Thomas Ward

The final flight of the 2023 APT Taipei Main Event is in the books with New Zealand's Thomas Ward leading the pack with 246,200 chips. There were 166 entries (141 unique), and 86 players survived Day 2. The total number of participants now stands at 1120 entries (including the 154 OnLive entries), with 442 players returning for Day 2. The late registration is still open until Day 2, so more entries will follow.

Vietnam's Nguyen Anh Minh finished the day as second in chips (189,200), while the top 3 was completed with Taiwan's Wei Cheng Yin (187,500). Former two-time APT Main Event champion Philippines' Lester Edoc bagged a top-10 stack by winning several pots at the end of the flight. Edoc, that took down the Single Day High Roller earlier this series and was the runner-up in the Superstar Challenge will bring 148,800 to Day 2 tomorrow.

Flight D must have been the toughest flight of this year's Main Event, as several tables were stacked with poker professionals with impressive resumes. At one point, The so-called 'Table of Death" welcomed 6 out of 8 players with resumes of over several hundred thousand dollars in live tournament cashes.

Local here, Chih Wei Fan, who shot multiple bullets spread over multiple flights, wasn't able to bring a stack into Day 2 tomorrow, which means that we will see him inside the Asia Poker Arena before the start of Day 2.

Other notables that made it to Day 2 were USA's Anthony Hu (134,300), UK's Rehman Kassam (97,900) 4th place finisher in the Mystery Bounty Sho Katsura (94,200), Australia's Zheming Zhu (83,500), Spain's Guillem Segarra (76,700), Germany's Martin Sedlak (57,400), and Taiwan's Shung Er Sua (56,300).

APT Taipei Main Event Flight D Top-10

A full APT Main Event Flight C Survivor List can be found BY CLICKING HERE

Day 2 of the APT Taipei Main Event will start tomorrow 11 AM local time. The APT live stream can be followed through all APT social media channels:

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This live blog was brought to you by Life of Poker.

The final flight of the APT Taipei Main Event is in the books.

A full recap is coming to you shortly.

The local grinder Teng-Kuei Hsu just shipped another pot by keeping the pressure on.

The tournament director announced the final 5 hands when Hsu fired out 4,000 from the big blind on a 3 K K board. Hsu is battling Zheming Zhu and Philip Reyes. Both players made the call.

When the 3 hits the board Hsu took his time before he betted out 15,000. Zhu and Reyes quickly fold.

Hsu sits on a top-5 stack with only three more hands to go.

We are down to the final 5 hands of the day.

We are facing some technical difficulties at the moment, but Thomas Ward is still our Flight D chip leader.

Lester "Hazel" Timonera is hanging in. She just pushed off American poker professional Daniel Donahue off a hand on a 5 J J J board she fired out 10,000 and Donahue made the call.

When the 6 river hit the felt Timonera betted out 15,000 leaving only around 6,000 behind. Donahue made the quick fold.

We just entered the last level of the day.

Thomas Ward is still our chip leader.

When we arrived at Table 17, we saw Vincent Rubianes standing and leaning on the table. Mervyn Wong put The American in a world of pain by going all in for 39,800 on a 4 Q K J board.

In the pot we saw 45,000 and Rubianes was playing 43,000 behind. If Rubianes calls and is wrong he basically is busted.

Rubianes deeply inhaled one more time before he released his hand in utter disappointment. A big pot goes the way of Wong.

Peter Tran

While a shorty just busted at Table 17 Peter Tran and Jeffrey Lo were having a heart-to-heart.

Lo, "Where are you from?" "I am from Toronto," responded Tran. "No way I spend time there as well", Lo answered.

The conversation went on, and the action was mainly ignored. A new bromance is brewing during the last two levels of the APT Taipei Main Event.

With only two more levels to go, our Flight D chip leader is Thomas Ward. The tournament crusher from New Zealand is the only player with an above 200,000 stack.

We missed the preflop action between Czar Ian Marcos and Guillem Segarra, but we saw 12,500 in the pot on a 3 2 8 board.

Marcos fired out a bet of 11,300, and Segarra went into the tank. Segarra, born and raised in the Basque region, decided to put the ultimate heat on Marcos by moving all in for 45,500.

Marcos seemed disgusted by the move, counting out his chip stack. In the end, Marcos decided to lay it down.