2012 PokerStars.net APPT Cebu Day 2: Amit Varma Tops Final 28

Donnie Peters

Apr 28, 2012 2 min read

Day 2 at the 2012 PokerStars.net Asia Pacific Poker Tour Cebu completed on Saturday and the field is down to the final 28 players, 100 fewer than began the day. Amit Varma topped the remaining field with a stack of 545,500.

Varma bagged up over 200,000 more chips than anyone else did at the end of the day. Sitting in second place is Hoang Anh Do with 330,000 and in third is Jacky Wang with 274,500. In fact, Varma's massive chip lead is skewing the average so that only those three players are above average heading into Day 3.

Those eliminated on the day included David Steicke, Sparrow Cheung, Charles Lam and Rami Boukai. Team PokerStars Pro also fell to the rail as Vivian Im, Celina Lin and Raymond Wu were all eliminated. Wu had a particularly brutal exit, falling at the hands of Sammy Huang.

Steicke had raised to 5,100 to start things off and Huang made the call before action fell on Wu. He three-bet to 16,500 from the small blind and Steicke folded. Huang opted to call and see the A♠8♥6♥ flop. On the flop, Wu bet 16,500 and Huang raised to 40,000. Wu moved all in for a little bit more and Huang made the cheap call.

When the cards were tabled, Wu held the best of it with his A♦K♦ against Huang's A♥J♠. The deck was not Wu's friend, though, and the J♣ landed on the turn followed by the 2♦ on the river. Huang made two pair and sent the Team Pro out the door.

The money line was set to pay the top 28 spots, which means everyone left is guaranteed some return on their investment. That also means that someone went home as the bubble boy on Saturday and that player was Mikko Turtiainen.

In Level 14 with the blinds at 1,500/3,000/500, Turtiainen checked a 9♣7♠5♦ flop and action moved to Sungsik Bae. He bet 9,500 and then Turtiainen check-raised all in for 57,000. Although Bae looked pained by the shove, he eventually made the call to put the shorter-stacked Turtiainen at risk.

Turtiainen rolled over Q♣Q♦ for a big pair, and Bae held 6♦6♠ for a weaker pair and a gutshot straight draw. From there, the dealer ran the 8♥ on the turn to slap Bae with a nine-high straight. The river was the 7♣ and that was the end of the bubble. With Turtiainen's elimination, play was ceased for the night.

Antoine Amourette (195,000), Bobo Chen (172,000), Antonio Martins (102,500) and Carter Gill (52,500) are a few of the players moving on to Day 3. They'll all be back in action with the rest of the field at 1210 PHT (0510 BST) on Sunday to continue the quest for the title. Here's a look at the top of the counts.

Day 2 Top 10 Chip Counts

Place	Player	Chips
1	Amit Varma	545,500
2	Hoang Anh Do	330,000
3	Jacky Wang	274,500
4	Nicholas Wong	261,000
5	Xue Bin Pang	241,500
6	Alistair Duff	223,000
7	Sungsik Bae	221,000
8	Sammy Huang	214,500
9	Andrew Nguyen	201,500
10	Antoine Amourette	195,000