2nd day of the APT Incheon Main Event is now over, The final numbers are in and the results are astounding. The number of participants reached 930 players. Of these players, only 134 remain, and at the head of this pack is Australian player Aaron Lim.
With a substantial lead over his competitors, Aaron Lim is well-positioned to dominate the next day of the event where the top 9 players will advance to the final table. With so many players entering the tournament, this has led to a boom in the prize pool, rising to KRW 1,867,347,000 (USD 1,411,975). This has become the largest APT prize pool in the country.
Aaron Lim’s Success in the Main Event Day 2
Day 2 action concluded after reaching a large 135 entries. This amount was achieved by the seventh-day level and by then Aaron Lim had now reached the top of the pack with a chip lead. He burst the bubble by defeating local player Gary Moon in a blind vs. blind all-in preflop battle.
He held a hand of 7 of spades and 9 of clubs, defeating Gary Moon’s Ace of Hearts and Queen of Spades. With this defeat, Aaron Lim gained a 350,000 pot and added it to his existing chip count which now exceeded one million. This gives him 180 big blinds to take for Day 3.
Of the survivors, only 134 will return to the poker tables as Japan’s Masaki Nakamura made his money both through both live and online games. Together, these two methods secured him a minimum payout of KRW 3,700,000 (US$ 2,800) for his smaller stack in exchange for pulling out this stack. This leaves him with 197,000 chips when moving forward.
The second day of the tournament is important as this is where the money flows in and where the tournament bubble forms. Only the players within this bubble will obtain part of the prize pool, with players in higher positions getting more money. Having such a prize pool also attracted some high-profile poker champions like former APT Main Event champions like Lester Edoc (658,000), Mike Takayama (108,000), and Punnat Punsri (216,000), the APT Taipei Main Event champion.
It isn’t just former APT Main Event champions who will be attending as other APT poker stars have also joined this event and made it to day 3 of the event. APT Super High Roller champion Milos Petakovic (609,000), four-time APT titleholder Dicky Tsang (258,000), and APT Superstar Challenge victor Jun Hao Wu (238,000) advanced. They’re accompanied by APT Da Nang Main Event runner-up Shinya Maeda (500,000), Chin Wei Lim (432,000), Sparrow Cheung (262,000), along with Yu-Chung Chang (129,000) and Danny Tang (82,000) from Natural8.
Having so many respected poker players means Aaron Lim can expect intense competition. All these players and the other survivors will compete to reach one of the 9 slots in the final table.
Even before Day 2’s events, the prize pool of the APT Incheon Main Event has already risen to record-breaking levels.
If you want to learn more about that development, you can read our APT Incheon Main Event post.