APPT Cebu Main Event

Day 2 of the APPT Cebu Main Event was full of action with Korean Kim Gab Yong climbing to the top of the pack and Hinrichsen losing his chip lead.

In many ways Manny Pacquiao can be considered the greatest boxer of his generation, in the Philippines he is a star where he began his career as a light flyweight and has since won world championships in eight separate weight classes. At the 2010 APPT Cebu Main Event the entire tournament room stopped to watch Pacquiao destroy his latest challenger Mexican Antonio Margarito. The match made it easy to understand why comparisons between boxing and poker are frequently made, with Pacquiao repeatedly landing blows on his larger opponent.

On Day 2, PokerStars qualifier Andrew Hinrichsen was the only player to enter the field with more than 100,000 chips. Throughout the day Hinrichsen managed to double his chip count, however, the real story of the day belongs to Korean Kim Gab Yong. Yong fought hard for some big pots and ended the day with 393,600 chips, almost 150,000 ahead of Hinrichsen.
Kim did not manage to get value for all of his hands, he flopped bottom set in a six-way pot and later he couldn’t find any takers for his half-pot flop bet. Occasionally he was playing a little like a reckless gambler which also cost him some chips.

However, Kim had a huge boost in Level 11, when Tom Grigg from Australia four-bet shoved for more than 100,000 chips holding ace-ten. Kim called holding pocket tens and Grigg was knocked out of the tournament when the board failed to help him. From this point Kim was basically in control of the big stack making opponent’s work hard for their chips.
The boxing match was not the only distraction from the poker; a huge thunderstorm arrived towards the end of the second level of play. The poker tent felt as if it might collapse as strong wind and rain hurdled themselves at the tent. Later on the power generator failed leaving the tent in darkness.

However, throughout the storm cards were dealt, chips were won and lost and a number of players tried to increase their stack counts. The most successful two were Beeckx and Caroline De Weerd, they will be returning for Day three, the others, which includes all the PokerStars Team Pros will have to just sit back and enjoy the resorts facilities throughout the rest of the tournament.
The tournament will continue until one player takes home the top prize of $132,000. For more details visit the APPT Cebu payouts and winners page.