Kaiya Shono

The penultimate flight of the 2023 APT Taipei Main Event has reached its conclusion with Japan's Kaiya Shono sitting on top of the counts after he accumulated 218,900 chips. A total of 280 entries (234 unique) were recorded with 144 players surviving the day who will all bring their stacks forward into Day 2.

The cumulative total of participants from the live flights now stands at 805 with Flight D still to play out. There were also 154 OnLive entries that played out on Natural8 which saw 21 players make the money and they will join the field on Day 3.

Singapore's Jia Lee (213,900) and Malaysia's You Jun Hong (192,700) rounded out the top three stacks with the latter winning a huge pot in the last level of the day to catapult him up the leaderboard. Hong had flopped a set of sixes and got maximum value from the Philippines' Michael De Leon who had turned two pair holding six-seven.

You Jun Hong

Mike Takayama bagged up 187,400 chips which was good for fourth in the counts. The Filipino player won a healthy pot against Hong Kong's Tsz Him Chan after he turned a flush holding ace-six and got paid off by Chan's queen-jack who had turned top pair.

In one of the last hands of the night, Lester Edoc tangled with Germany's Felix Von Rahden to create a huge pot which sent the German player rocketing up the leaderboard. Edoc five-bet shoved pocket sixes and ran into the pocket aces of Rahden which saw a significant chunk of the Filipino player's chips being slid across the table. Moments later, Edoc would be eliminated before being able to find a bag for the day.

There are a couple of former Main Event champions in the field with the aforementioned Takayama having won the event twice. Singapore's Shixiang Khoo (48,500) won the Main Event at the APT Summer Series Da Nang last summer and is the only other former champion that made it through Flight C.

Other notables to make it through were Daniel Smiljkovic (127,700), Frankie Cucchiara (123,400), Florent Remi (97,000), Vincent Chauve (87,600), Florencio Campomanes (63,500), Andrina Robovic (56,500), Kyle Diep (50,200), and Tony Miles (45,000).

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 of the APT Main Event kicked off at 6pm and is the last chance players have of running up a stack for Day 2, which will play out Wednesday, March 6. Registration will remain open until Day 2 begins at 11am.

Flight C of the APT Main Event has come to an end with the survivors now bagging up their chips for tomorrow's Day 2.

A full write-up of the day's action will follow shortly.

In the last six hands of the day, the complete action was missed on the hand, but when we got to the table Frank Cucchiara, Vincent Chauve, and Chiang Chia got all the chips into the middle with Cucchiara at risk.

We saw the board ran 8 9 6 7 Q

Frank 6 6

Vincent 8 9

Chiang K K

The main pot was shipped to Cucchiara and Chauve took down the side pot against Chiang's kings.

Felix Von Rahden

As players begin to bag up their stacks, a huge pot played out between Lester Edoc and Germany's Felix Von Rahden.

Andrew Deocampo had limped under-the-gun and Rahden made a min-raise to 2,400. Edoc then 3-bet to 9,500 and big-stacked Kaiya Shono cold-called. Deocampo got out of the way and Rahden 4-bet to 31,400. The action was now on Edoc and he 5-bet shoved for around 125,000. Shono quickly folded but Rahden snap-called his stack of 86,100 to create a monster pot in the last moments of the day.

Edoc 6 6

Rahden A A

A huge pot to end the flight and it was all but over on the Q 8 A flop as Rahden improved to a set. The K turn left Edoc drawing dead despite the 6 falling on the river which improved the Filipino to a set.

For a bit more salt in the wound, one of Edoc's railbirds let out a loud celebration before realizing that Rahden had flopped a set.

When we arrived at the table I-Chun 'Charlie' Chiu, who won an APT Single Day High Roller event in Taipei this series, was facing an all-in bet of 21,500 from Dhanesh Chainani on a board of 6 5 4 3 9 . After taking some time, Chiu eventually settled on a call.

Chainani turned over J 2 for a straight, which beat the 9 5 for two pair of Chiu.

Filipino poker legend Mike Takayama has just won a massive pot against Tsz Him Chan.

Takayama pushed forward a bet of 67,000 on a T 7 9 Q 5 board.

Chan went deep into the tank, overthinking what to do. In the pot were 56,000 chips, and Chan itself was playing 79,000.

After a 3 minutes tank Chan made the call with Q J .

A confident Takayama tabled A 6 for a nutflush.

Chan on his third bullet today is crippled to 12,000 while Takayama's stack catapulted to 205,000!

We saw Chan making his way to the exit a few hands after the hand. He will come back for Flight D.

Coming to the last level of Main Event Day 1c, we reached out to table 12 and saw the board of T T A 2 2 with Raymundo Gomez betting 2,500 into the pot of 8,600. But Smiljkovic Daniel put in the raised to 22,500, the 2X pot sized raise.

Gomez was struggling to find the call and eventually folded and showed an A to the table.

Graham Cowan

Australia's Graham Cowan just collected all of Alan Lau's chips and sent the player from Hong Kong to the rail.

The two had seen a flop of 8 8 4 with 30,000 chips in the middle, and Lau had shoved all in for around 25,000. Cowan quickly made the call to put Lau at risk.

Lau A K

Cowan 9 9

Cowan just needed to fade two more cards to eliminate Lau and managed to do it after the runout of 5 4 kept his pocket nines in the lead.

Lester Edoc

When we arrived at the table there were already 15,000 chips in the pot in a blind versus blind confrontation between Lester Edoc and Andrija Robovic. The board was showing4 5 9 9 , and Edoc had check-raised to 9,000 over a bet of 3,000 from Robovic. Robovic had called to see a river.

The river came the K , and after Edoc checked, Robovic announced all-in for 39,600 total. Edoc went deep into the tank, talking to himself, before eventually folding his hand. Robovic turned over the 6 as he dragged in the pot.