Wai Kin Yong Crushes Day 1b; Ivey and Dwan Both Bust
As was expected, Day 1b of the HKD 100,000 Short Deck Ante-Only brought a stronger turnout with a total of 42 entries reported by the end of the registration period. The stacked field featured two of the most phenomenal players in the world as Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan both entered in the latter half of today's play.
Neither one would eventually make it through as they couldn't gain much traction during their short stint at the tables. Ivey's bid for his second short deck title – he topped the HKD 250k edition at Triton Montenegro – was dismissed by Siow Choon Tong. Ivey got it in good with ace-queen against queen-jack but two jacks on the board sealed his fate in the seventh level.
Dwan lasted a little longer but his final showdown came in level 9 when he wasn't able to get there with ten-seven versus the jack-nine of Ivan Leow.
The two biggest superstars were eliminated but there's still a tough competition coming back for Day 2. Wai Kin Yong has been arguably the most impressive player in the field so far and he happens to be the chip leader after crushing the second flight in a spectacular fashion. Yong kept increasing his stack by an order of magnitude. He eventually finished with 3,380,000, getting himself a big cushion ahead of his nearest rivals.
Yong already competed on Day 1a and showcased some fine aggression. While it didn't work out for him on Monday, Yong capitalized on his style today. His rise to the top started when he scooped a three-way contest with ten-nine against two ace-queens to cross 660,000 in the third level.
What followed next was a bull rush. Yong never seemed to be willing to back off from any major clash. He was winning most of the big pots, having clipped the likes of Ivey and Mikita Badziakouski. On one of the final days of the day, Yong picked off Rui Cao's bluff with a top pair and cemented his huge lead.
Leow amassed the second-biggest stack with 2,320,000, sitting more than 1 million behind the leader. Only two other players managed to accumulate more than 1 million; Foo Sze Ming (1,595,000) and Ben Lamb (1,030,000).
Lamb suffered heaps of bad runouts on Day 1a but he finally synchronized with the boards today. The most important hand that helped him push his stack to the top five emerged in the last level when he open-shoved with ace-king under the gun. Badziakouski accepted the challenge with pocket jacks and they flipped for a million in chips. Lamb caught what he needed to finish Badziakouski off.
Day 2 will see some more high stakes crushers back in action along with Lamb: Nick Schulman and Stephen Chidwick both navigated their stacks through. They will return Wednesday, July 25 at 2 p.m. for the finale as the remaining 16 players (from a 61-entry field) will be battling for more than HKD 6 million in prizes. The top seven finishers will be rewarded with the eventual champ taking home HKD 2,135,000 (just over $270,000). Come back to PokerNews then to follow the climax of the opening event at 2018 Triton Super High Roller Series Jeju.