Trung Van Nguyen Leads the Way After Day 1a of the WPT Prime Vietnam Main Event

The first of three starting days for the inaugural WPT Prime Main Event has wrapped up at the Crown Poker Club in Ha Noi, Vietnam. It was the second time the World Poker Tour visited the venue in the heart of the capital of Vietnam and the marquee WPT Prime Vietnam 2022 Main Event is off to an excellent start.

With a buy-in of VND 25 million (∼ $1,088), the marquee tournament of the entire series has a VND 8 billion guarantee and all signs point towards a far bigger prize pool up for grabs when the action resumes for Day 2 on Sunday, May 29, 2022. By then, the survivors of all three starting days will have locked up a portion of the prize money as each of the three flights plays down all the way to the money bubble. One out of eight contenders will advance and that already applied on Day 1a.

The first starting day created a field of 112 unique players and 33 re-entries for 145 total entries and the top 18 finishers advanced. Vietnam’s Trung Van Nguyen ended up at the top of the leaderboard with a stack of 864,000 and the only contender in somewhat close contact is India’s Lakshpal Singh with 702,000. Both were the big stacks towards the bubble and continued to build their stacks by wielding the massive advantage over their opponents.

Singh also attempted to burst the money bubble but Benjamin Sai escaped with ace-nine versus trey-nine. Instead, it was local player Meo Xinhh who was eliminated on the bubble moments later. Xinhh got it in good with ace-king versus king-ten but her fate was sealed when Tien Van Pham rivered a ten-high straight.

Once the final 18 players were determined, the chips were bagged up and some notables were among the  survivors including Tien Van Pham (405,000), the Thank God for Poker ambassadors Kunal Patni (304,000) and Jasven Saigal (260,000), and Tien Quyet “Teddy” Pham (133,000). Other well-known names in the Asia-Pacific poker scene were not as fortunate.

Among the plenty Day 1a casualties were the 2018 WPTDeepStacks Vietnam winner Dhaval Mudgal, Romit Advani, Sumit Sapra, Vu Duc Trung, recent WPTDeepStacks Australia third-place finisher Anthony Cierco, Rhys Jones, Kokoro Yabuuchi, and Toan Phan.

Several Hot Stone Venture players were in the mix and Gyeong Taek Yu (pictured below) went the furthest and ran up a massive stack mid-way through the day. However, he first lost some chips to the eventual chip leader Nguyen before both clashed again in the far biggest pot of the tournament so far. Yu’s kings were up against ace-king and an ace appeared on the turn to essentially seal the fate of the South Korean.

Many of those who came up short of qualifying for Day 2 thus far are expected to return for more poker action in Ha Noi. The second flight is scheduled for 11 a.m. local time on Saturday, May 28, 2022 and the WPT live updates team will be back on the floor to cover the exciting poker action.

In the marquee Main Event, the participants not only compete for cash prizes but also two rankings. First of all, the tournament is eligible for WPT Player of the Year points and there is also the separate WPT Player of the Festival as well. Each finish in the money unlocks points and a $5,000 package for the WPT Main Tour is up for grabs.