Falcon Dominates Day 2 of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event
Day 2 of the PokerStars Festival Manila Main Event saw the 167 Day 1 survivors from the three starting flights united for the first time to battle it out at the baize when play resumed at 2pm local time (GMT+7).
It took eleven 1-hour levels to whittle the field down to the final 14 when play concluded at 3:25am on Monday 7 August. It was Day 1b frontrunner Michael Falcon, who dominated the majority of the day’s action to bag up an absolutely monstrous 3.82 million in chips. This is close to a million more than next closest rival Uday Bansal who finished play with 2.95 million.
Falcon shot out of the blocks like an Olympic sprinter, running his 307,100 starting stack up to over 650,000 during the first two levels of play to power into pole position as overall chip leader.
The Dane did not relinquish his stranglehold on the tournament top spot from this point onwards, becoming the first player to join the seven-figure club by level 15 with more than double the chips of next closest rival, Korea’s Woohyuk Yang.
Yang took a huge hit at the hands of Finland’s Antti Halme as the bubble approached and play went hand-for-hand, moving all-in on the river on a queen-high board in a three-bet pot with pocket jacks.
Halme made the sickest of sick calls with queen-nine offsuit to scoop the monster pot and shoot into second place with a stack of 760,000, but was still over half a million in chips behind Falcon.
The player to earn the unenviable title of bubble boy was the rather unfortunate Vikram Verma at the start of the fifth level of the day. The Indian player made the call for his tournament life from the big blind with ace-king after British poker pro Sam Razavi moved all-in from the small blind with the speculative six-four offsuit.
Unfortunately for Verma, Razavi paired his six, which held to send Verma to the rail empty handed and guarantee all 87 remaining players a ₱90,000 (~$1,787) payday.
Notables who failed to make the hallowed money spots included Alex Lee, third on Singapore’s All Time Money List, two former Asia Player of the Year winners in the form of Alan Lau and Pete Chen and WSOP APAC bracelet winner Jun Zhong Loo.
Verma’s exit opened the floodgates for a slew of speedy eliminations and 87 players quickly became 45 by the time the dinner break came around just one-hour later with 2017 APOY leaderboard number one Sparrow Cheung the last man to bust before the break.
It took a further three levels of play for 45 to become 25 with the elimination of Victor Chong at the hands of Chi Thinh Nguyen setting up a redraw for the final three tables after the Malaysian’s ace-king lost a race to Nguyen’s pocket queens.
A further two 1-hour levels were needed to whittle this down to the final two tables with Michael Falcon doing the honors. Falcon busted Shinji Katsushima in 17th place for a PHP255,000 (~$4,470) payday after the Dane’s jack-ten won a race against the Japanese player’s pocket fives to set up yet another re-draw.
Both Thomas Lee and Chi Thinh Nguyen joined Katsushima on the rail shortly afterward as play began to wind down, with the clock was paused with 15-minutes remaining on level 23 and the last five hands announced.
Once again it was Falcon doing the honors, opening the action with a late position raise holding ace-jack offsuit and calling Lee’s king-nine suited small blind shove.
Lee departed in 16th place for a ₱285,000 payday (~$5,663) after both players missed the flop by a mile, meaning Falcon’s ace-high was enough to stack the Dane up to 3.7 million.
However, the man to bring the day to a close was Antti Halme, who eliminated Chi Thinh Nguyen with a one-two combo punch during the last three hands to bring the field down to the final 14.
Halme got three streets of value from pocket aces on a king high-flop against Nguyen’s ace-king to leave the Vietnamese player with a little over four big blinds.
This ended up in the middle the very next hand with Nguyen getting the last of his chips in with ace-five suited and Halme administering the coup de grace with queen-six offsuit and pairing his six to bring play to a close.
Day 3 Redraw:
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Raphael Gall | Germany | 430,000 | 14 |
| 1 | 2 | Yo Seb Rhee | Japan | 1,765,000 | 59 |
| 1 | 3 | empty | - | - | - |
| 1 | 4 | Uday Bansal | India | 2,950,000 | 98 |
| 1 | 5 | Hoa Thinh Nguyen | Vietnam | 1,055,000 | 35 |
| 1 | 6 | Andre Peters | Germany | 1,260,000 | 42 |
| 1 | 7 | Kenneth Buck | Australia | 455,000 | 15 |
| 1 | 8 | Duc Nguyen | Vietnam | 150,000 | 5 |
| 2 | 1 | Tien Than Nguyen | Vietnam | 675,000 | 23 |
| 2 | 2 | Jaehyun Lim | South Korea | 1,140,000 | 38 |
| 2 | 3 | Michael Falcon | Denmark | 3,820,000 | 127 |
| 2 | 4 | empty | - | - | - |
| 2 | 5 | Sam Razavi | United Kingdom | 775,000 | 26 |
| 2 | 6 | Mike Takayama | Philippines | 745,000 | 25 |
| 2 | 7 | Corbin White | United States | 620,000 | 21 |
| 2 | 8 | Antti Halme | Finland | 2,130,000 | 71 |
Play resumes on Monday 7 August at 2pm local time and will play down until a champion is crowned so join us then as well see who has what it takes to win the ₱5,515,000 (~$109,536) first prize and take the trophy and title.