Strong Turnout on Day 1b in Manila; Zheko Dinev Takes Over the Lead

Day 1b chip leader Zheko Dinev

An exciting day of poker has come to an end at the stunning five-star Okada Manila resort in Paranaque City as the field size of the first flight in the 2020 WPTDeepStacks Philippines PHP75,000 ($1,500) Main Event was not only surpassed but nearly doubled.

After a promising start on Day 1a with 126 entries, the second flight turned out to be far bigger, attracted 176 unique players and 42 re-entries to create a field of 218 entries and boosted the total field size to 344 entries in order to create a prize pool of PHP 22,523,400 ($445,513).

When it came to bagging and tagging in The Coral Room, only 55 players made it all the way to the end of level 14 and that leaves 79 survivors for Day 2 with the top 43 spots to be paid.

A new chip leader has emerged as Bulgaria’s Zheko Dinev claimed 387,000 to his name, good enough for 129 big blinds on Day 2. Christopher Mateo finished second with 310,500 and will return as the third-biggest stack after a good night of sleep while Christos Vlahos was hot on his heels with 306,000.

Other notables that bagged big on Day 1b were Scott Alm 248,500), Daniel Holmedahl (204,000), Zackery Lowrie (182,000), Graeme Siow (175,500), Ryan McAllister (156,500), and Koji Takagi (135,500).

Among the Season 18 WPT Asia-Pacific Player of the Year contenders, only WPT Cambodia finalist Si Yang Phua advanced with a stack of 80,000, along with other familiar names such as Johnnie “Vibes” Moreno (92,000), Jessie Leonarez (82,000), and Linh Tran (42,000).

WPT Vietnam champion Hamish Crawshaw, who is currently second on the leaderboard and trails Hari Varma just by the cash prize tiebreaker, entered twice without success and the same also applied for Jae Kyung “Simba” Sim, Brett Kennedy, Michael Falcon, and Phachara Wongwichit. Furthermore, 2016 WPT Philippines champion Ying Lin Chua, the last player to win a WPT title on the island, was also ousted twice.

Another familiar face of the Asia-Pacific region to hit the rail after the end of the registration period was Taiwan’s Pete Chen. One day after the travel ban was lifted, Chen made the short trip over to Manila and entered late on Day 1b. The Season 16 WPT Asia Player of the Year and WPT Champions Club member even ran his chips up to nearly four times the starting stack but eventually lost a flip with ace-king against the pocket queens of Rogel Del Rosario.

WPT Champions Club member Pete Chen

Ronnie Bardah, Victor Chong, Mike Takayama, John Tech, Richard Marquez, Vincent Huang and William Kang were just some notables that saw their hopes vanish throughout the 14 levels of 40 minutes each.

With 79 survivors after the two starting days, almost half of the field will leave empty-handed on Day 2 as the top 43 spots earn a portion of the prize pool at the Okada Manila. The action will recommence with blinds of 1,500-3,000 and a big blind ante of 3,000 as of 1 p.m. local time on Sunday, February 16th, 2020, and the penultimate tournament day is scheduled to play down to the final table.

As of Day 2 and until heads-up, the level duration will increase to 60 minutes each. Stay tuned right here on WPT.com to find out who will get one step closer to become the third WPT champion on the Philippines! Live updates of all the action can also be found on Somuchpoker.com.

The Coral Room at Okada Manila