Ravn Teo

Day 2 of this historic APT Main Event is in the books as 173 survivors bagged up their stacks to take forward into Day 3. There were 562 start-of-day survivors from the initial four live flights with 52 players registering before the start of play today joining the alternate list, meaning a total of 614 players had chips to play with during Day 2.

When all was said and done, a total of 1,434 entries were counted for the APT Main Event breaking the record for the biggest field size & prize pool with TWD 62,594,100 ($2,039,630) in the pot for players to contest over and a juicy first prize of TWD 11,210,400 ($365,270).

You can view all prize pool and payout information HERE.

In addition to the 173 survivors from Day 2, there will be 27 online qualifiers joining the field tomorrow bringing the total number of players to start Day 3 to 200. The full chip stacks and a seat draw for Day 3 will be posted in due course which will include both the live and online qualifiers.

Ravn Teo from Singapore – who held the chip lead throughout most of day 2 in APT Kickoff event and the final table – has once again found himself at the top of the chip counts going into day 3 of the APT Main Event, bagging an impressive 1,105,000.

The majority of Teo's chips came from a hand where he scored a double knock-out with his aces, that pot alone worth over 1,000,000.

Coming in as a very close second is Indian poker professional Nishant Sharma with 1,064,000. Sharma is the only other player that ended the day above a million; the Indian's poker resume is impressive with a total of $545,431 in live career tournament winnings. Sharma has several APT final tables to his name including a runner-up finish in a Super High Roller event in Hanoi last year for ₫833,140,000 ($35,612), and also came sixth earlier in the series in the APT Kickoff.

Kitty Kuo

Natural8 Ambassador Kitty Kuo also bagged Day 3 with 407,000. Kuo will be the local favourite to win yet another APT Main Event Title here in her hometown of Taipei.

James En-Ning Chen also brings through a healthy stack of 397,000 in his pursuit of an APT title. The bracelet winner boasts almost $7,500,000 in career tournament winnings and would thoroughly enjoy adding an APT Main Event to his poker resume here in Taipei.

Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier also made an appearance here today, the poker superstar buying into the Main Event just before the start of Day 2. The Frenchman was friendly throughout the day, meeting his many fans here at the CTP Asia Poker Arena. Unfortunately Elky busted on our feature table mid-way through Day 2.

Following is the top ten chip count of Day 2:

Here are the top nine pay out structure below:

Play will resume at 12:15pm local time on May 5, 2023 and you can follow all the action via the APT live stream – which will be available with a 30 minute delay. The links are as follows:Youtube Twitch Facebook

The upcoming APT Summer Series Hanoi Vietnam starts on 26 May 2023, for those of you who missed out on this historic series here in Taipei, please do check out the series schedule here. We will see you tomorrow.

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

The three players that were eliminated took 176th, 175th, and 174th place with one of those places being in the money and because we were in hand-for-hand play Hon Cheong Lee, Ping-Hsien Chan, and Hiroki Kato will all share a min-cash of NTD 78,300.

Hon Cheong Lee

We arrived at table 6 on the moment the hand-for-hand play was announced by APT President Neill Johnson. Hon Cheong Lee, runner-up at the APT Superstar Challenge, was UTG with only 5 big blinds. He decided to go for it and not wait for the big blind. The action was folded to big blind Jae Wook Shin who decided to go for it. The room buzzed due to bubble announcement and many people gathered around table 6. Once Neill Johnson gave the go we saw a showdown.

Lee: K Q .

Shin: J 4 .

The flop came 9 8 A . Both players missed what meant Lee was still in the lead. Players and audience started getting excited when the 7 hit the turn. Shin now had ten outs to put Lee in a world of pain.

The moment the T was tabled the Asia Poker Arena erupted in amazement and cheer. All the other players are now in the money. Hon Cheong Lee is our bubble boy.

Hiroki Kato

Hiroki Kato is one of the three bubble boys of the APT Main Event Taipei 2023. Hao Kai was the person who delivered the blow.

Kato was holding the K Q when he was all in on the flop against Kai's K J . Board was reading Q T K .

The bubble has already been burst by the time this hand gets played out, meaning if Kato survived this, he will be coming back for day three tomorrow. But a 9 dropped on the turn while almost every single person in the room was rooting against him then a 2 completed the board.

Applause was all around as all players were now in the bagging process for day three.

Congratulation to all the players making the money and good luck on day three starting at 12:15pm tomorrow.

Ping-Hsien Chan

Ping-Hsien Chan shoved his remaining 125,000 chips into the middle and Ikko Takahara made the call. Behind them both was Taiwan's Chih Wei Fan who also shoved his stack in the middle for around 300,000. The action then got to Selim Souissi in the big blind who seemed to have a serious decision on his hands as he slowly worked his way through his newly-allocated time bank chips. Eventually, Souissi did let his hand go with the action now back on Takahara. By this point, the table was surrounded by spectators and players alike all trying to catch a glimpse of the action unfolding in this hand. Japan's Takahara's stack covered that of Fan's and ultimately he decided to make the call by flicking in a single chip.

Chan A T Fan K K Takahara A K

Little did Chan know the chain reaction he would set off by shoving his 15 big blinds on the bubble. There were 176 players still remaining in the tournament when hand-for-hand play had begun with just two more eliminations needed to burst the bubble.

The dealer had paused to allow the first of three hands to play out that had a player all in. Once that had been completed, it was time for the board to be ran.

Chan at risk and covered by two players. Fan is in the lead but a huge stack would be the prize for Takahara if he could find a way to win the hand.

Without further ado, let's see the board.

2 Q 6

That's about as clean as it can get for Fan and leaves Chan drawing extremely thin. There were two backdoor flush draws that Fan would love to fade as the dealer was given the go-ahead to deal the turn.

5

Chan is out of the Main Event with Fan on the brink of winning a massive pot if he can just fade an ace on the river. Takahara sitting motionless as he awaits the dealer to complete the board. Once again, the tournament staff give the nod to the dealer to deal the river card...

J

Huge pot for Fan. The Taiwanese player jumps up in delight as his pocket kings hold on and he is shipped a huge pot in the last hand of Day 2. Chan bubbles but there is still one more hand to play out.

Lester Edoc shoved all in with K J and was called by the Q Q of Kai Wong.

Wong would flop a set on the Q 2 T flop but Edoc had an open-ended straight draw.

A turn K gave Edoc top pair but it was no good against the flopped set of Wong. Edoc now needed an ace or a nine to win the hand or else he would be the bubble boy.

The river came a 9 keeping the Filipino alive.

Edoc now has 150,000 which will make him feel a lot more comfortable on this bubble.

Three players have been eliminated to burst our APT Main Event bubble!

Cheers can be heard around the room and players are now bagging up for Day 3.

More information about the bubble will follow soon.

We are now in the hand for hand process until the bubble boy reveals himself.

After which all 173 remainder players will bag for day three, joining the 27 online qualifiers including the reigning APT Da Nang Main Event 2022 champion Doo Sik Nam. All players will be guranteed a minimum prize of TWD $78,300.

Ravn Teo just won a pot worth over 1,000,000!

Teo has knocked out two players in one massive pot holding A A against Patrick Liang's K K and Yen Yung Lee's 9 9 .

All three players flopped a full house when it came 5 5 5 , all the chips went in the middle, making this the biggest pot of the Main Event thus far.

The board ran clean for Teo and he is now one of the chip leader in the APT Main Event.

Just four more players to go until we reach the money. Just four!

Which unlucky souls will not make it into the money? Stay tuned.