Shixiang Khoo
Day 3 of the VND 35,000,000 APT Main Event has come to a close and after seven levels of play it was Singapore's Shixiang Khoo that bagged up the most chips with a stack of 5,020,000. The event attracted a total of 675 entries that created a tour prize pool record in Vietnam with VND 20,624,625,000 (~USD $867k) up for grabs and a huge VND 3,935,285,000 (~$165,280) for first place.
Khoo came into Day 2 sixth in chips with 1,078,000 and continued his upward trend by eliminating Dinh Tien Thanh in sixteenth place. Khoo held pocket jacks and turned a set to leave Thanh's ace-king drawing dead which saw the Singaporean's stack shoot up to around two million. A later hand saw Khoo four-bet the turn against Quan Qiu with the Chinese player eventually letting his hand go which left Khoo well on his way to the final table.
Daiki Shingae was the Day 2 chip leader in the APT Summer Series Hanoi Main Event but failed to convert that into a final table. Things would go a lot smoother for the Japanese player this time around as he brings through 4,965,000 which is good for second in the counts. Shingae finished sixteenth in that Main Event for VND 156,200,000 and has already secured a career-best score with his run here but it's the trophy he will be eyeing along with the top prize.
Shinya Maeda
Shinya Maeda has the third biggest stack of 3,950,000 with most of them coming in a hand against Tran Duc Tuan. Tuan had made a huge bluff on the flop with just nine high holding eight-nine with Maeda making the right call after flopping a pair of aces holding ace-jack. The runout would be clean for the Japanese player which would send him up the leaderboard and onto the final table.
Yu-Chung Chang also managed to make the final table and will bring 2,470,000 chips into battle as he seeks his fourth APT title. Chang eliminated two players during the last two tables by sending China's Qiu and Japan's Junichi Nakagiri to the rail, the latter of which burst the final table bubble. Chang has almost $750,000 in live tournament earnings and will certainly be one of the favorites come tomorrow.
Koangho Lee also secures a spot at the final table and does so with 1,650,000 chips. Lee eliminated two dangerous plays in Kyle Bao and Joshua Mccully on his way to the final nine and he will be hungry for more as he hunts his first live tournament win.
Tran Duc Tuan
When play gets underway tomorrow the shortest stack will be Vietnam's Tuan with just 455,000 chips. Tuan's stack has been on a rollercoaster journey throughout the last two days with highs of close to four million. He did eliminate Amit Kaushik to boost his stack but the Vietnamese player may be rueing that failed bluff against Maeda.
Some of the notables to play Day 3 but fall short of the final table were Pham Duy Anh (46th), Kyle Bao (33rd), Daniel Brugman (32nd), Jiyoung Kim (26th), Gavin Flynn (21st) and Joshua Mccully (18th),
The final nine players and their stacks can be found below.
A full APT Main Event Payout List can be found by clicking here
And here is a look at the final table payouts.
Join us for the final table tomorrow from 12:15pm local time as we play down to a champion. Updates will be posted here throughout the day but you can also follow all of the action live (with a 30-minute delay) on stream by clicking through the following channels.
See you tomorrow.