Hale Leads Into Day 2; 109 Players Remain
Welcome back to PokerNews' live coverage of the 2012 PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Seoul Main Event here at the Paradise Casino Walkerhill in South Korea.
Day 2 is set to begin at 12:15 PM local time and 109 players are still in contention. Leading them all is Day 1b big stack Jhana Hale from Australia. He bagged up a massive 173,800 in chips and has over 40,000 more than his closest competitor, Clayton Chang with 133,000. The other four players yielding six-figure stacks include Day 1a chip leader Christopher Park (119,800), Daisuke Endo (110,300), Vincent Rubianes (104,500) and Hong Yan Bian (100,000).
Among those returning, only one player is representing Team PokerStars Pro and that is Celina Lin. She'll enter the day with 38,200, which is just over 10,000 chips short of the current average. Along with Lin, other notables back to continue the quest are Michael Guzzardi, Michael Mariakis and Andrew Scott.
The reigning Aussie Millions Main Event champion Oliver Speidel is also still alive, having flourished on Day 1a and climbing to 74,400. His fellow final table member from his big win down under, Kenneth Wong, will be coming back with 22,900.
With the top 28 places being awarded an in-the-money finish, plenty of players will unfortunately have to go home empty handed today. As it stands right now, the plan is to play down to the final two tables of action before wrapping things up. That will put the event well into the money and should take us about 10 levels of play, according to Tournament Director and APPT President Danny McDonagh.
The start of the day is just around the corner, so be sure to stay tuned right here on our live reporting pages for all of the action.