Hiroyuki Noda

After a historic first flight Day 1B of the APT Taipei Main Event - sponsored by Natural8 received a total of 317 (243 unique) entries today. A total of 144 entries made it through to Day 2 that will be played in two days. The chip leader at the end of Day 1B is Japan's Hiroyuki Noda that finished the day with 230,000.

Noda ended the day as chip leader after finishing 10 levels of 45-minutes on Day 1B. The Japanese tournament regular has a total of $556,093 in live tournament earnings and is the winner of 2 APT side events in the past (1. 2017 APT Incheon No Limit Hold'em Single Day Event, 2. 2019 APT Taipei Deep Stack Hyper Turbo).

Kiwanont Sukhum, the winner of the Mystery Bounty two days ago, had a good day at the office as well. He finished the day with 135,000 well above average. Another familiar face on the APT tour Yukina Oza made it to Day 2 with 116,500. Oza won her first APT trophy back in December at the APT Da Nang when she took down a Deep Stack Turbo Event.

Yukina Oza

Last nights winner of the APT Superstar Challenge, John "Jojo" Tech also made it to Day 2 with a slightly under average stack of 77,000. Yesterday he won one of the newly rebranded APT trophies, but it's the big lion the Filipino is aiming for this time.

Other familiar faces that made it through to Day 2 were Vietnam's Tran Huy Hoang (101,800), India's Jasven Saigal (87,800), and American tournament regular James Mendoza (57,700).

This live reporting blog was brought to you by lifeofpoker.com.

Top-10 Chip Counts Day 1B

Join us tomorrow at 12 PM for Day 1C of the Main Event.

We are down to the final four hands of the evening in the Main Event. We made our round through the poker area and recorded up several interesting pots.

1. In the first big pot we came across the classic of all coolers between Soyoung Go's K K and Shao Tang Lu's A A . The board ran out T 4 J 6 T . Go was covered by Lu and therefore was busted out 3 hands before the end. Lu picked up a pot worth 85,000.
2. On table 16 we spotted an UTG all-in for 22,100 from Pak Long Ling everyone folded to the big blind Jue Cheng Ming. The Macau resident was sitting on around 200,000 and thought it over for a while before making the call. Ling showed 6 6 and we were of to the races as Ming made the call with A 7 . The race was however a very short race as the flop came 6 K K . Ling doubled up to 49,700, while Ming plays just under 180,000.
3. While the Asian Poker Arena slowly is getting more empty we made our way to the last table that showed activity. In the very last hand of Day 1B, Chih Feng Lu opened the action UTG to 3,000. It got folded all the way back to the small blind of Wei-Lik Siow from Singapore. He decided it was do or die and jammed his 32,200 into the middle. Lu made the call.

Lu: A Q

Siow: K J

The flop and turn were 3 4 3 6h: giving Siow a flush draw with his six other outs. Day 1B ended for Siow in tears as the river bricked, 8 .

This hand began with Tu Thanh Le opening to 2,700, SeungYeol Kim 3-betting to 8,600, then Wai Tak Choy 4-betting to 18,600. Le folded whereas Kim called.

Flop came 6 5 9 , Kim was first to act and he checked to Choy who downsized his bet significantly to 7,000, Kim called. The turn was the 8 and river was the T where both players checked to showdown. Kim showed A K which was good enough to win this pot.

The moment we saw Jacque Ramsden stand up from his seat we rushed over to his table to see what happened. Yi-Sheng Wang that battled earlier Bonadies has just busted Jacque Ramsden from Day 1B of the Main Event.

Wang showed K K on a board of Q 5 3 J Q and busted Ramsden as he only had ace-king. Ramsden will not jump back in the field for today as he told us he will go back to his hotel room and take another shot tomorrow.

When the action folded to the button, Yoda Lin would open with just about any two cards. Which is exactly what he did in this hand.

Lin opened to 3,000 then called a 3-bet of 9,000 by Daiki Miura from the small blind. Flop came 4 2 2 , Lin called a c-bet of 8,000 and both players saw the turn 3 . Miura asked to see Lin's stack before sizing a bet of 20,000, only to face an all-in soon after. Miura laid down his hand and Lin showed 2 as the two shared a laugher together.

We just bumped into Reiji Kono and the Japanese regular just bought himself a big drink after getting busted twice he told us. His bad run however did not end as he walked two steps further where someone bumped into him and knocked his entire drink all over the floor.

When it rains it pours.

When we arrived at table 11 it was again John Bonadies in action. This time in a three-way pot. He did tell us during the pot that he actually is not Irish, but British. Back to the hand where the three players saw a flop of 7 8 5 Yi-Sheng Wang lead into the other two players with a bet of 6,500. Hsueh Bang Liao went out of the way, but Bonadies called.

Wang kept the pressure on at 3 turn as het betted out 12,500. The Brit was still not impressed making the quick call. By this time the pot has grown 50,500.

On the 9 Wang tried again, but this time with a smaller bet of 9,500. Bonadies snapped him off with A A , but Wang already mucked even before Bonadies called.

Australian poker pro, Yita Choong has not had a good run here in the APT. Choong, who only managed a min-cash in the APT Kickoff event so far, then becoming the bubble boy in the APT Superstar Challenge yesterday, and busted in the APT Single Day High Roller just earlier today.

Perhaps out of frustration, just punted his stack after buying into the Main Event Flight B during the break for 34 big blinds. Choong found a spot on the big blind with 9 9 , decided to just rip it in when an opened and a call was made by two players. The initial raiser Goken Okawa made the call holding Q Q and busted Choong from yet another tournament.

Choong, who has a live earnings of over US$1,000,000 will be seen again soon enough, and hopefully in a better circumstances.

Noda is not letting his big stack of chips go to rest, instead they are working pretty damn hard.

In this hand, the under the gun player opened to 2,200 and Noda flatted on the cut-off before a 3-bet of 12,200 made by Raja Puttamsetty in the big blind. With about 200,000 worth of ammos to use, Noda made the call and the two went heads-up to the flop.

Flop came 2 6 5 and both players checked. Turn was the :Q , Puttamesetty then put 11,000, almost half his remaining chips, in the middle. Noda put a fraction of his chips worth the same amount in also. River was the J , Puttamesetty checked with 15,000 behind, Noda put perhaps a bit of a troll bet of 13,000, just 2,000 less than what Puttamesetty had remain. This put Puttamesetty in an awkward situation, after some thought he threw in his last three blue (5,000) chips in but without saying anything. One could argue he only had called the bet instead of going all in, but nonetheless when the cards were shown and Noda having the nuts holding 3 4 , Puttamesetty left with a smile and did not attempt to make a case of anythin.

Also worth noting, John "Jojo" Tech has just taken his seat on this table with his second bullet of the day. Tech is wasting no time to jump back into action after a big win last night in the APT Superstar Chellenge event.

Chuan Ching Chen has found himself in a pretty sweet spot to score a double-up.

It all started with Jason Ip opening to 1,600 then Chaeyeon Lee from South Korea 3-bet to 4,500 before the action even got to Chen, who was holding the pocket rockets. Chen didn't take long to put in a cold 4-bet making it 11,500 to go and it's back to Lee after Ip folded. Lee eyed her opponent's stack which has about 20,000 in it and decided to see a flop.

Flop: 4 2 8

Lee started with a check then later moved all in after Chen made a c-bet for half his stack. Holding the A , Chen snapped it off and found himself in safe haven against Lee's A K , a K on the turn brought him back to mortality and a 4 completed brought him home with a full double-up.