't love Kassam as it came 6 K 8 5 4 giving the pot to Yan.

With 15 minutes to go on Day 1A, the tournament director has announced that three more hands will be played before the remaining players bag up their chips.

Hsiao-Wei Wu opened to 2,500 only for Natalie Teh to stick the rest of her 18,000 stack into the middle. Wu let his hand go and Teh was pushed the pot to boost her stack to 22,000 as we approach the end of play.

Teh took sixth in the Super High Roller yesterday for TWD 924,700 and is still hunting her first APT title after numerous final table appearances.

Victor Chong and Michael Soyza discussing something very important.

Do you think Soyza is asking if they can get any more poker tables in the building?

The Asia Poker Arena is absolutely packed to the rafters with 51 tables in the room all being occupied by players. The atmosphere in the room is electric as the riffling of chips can be heard in every corner along with cheers and groans that come with being a poker player.

We love it.

Kun-Han Lee got all in pre-flop against Nien Heng Li.

Lee K K Li A 8

The board ran clean for Lee coming 6 2 7 2 J and he got a double up to around 80,000 chips.

Anton Lu

Anton Lu is going strong here on Day 1A of the Main Event. The Australian player has around 160,000 chips in front of him as we enter the last level of play.

Lu completed a hat-trick of podium places at APT Phu Quoc winning a Turbo event, finishing runner-up in another Turbo event, and placing third in the High Speed High Roller for a combined score of over $23,000.

Raju Jaruplavath

On the turn of 6 2 9 8 Raju Jaruplavath shoved 39,900 into a pot of roughly the same size into Taiwan's Cheng Liang Chen.

Chen looked in a world of pain before eventually folding and stating that he folded a nine. Jaruplavath would put him out of his misery when he showed 6 6 for a flopped set.

Jaruplavath with 80,000 now.

A new era in the Asian Poker Tour? You bet!

Day 1A of the Main Event has so far drawn 424 entries, all coughing up the TWD 45,000 + 5,000 entry fee to be in with a shot of being crowned the APT Taipei Main Event Champion.

This is the biggest opening flight of any Main Event in APT history and guess what? Registration is still open!

The Asia Poker Arena is the stunning new venue in which the Taipei leg of the APT is being played so if you haven't yet, get yourself down there to have a look and be part of history.