Shi Qiang Lin Dominates PKC Main Event Day 2; Leads Final 62 Players
In what proved to be an action-packed day, the 247 surviving Poker King Cup Main Event runners were whittled down to the final 62, reaching and breaching the money bubble to guarantee all remaining survivors an HKD 27,900 (~$3,500) payday.
The man dominating the vast majority of the late game action began play as one of the shortest stacks, with just 24,800 in chips, but by the time the seven 60-minute levels were in the books, China’s Shi Qiang Lin sat atop the counts with a gigantic 904,000 stack. This is a full 23 big blinds more than next closest rival, fellow countryman Sun Bin (720,000), with Korea’s Jeho Lee rounding out the top three after bagging up 666,000.
Lin’s ascendance began during the last two levels played as things began to wind down and the bubble approached, gunning down Rui Qin and Wenling Gao in quick succession to snatch the top spot from Yue Feng Tang, who bagged up a stack of 564,000.
While Lin probably wished it to go on forever so he could continue scooping up chips, play around the bubble mirrored the rest of the day’s action. It was fast paced and high variance, bursting so fast the unfortunate bubble boy had hit the exit before the burster, Day 1b frontrunner Zhang Chao, had finished stacking her newly won chips; her flopped set of fives easily besting her opponent's speculative six-five suited. Chao finished play with 258,000.
The lead changed hands multiple times as play progressed, chip leaders rising and falling faster than the value of Bitcoin, with Wen Yao Bao, Liang Song and Tang jockeying for position at the top of the leaderboard, before Lin rose to prominence during the last two levels played. All three former frontrunners would make the Day 3 cut, Song with 623,000, Tang with 564,000 and Bao with 101,000.
Day 2 began with the survivors of Day 1a and 1b starting play for Level 12 at 1pm, while the Day 1c survivors returned at 2pm. 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 PKC Main Event attracted 518 runners in total, generating an HKD 7,536,900 prize pool. Everyone returning tomorrow is guaranteed HKD 27,900, but here’s a reminder of what they’re aiming for:
PKC Main Event Top Ten Payouts
| Place | Prize (HKD) | Prize (US) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1,464,000 | 187,239 |
| 2 | 1,026,500 | 131,284 |
| 3 | 660,200 | 84,436 |
| 4 | 488,400 | 62,464 |
| 5 | 366,300 | 46,848 |
| 6 | 293,900 | 37,588 |
| 7 | 244,900 | 31,321 |
| 8 | 195,200 | 24,965 |
| 9 | 147,000 | 18,800 |
| 10 | 10,7800 | 13,787 |
Of course, poker being a zero-sum game and tournament poker being particularly high variance, where some players win the vast majority of the field leave with nothing.
Along the way we lost plenty of familiar names, all departing well before the money with the likes of Benjamin Hamnett, Wenling Gao, Carson Wong, and Darwin Lai all failing to make it into the cash. Lai’s exit was by far the most painful, running pocket kings into the pocket aces of Wei Ran Pu just seconds before Chao hit her set to burst the bubble.
PokerNews will be back at the Venetian Macau Resort Hotel tomorrow at 1pm local time (GMT+7) for Day 3, as we continue to play down to the Final Table. Join us then, and in the meantime scroll down to catch up on all of today’s action.