Day 1b of the P1M Guarantee Main Event at City of Dreams, Manila Philippines had an impressive turnout of 183 entries and at the end of tournament play 25 of them survived with Wally Sombero aka Asia’s Godfather of Poker amassing 270,500 chips to claim the chip leader’s seat.
In a quick interview with Sombero on how he accumulated his chips, he expressed,
“It was all about strategy. I base how I play according to the structure of the tournament. This is a re-entry event so I played aggressively throughout. I went all in many times and won many pots. After the re-entry stage, I used my position to gather as many chips. I eliminated around eight players but most of the time I earned my chips without a showdown.”
Another player bagging a high number of chips is second-in-command, Jesse Leonarez (Philippines) with 248,500 chips. Leonarez earned a large portion of his chips just after the re-entry stage was over. Leonarez made a hero call with his A-5 on a board of 5-9-3-9-10. From then on, his stack fluctuated very little then gained more when he railed George Martel late in night.
John King (USA) is running third in chips with 228,000. King won two hefty pots during the last two levels of play. In one hand he had pocket kings besting Manuel Fernandez pocket sixes then followed it up with a double elimination with A♥ K♥ to make him one of the chip leaders at the end of the night.
Among the remaining qualifiers, Cristopher Runas was also high up there. Sandro Simon (Germany) ended the day above the average stack. Mike Takayama and Martin Corpuz also qualified but will surely have their work cut out for them as they are running below average.
With a very low percentage of players qualifying from day 1b, some of those who bowed out were Kristian Faering (Denmark), Kai Paulsen (Norway), Brian McAllister (Australia), Chirstian Haggart (Canada), as well as local players Rey Concepcion, Jav Medina, Edgar Angelo Felix, and Benjamin Lim to name a few.
Congratulations to all the qualifiers! The final day will resume at 1215pm tomorrow.
List of Day 1b Qualifiers:
Wenceslao Sombero – Philippines – 270500
Jessie Leonarez – Philippines – 248500
John King – USA – 228000
Christopher Runas – Philippines – 185000
Srinivas Polishetty – India – 177500
Wyngard Brillo – Philippines – 177000
Anthony Feliciano – Philippines – 174500
Derek Baker – Australia – 147500
Sandro Simon – Germany – 143000
Steven Chua – Philippines – 101500
Bert Garcia – Philippines – 98000
Jojo Cruz – Philippines – 88500
Martin Corpuz – Philippines – 75000
Joven Huerto – Philippines – 69500
Guanghui Toh – Singapore – 66500
Alvin Chio – Philippines – 65500
Mike Takayama – Philippines – 65000
Soo Ghee Lim – Singapore – 62000
Ronaldo P. Junio – Philippines – 61000
Antonio Abesamis – Philippines – 59500
Vilma Goldman – Philippines – 50000
David Colclough – United Kingdom – 47500
Diana Tan – Philippines – 41000
Matthieu Flipo – France – 40500
