ACOP Day 1b Expecting Large, Stacked Field
PokerStars SportsStar and Former World Cup Champion Ronaldo kicked off the Asian Championship of Poker Main Event yesterday, by wishing the players good luck. He followed that up by winning his own invitational sit-n-go. He will join the Day 1b players in today's flight and will be looking to add another win to his resume.
Day 1b begins at 3 p.m. local time today. This is the second starting flight for the $100,000 HKD ($13,000 USD) buy in event. Last year's champion, Gabriel Le Jossec bested a field of 291 players to claim the $6.3-million HKD prize ($820,000 USD approx). This year Le Jossec was unable to make it out of Day 1a when he was eliminated by Andy Andrejevic (136,200), so there will be a new ACOP Main Event Champion.
Zhengye Yao snatched the Day 1a chip lead from Andrejevic by 300 chips right during the final hands of the night, when he eliminated Jonathan Karamalikis.
Stephen Chidwick was among the Day 1a casualties, he busted not long after he got all in with pocket queens against Yat Wai Cheng, who was unfortunately holding pocket kings. PokerStars Team Pros Naoya Kihara and Chen An Lin were also eliminated in the Day 1a flight. Other PokerStars Team pros will be looking to do better today. Celina Lin, Bryan Huang, and Aditya Argwal are expected in the field today. They will be trying to join the 63 players who qualified for Day 2 tomorrow at 2 p.m local time. Lin has already cashed twice in the ACOP and is looking for more.
So far in the #2015ACOP series, cashed twice & made 1 final table. Today is the main event @PokerStarsMacau , Goooo! https://t.co/UMcrdq4lUOFollow @Celina_Lin
Yesterday's starting flight got 110 entrants and today expects to see closer to 200 with a packed field. Aside from the PokerStars team pros mentioned above, three-time bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche and the reigning EPT Barcelona champion John Juanda are also expected to play today.
It's shaping up to be an exciting day with a field full of strong players all vying for the first place prize and the ACOP Championship. Stay tuned to pokernews.com for all the day's action.