2012 PokerStars.net APPT Macau: Asia Championship of Poker Day 1: Yue Hin Lam Leads
Day 1 of the 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Macau: Asia Championship of Poker HKD$100,000 Main Event came to a close after a short day on the felt Wednesday. The buy-in was a fairly hefty one, but a very solid field of 184 runners made the trip to the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex, generating a prize pool of HKD$17,305,200. Topping the pack as the early favorite to take home the HKD$4,240,000 first-place prize was Yue Hin Lam with 122,525 in chips.
Lam's stack fluctuated early in the day, but he managed to double up to really pick up momentum. From middle position, Marc Convey opened with a raise to 425. Shengqing Zhu called from the cutoff seat, and Richard Chow called on the button. Then, Lam reraised to 1,775 from the small blind. After the big blind folded, things got a bit tricky.
The dealer began to pull in all the original bet amounts of 425. Then, Convey and Zhu called the reraise, and the dealer pulled those in, but Chow was still to act. After a couple minutes of reconstructing the pot, Chow made the call and all four saw a flop.
The flop came down A♦3♦3♣, and action checked around to Chow. He bet 2,300, and the three-bettor Lam moved all in for 11,875. After Convey and Zhu folded, Chow thought for a minute, then called. Chow held the 5♦4♦ for a combo draw, but Lam had flopped trips with the 5♥3♥. The table seemed to be quite surprised with the two hands that were turned over in this big, three-bet pot. The turn was the Q♣, and the river was the 9♥. Lam's trips held up, and he won the pot to more than double his stack.
There weren't a ton of tables in play on Day 1, but there were plenty of notable faces filling up the seats all around the PokerStars Macau tournament room, including several Team PokerStars players. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang, Angel Guillen, Viviam Im, Celina Lin and Max Lykov represented Team Pro, while Randy Lew, the defending champion, and Naoya Kihara were sporting the Team Online patch.
Other notables in the field were Joseph Cheong, John Juanda, Johnny Chan, David Steicke and Jeff Rossiter. Cheong and Rossiter played late into Tuesday night in the HKD$25,000 Warm-Up event. Rossiter went on to win the event for HKD$1,777,000, while Cheong took third place. But Rossiter's luck ran out in the Main Event on Day 1, and Cheong finished with 101,850 in chips while Rossiter made his exit. Juanda and Chan were also eliminated on the day.
Cheong was the beneficiary of an early double-up that really got his day off to a fast start. According to Cheong, one player raised to 275 from early position, and Cheong reraised to 825. The original raiser four-bet to 2,525, and Cheong called.
The flop came down 7x4x2x with two diamonds and one heart. Cheong's opponent bet 2,600, and Cheong made the call to see the A♥ land on the turn. With two hearts now joining the two diamonds on the board, the first player checked, and Cheong bet 5,600. The player raised, and Cheong responded by reraising all-in. His opponent called with AxKx for top pair, top kicker, but Cheong's 5x3x held a hammerlock on the hand with a wheel. The river blanked off, and Cheong doubled up.
With 145 players remaining, play will resume Thursday at 5:00 p.m. local time in Macau for Day 2. PokerNews will be on hand for all of the action, and we hope to have you right here following along on our Live Reporting pages.
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