Daisuke Ogita

The reigning APT Main Event champion Daisuke Ogita made a fantastic start to defending his title after topping the counts of Flight C with 206,000 chips.

Ogita, who took down the record-breaking event at APT Taipei for TWD 12,944,020 (~$409,730) less than two months ago, finished at the summit of the leaderboard which saw 100 survivors making it through the day from the 207 entries (177 unique). It brings the cumulative total of entries to 887 (which includes the OnLive entries) with Flight D still to play out and registration open until the start of play on Day 2.

Japanese players occupy all three of the podium places with Kenichi Takarabe (205,300) and Naruyasu Ota (199,700) rounding out the top three stacks. Hong Kong duo Tsz Him Chan (141,600) and Sparrow Cheung (137,200) also found themselves amongst the top ten and in a good position to make a deep run.

Sparrow Cheung

Thailand's Napat Chokejindachai, who finished third in the Main Event at the APT's last outing in South Korea, bagged up 128,000 in his quest for another run at the title. Chokejindachai cut a three-way deal and ended with the second-biggest payout at in the Main Event at APT Incheon last year and will be looking to emulate that success here in Jeju.

Taiwan's Pete Chen (93,400) and China's Weiran Pu (93,000) have been busy battling it out in the high-stakes arena over the past few days with the APT Super High Roller and Superstar Challenge but have now switched their attention to the festival's highlight tournament. Both players bagged up almost identical stacks and will come back tomorrow to put them to work.

Other notables to make it through were bracelet winner Dong Chen (112,600), former Main Event champion Feng Zhao (91,200), Kitty Kuo (86,800), Vincent Wong (83,500), and former Main Event champion Yohn Paredes (54,500).

The top ten stacks can be found below.

A full APT Main Event Flight C Survivor List can be found by CLICKING HERE.

Flight D is now underway and is the last chance the players have to run up a stack for Day 2. The latest updates can be found via the APT blog.

Flight C of the APT Main Event has ended.

A recap of the day's action will follow shortly.

When we got to table, we saw the board came out 2 9 T and there was around of 7,000 in the middle.

Bing Wu fired a bet of 3,000 from the cutoff and Houwenfeng Li made the call from the button.

The two players checked the 3 turn and saw the 6 hit the river. Both of them checked, Wu flipped over A 5 and Li turned over A 7 , which meant Li won the pot with a higher kicker.

The final five hands are being dealt on each table after which the survivors will bag up their chips ready for Day 2.

Bing Wu opened up to 3,000 from Utg and was called by Houwenfeng Li and Dong Chen in Utg+1 and Lowjack. But Rebei Karim decided to shoved allin in the button for 19,600.

The action returned to Wu, who decided to fold, and Li Tank called the 19,600. Chen quickly got away and mucked his hand.

Karim A K

Li 7 7

The dealer turned over a A 3 Q flop, Karim took the lead with the Ace on the window.

The A did not change anything, with the 8 came to the river, which meant Karim held till the end and scored a sweet double right before Day 1 finished.

One of the current tournament chip leaders,Tsz Him Chan, opened from early position to 2,500 and was called by Singapore's Steve Ng from the big blind.

Both players checked the K 9 6 flop to see the Q fall on the turn. Ng checked for a second time and Chan put out a delayed continuation bet of 3,000. Ng called and they headed to a river.

Ng checked for a third and final time on the 2 river. Chan fired again, this time for 7,000, which forced a quick fold from Ng.

Frankie Cucchiara

Frankie Cucchiara was short-stacked in the big blind and with 2,400 invested in the pot, he was in desperate need of some help. The action folded all the way to Daisuke Ogita in the small blind who gave Cucchiara the best gift a short-stacked player could ask for — a walk.

Cucchiara laughed as he collected the small pot and showed six-deuce offsuit to the table.

After just losing a pot with a flush over a higher flush, Malaysia's Kun Kiet Wong just doubled up by being on the right side of a cooler.

Wong had opened preflop, Rail Akhmetov had three-bet, and Chuan Yu had four-bet from the button. When the action got back to Wong, he shoved all in for 42,000 which got Akhmetov to fold, but Yu made the call.

Wong A A

Yu A K

Even the dealer thought Yu had lost this one as she had counted Wong's stack and informed Yu before even running the board. After a few seconds, she looked at the empty table before realizing that the community cards had to be dealt and ran a board of :3s 7 9 Q J which did double Wong up.

We are at the last level of Day1 Flight C with 204 entries and 105 players remaining.

Day 1 will be finishing the end of level 10.

France's Karim Rebei opened to 2,600 from the button and got called by Bing Wu from the big blind.

The two players saw a flop of T 4 2 which was checked by Wu . Rebei fired a continuation bet of 3,000 and Wu made the made.

When the 2 came on the turn Wu checked for a second time. Rebei put out a bet of 2,500 and Wu called again.

The 6 on the river went check-check and Wu turned over K T for top pair with a king kicker. This was good enough to beat the T 7 of Rebei.