November 07 2012, Donnie Peters

Day 1 of the 2012 PokerStars.net APPT Macau: Asia Championship of Poker HKD$100,000 Main Event came to a close after a short day on the felt Wednesday. The buy-in was a fairly hefty one, but a very solid field of 184 runners made the trip to the Grand Waldo Entertainment Complex, generating a prize pool of HKD$17,305,200. Topping the pack as the early favorite to take home the HKD$4,240,000 first-place prize was Yue Hin Lam with 122,525 in chips.

Lam’s stack fluctuated early in the day, but he managed to double up to really pick up momentum. From middle position, Marc Convey opened with a raise to 425. Shengqing Zhu called from the cutoff seat, and Richard Chow called on the button. Then, Lam reraised to 1,775 from the small blind. After the big blind folded, things got a bit tricky.

The dealer began to pull in all the original bet amounts of 425. Then, Convey and Zhu called the reraise, and the dealer pulled those in, but Chow was still to act. After a couple minutes of reconstructing the pot, Chow made the call and all four saw a flop.

The flop came down , and action checked around to Chow. He bet 2,300, and the three-bettor Lam moved all in for 11,875. After Convey and Zhu folded, Chow thought for a minute, then called. Chow held the for a combo draw, but Lam had flopped trips with the . The table seemed to be quite surprised with the two hands that were turned over in this big, three-bet pot. The turn was the , and the river was the . Lam’s trips held up, and he won the pot to more than double his stack.

There weren’t a ton of tables in play on Day 1, but there were plenty of notable faces filling up the seats all around the PokerStars Macau tournament room, including several Team PokerStars players. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Eugene Katchalov, Raymond Wu, Bryan Huang, Angel Guillen, Viviam Im, Celina Lin and Max Lykov represented Team Pro, while Randy Lew, the defending champion, and Naoya Kihara were sporting the Team Online patch.

Other notables in the field were Joseph Cheong, John Juanda, Johnny Chan, David Steicke and Jeff Rossiter. Cheong and Rossiter played late into Tuesday night in the HKD$25,000 Warm-Up event. Rossiter went on to win the event for HKD$1,777,000, while Cheong took third place. But Rossiter’s luck ran out in the Main Event on Day 1, and Cheong finished with 101,850 in chips while Rossiter made his exit. Juanda and Chan were also eliminated on the day.

Cheong was the beneficiary of an early double-up that really got his day off to a fast start. According to Cheong, one player raised to 275 from early position, and Cheong reraised to 825. The original raiser four-bet to 2,525, and Cheong called.

The flop came down with two diamonds and one heart. Cheong’s opponent bet 2,600, and Cheong made the call to see the land on the turn. With two hearts now joining the two diamonds on the board, the first player checked, and Cheong bet 5,600. The player raised, and Cheong responded by reraising all-in. His opponent called with for top pair, top kicker, but Cheong’s held a hammerlock on the hand with a wheel. The river blanked off, and Cheong doubled up.

With 145 players remaining, play will resume Thursday at 5:00 p.m. local time in Macau for Day 2. PokerNews will be on hand for all of the action, and we hope to have you right here following along on our Live Reporting pages.

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November 05 2012, Josh Cahlik

With 100 players bagging up chips at the end of Day 1c, the starting flights for the 2012-13 World Series of Poker Circuit River Rock Main Event have officially come to an end. At the end of Sunday’s Day1c, Lillian Chan was the one holding the most chips with an impressive stack of 228,600. Chan’s stellar performance on Day 1c will put her in fourth overall place going into Day 2 behind only Jingjing Liu (266,000), Norman Overdijk (242,000), John Cracic (231,000).

A total of 386 players sat down at the tables Sunday, bringing the official registration for the event to a whopping 1,032 total entries. The outstanding turnout gave the event a prize pool of $1,548,000, with the top 108 players cashing and the winner receiving a payday of $286,382.

Chan was spotted by our PokerNews Live Reporting team holding onto a big stack early on Day 1c and she continued to blossom as play continued. In one key pot, Chan opened with a raise before the flop only to be three-bet by an opponent on the button. Chan came over the top with a four-bet and found herself facing a five-bet shove from what she described as a “tight player.” Ultimately, Chan decided to make the call and rolled over , which was ahead of her opponent’s . The board came down and she was able to clinch the knockout and pick up roughly 45,000 in tournament chips.

Also making a return to the felt on Day 2 will be Sean Giesbrecht. We caught Giesbrecht sporting a large stack early on in Day 1a but he saw his demise before the day’s end. After firing another bullet on Day 1b and seeing no success, this was Giesbrecht’s last chance for glory. Fortunately, he was able to amass a solid amount of chips and finished the day with 204,600, good for one of the top chip positions going into the second day of play.

Other notables moving on to Day 2 were Roberto D’Amato (210,000) Ki Nam (201,500), Calvin Anderson (165,200), Eric Truong (159,400), and Justin Leeson (122,000).

Day 1c saw the return of several players from previous flights attempt to grasp onto their last chance to move on. Players like Adrienne “talonchick” Rowsome, Matt Affleck, Robert Cheung, Shawn Buchanan, Jeff Blenkarn, Flemming Lund, Doug Lee, and Gavin Smith were all eliminated from play once more without getting the chance to see Day 2.

Two-hundred forty-six players will hit the felt at 12 p.m. PST on Monday in the River Rock Theatre to continue their quest for WSOP Circuit glory. The fields from the three starting days will combine to see the players battle for ten 60-minute levels and a spot among the 108 players to make money.

Here’s a look at the top 10 stacks heading into Day 2:

Be sure to stay tuned to all of our coverage here at PokerNews as we travel through the money bubble and beyond!

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