Ivan Leow Leads Final 58 In Oriental Poker Cup
Today was a field merging, money announcing, bubble bursting kinda day. It’s hard to believe we only played seven 60-minute levels.
When all was said and done, Day 2 of the OPC 2018 Main Event was owned by the same guy who owned Day 1c last night. Ivan Leow had a steady day, gaining the chip lead early on when his pocket kings held up against Zhao Zheng Lin’s ace-king. From there, the OPC High Roller champ remained one of the top stacks throughout, and despite stiff competition from Day 1a chip leader Yan Shun Feng at the top of the counts, Leow ultimately bagged the most with 739,000, leading the 58 survivors.
Second in chips is Chuanshu Chen, who would be responsible for bursting the bubble (more on that in a moment). He finished with 712,000. As for Yan Shun Feng, he seemed to quietly amass an absolutely enormous stack (at one point sitting with 900,000), always without attracting media attention (OK - so we just kept missing his action. Happy now?). Feng bagged up 625,000.
At the beginning of the day, the survivors of Day 1a and 1b began Level 12 at 1 pm, while the Day 1c survivors returned at 2 pm. The two starting flights were then merged for Level 13, and it was around that time we also got information regarding the prize pool and payouts. The OPC 2018 Main Event smashed its HK$5million guarantee, ultimately collecting a massive HK$7,464,200 (US$951,442). Everyone returning tomorrow is guaranteed HK$27,600, but here’s a reminder of what they’re aiming for:
OPC Main Event Top Ten Payouts
| Place | Prize (HKD) | Prize (USD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $1,451,000 | $184,946 |
| 2 | $1,016,700 | $129,589 |
| 3 | $653,900 | $83,346 |
| 4 | $483,700 | $61652 |
| 5 | $362,800 | $46,242 |
| 6 | $291,100 | $37,103 |
| 7 | $242,600 | $30,922 |
| 8 | $193,300 | $24,638 |
| 9 | $145,600 | $18,558 |
| 10 | $106,700 | $13,600 |
The last player to leave with nothing was Iceland’s Adalsteinn Karlsson. He shoved for 93,000 over a 17,000 cutoff raise from Chuanshu Chen, which the latter snap-called with pocket tens. Karlsson had pocket nines and failed to improve. In the half hour that followed before the chip bags were brought out, Chen shot up the chip counts by winning a big pot from Yan Shun Feng at the bitter end of the day.
Along the way, we lost plenty of familiar names. The likes of Victor Chong, Benjamin Hamlett, Wenling Gao, Yuefeng Pan, James Austin, Dong Guo, Xixiang Luo, Dmitry Rabotkin, Phachara Wongwichit, Carson Wong, and Alvan Zheng all failed to make it into the cash.
PokerNews is back at The Venetian Macau for Day 3, as we continue to play down to an inaugural OPC Main Event champion. Join us then, and in the meantime scroll down to catch up on all of today’s action. Follow all the Oriental Poker Cup live updates in the PokerNews live reporting hub.
