APT Kickoff - Flight A - VND 1,500,000,000 GTD

Tran Huy Hoang

Tran Huy Hoang finds himself on top of the leaderboard in Flight A of the VND 10,000,000 APT Kickoff with a total of 570,000 chips as he seeks his third APT title. A total of 185 entries were recorded with just 26 spaces available in Day 2.

Hoang was the player to close out the day as his ace-king held against the king-ten of Thi Hoai Nam, who holds the unfortunate title of Flight A bubble boy. Vietnam's Hoang has two APT titles to his name after winning a No Limit Hold'em event in Phu Quoc earlier this year for VND 111,740,000. He also won a similar event in Hanoi last year for a prize of VND 125,420,000 and has career-tournament earnings totaling almost $300,000 and is surely a hot contender going into the final day.

Artem Utevskii pulls through the second-biggest stack of 465,000 with the majority of those coming in a hand against Leroy Fan. Utevskii held pocket aces and called down Fan, who missed his flush draw holding five-deuce, in order to send himself up the rankings and in a good position to make a run at the final table come tomorrow.

Artem Utevskii

Rounding out the podium places is Robert Nemeskeri-Kiss who bagged up 447,000. Nemeskeri-Kiss won a big pot in level fourteen holding pocket aces which saw him eliminate both Kyoungseok Kang and Ngoc Van Le in the same hand. A later hand during level seventeen saw Nemeskeri-Kiss flop a set holding pocket eights and get a big river-value bet paid off from Gabriel Chye. The American player does have an APT title to his name when he won a charity event back in 2015 but his career-best score came in Taipei where he finished third in the APT High Roller for TWD 2,570,500 (~$83,900).

Grant Gardner bagged up 192,000 to put himself in contention. Gardner was short-stacked for a lot of the day and at one point found himself with just 9,000 chips but a few timely double-ups, including one during hand-for-hand play where his jack-nine outflopped the ace-jack of Frederik Farrington, saw the Brit come through the day.

Other notables to make it through the day were Vivek Singh (265,000), Po-Ching Lin (263,000), Farrington (144,000), and Fan (117,000).

The top ten stacks can be seen below.

A full APT Kickoff Flight A Survivor List can be found by clicking here

Join us tomorrow for Day 2 of the APT Kickoff from 12:15pm local time as we play down to a champion.

A wrap-up of the day's action will follow shortly.

The unfortunate title of Flight A Bubble Boy goes to Vietnam's Thi Hoai Nam.

Nam shoved all in for 60,000 from the cutoff with big blind Tran Huy Hoang making the call.

Once the hands at the other tables had been completed, Nam and Hoang were instructed to turn over the cards.

Nam K♠ T♠ Hoang A♣ K♣

Nam needed a lot of help but the A♥ Q♥ Q♣ flop wasn't it, meaning only a jack would keep Nam alive in this tournament.

The turn brought a 7♠ which changed nothing, leaving Nam with just one more chance.

Nam paired his king on the K♥ river but it wasn't enough to win the hand and he was the unfortunate bubble boy.

Grant Gardner

Grant Gardner just dodged elimination by spiking a 3-outer against Frederik Farrington.

Gardner shoved from the small blind for 92,000 and Farrington made the call to put the Brit at risk.

Gardner J♣ 9♦ Farrington A♣ J♦

Farrington was ahead but the board of 9♥ 3♣ 6♣ 8♣ K♥ meant Gardner snatched the pot away and hand-for-hand play continues!

Just as the last elimination happened, players went on a 15-minute break. When they return, they will play hand-for-hand until one more player is eliminated. The remaining 26 players will then bag up their chips and come back tomorrow for Day 2.

Kien Chan has just eliminated Nguyen Van Bao to bring us to hand-for-hand play.

Bao was all in holding A♦ Q♥ and was up against the 2♠ 2♦ of Chan. The runout of K♦ 7♦ 2♣ 3♣ 4♠ secured the pot for Chan which meant we are just elimination away from Flight A ending.

Robert Kiss made it 17,000 and Frederik Farrington shipped his entire stack of 70,000 all in. Kiss made the call and could bring us down to hand-for-hand play if he could eliminate Farrington.

Kiss T♣ T♦ Farrington A♠ T♠

Kiss was in the driving seat but Farrington had used his get-out-of-jail-free card as the board ran A♣ K♣ 3♣ 9♦ Q♠ to keep himself alive.

Ta Khanh Linh

Ta Khanh Linh 3-bet shoved his 60,000 chips into the middle over an open from Boris Kramaruk, with the Russian player making the call to put Linh at risk.

Linh A♣ K♥ Kramaruk 8♥ 8♦

Linh would flop a king and hold onto the lead on the 3♠ K♠ 5♣ 6♦ J♥ runout to double himself up.

Koangho Lee just became the latest victim of Robert Kiss' rampage through the field.

Kiss opened to 18,000 with Lee shoving the last of his 37,000 into the middle. Kiss made the call to put Lee at risk.

Kiss Q♠ 8♠ Lee J♣ T♣

All hope that Lee had was all but wiped out on the 9♦ Q♥ Q♦ flop as only a king could keep him alive. The 2♥ turn or 6♠ river weren't what Lee needed and he was sent to the rail.

Artem Utevskii

Artem Utevskii had bt 24,000 on the turn with the board reading 6♣ J♥ 2♠ Q♥ and Leroy Fan had put in a raise to 90,000. After some time, Utevskii did make the call leaving around 50,000 chips behind.

The river brought a 3♦ and Fan wasted no time in dropping in a big stack of blue chips, worth 5,000 each, which put Utevskii all in. The Russian player called almost instantaneously and saw some good news.

Fan had missed his flush draw with 5♥ 2♥ and had just bottom pair as Utevskii rolled over A♥ A♠ to take the pot.